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[duckroll]

Historically I think that once they're used to HBO's freedom, it's hard to go to other networks. But I think today the landscape is also a little different. Netflix and Amazon are showing a lot of interest in investing in the same playing field, so for younger guys coming into the system now, they might have more options.

 

[Kinyou]

I think the directors nailed the vision supplied here--problem was the writing.

A director can't fix his scripts, dialogue, and character arcs.

You're right, but I also can't help the feeling that it was one of the reasons Season 1 was so good.
I mean it would probably help to have someone on set who has a similar standing to Pizzoletto. It felt like no one really questioned him. With Fukunaga there were supposedly a lot of clashes.
Of course, if the new director is just a yes-man it wouldn't help much either.

 

[Squalor]

You're right, but I also can't help the feeling that it was one of the reasons Season 1 was so good.
I mean it would probably help to have someone on set who has a similar standing to Pizzoletto. It felt like no one really questioned him. With Fukunaga there were supposedly a lot of clashes.
Of course, if the new director is just a yes-man it wouldn't help much either.

I certainly wasn't saying you were wrong.

Season one's direction and cinematography were vastly superior to season two's. Directors, while they don't write the scripts, can recommend in-production changes while they're filming, so that could have easily happened, too. He also had a rapport with the actors unlike the mostly one-off directors from this season. There's no way Fukunaga would have let Farrell and Vaughn have those who's-the-better-Christian Bale-Batman contests they had all season.

But at the end of the day, the core of season two was so much of a mess that I don't think even Fukunaga could have made this season "great."

 

[Cornballer]

- Warming Glow: The Spectacularly Cool Detail You Probably Missed In The ‘True Detective’ Finale

A couple of podcasts that talk TD this week:
- Sepinwall & Fienberg
- Grantland's Hollywood Prospectus

Ratings:

The 90-minute Season 2 finale of the Colin Farrell, Taylor Kitsch, Rachel McAdams and Vince Vaughn starring show was watched by 2.73 million on Sunday, according to Nielsen. While that’s the best the show has done since the second episode of this season, the 9 PM broadcast was down 22% from the 3.5 million who tuned in for the Season 1 ender last spring. That Matthew McConaughy and Woody Harrelson-starring first season ended up becoming the most watched freshman season in HBO’s history with 11.9 million total viewers once DVR viewing was factored in. Currently, the second season is averaging 11.3 million viewers, according to HBO.

Comparing premiere to finale, Sunday’s TD S2 ender fell 15% from the 3.2 million who tuned in for the Season 2 opener on June 21. However, in some numbers good news for HBO, the S2 finale did rise 25% from the series low of 2.18 million that the penultimate August 2 episode drew. In fact, that’s one of a couple of potentially positive signs for True Detective going forward.

 

[SuperStiltzkin]

- Warming Glow: The Spectacularly Cool Detail You Probably Missed In The ‘True Detective’ Finale

Knew Ray was dead for sure as soon as he drove into the woods because I remembered the dream. Kinda disappointed that the dream was so literal in its prediction though. "Son, they hook a transponder up to you car...and they tail you for miles...you refuse to ditch your car...and for some reason...you drive into the woods..." I mean, I guess it's cool if you happened to forget.

 

[Freewheelin']

Is it really cool to foreshadow his death quite so literally? :lol

There isn't any thematic resonance or metaphor. It's a literal retelling of his death. Why is that cool? Anyone could do that.

 

[Squalor]

Yeah, that wasn't "cool" at all.

It didn't take any special kind of clever writing to make that happen.

All he did was write how Ray died and explained it in a dream before it actually happened.

 

[big ander]

If you took 70ish minutes of the finale plus 70-80 minutes spread out from across the rest of the season, had it all directed by John Crowley (who killed it these last two episodes), TD S2 could be a decent crime thriller.

Pizza needs to take more time writing season 3 and he needs to not be a shithead and collaborate more closely with others. get a writer's room. get a back and forth going with your directors.

and lol yeah the foreshadowing was too literal to be cool.

 

[Squalor]

If you took 70ish minutes of the finale plus 70-80 minutes spread out from across the rest of the season, had it all directed by John Crowley (who killed it these last two episodes), TD S2 could be a decent crime thriller.

Pizza needs to take more time writing season 3 and he needs to not be a shithead and collaborate more closely with others. get a writer's room. get a back and forth going with your directors.

and lol yeah the foreshadowing was too literal to be cool.

Crowley directed episodes five and eight, not seven. Five was that awful "reset" episode.

I think I honestly really enjoyed maybe 120 minutes of this 510-minute season.

 

[0.1.1.2.3.5.8.13.21.34.55]

magic ghost fortune telling does not help this season.

 

[coleco]

Pizzolatto takes all these lynchian and esoteric elements and simply uses them randomly during the season without much motive or sense.

I'd really like hbo to let him do season 3 to clear any doubts on his quality as a writer.

 

[Squalor]

magic ghost fortune telling does not help this season.

It's not even a ghost. It's not as though his dad is dead. It's just a dream.

 

[aravuus]

That's the most literal piece of foreshadowing I've seen in a while

 

[Daffy Duck]

Really dissatisfied with how it all ended.

 

[Solo]

Give Fukanaga all the money. Get him back. And get a writer's room.

 

[big ander]

Crowley directed episodes five and eight, not seven. Five was that awful "reset" episode.

I think I honestly really enjoyed maybe 120 minutes of this 510-minute season.

The reset ep was the worst episode of the season, still think Crowley was the most solid behind the camera out of this season's directors. Sapochnik close behind.

I'm not sure I enjoyed even 120 minutes, but there are 150ish minutes here that'd make a coherent movie where the mediocrity wouldn't grate as much.

 

[kmax]

Give Fukanaga all the money. Get him back. And get a writer's room.

This. Pizzaman can't fly solo like this again.

 

[Squalor]

This. Pizzaman can't fly solo like this again.

We shouldn't have handed him the keys to the Titanic like that.

He piloted this boat right into an iceberg.

 

[duckroll]

Give Fukanaga all the money. Get him back. And get a writer's room.

He has better things to do than to be HBO's bitch.

 

[Squalor]

He has better things to do than to be HBO's bitch.

God, they better change that promotion to "Award-Winning Director of True Detective [season one]."

 

[jonezer4]

- Warming Glow: The Spectacularly Cool Detail You Probably Missed In The ‘True Detective’ Finale

That is actually very cool. Well done, Pizzolatto.

Well done, Pizzolatto. You were somehow able to go back to the script for episode three once you finished eight and write in his death as inexplicably accurate dialogue, and with the subtlety of a hand grenade...

Insanely impressive.

I think one of my biggest qualms with the finale is it really should have been the penultimate episode, with a final episode focusing on McAdams bringing down all the cops. But they obviously left that portion open. And I'm fine with endings that are open to interpretation, but I don't feel like they went this route for ambiguity's sake. The entire season was building up to a showdown between our protagonists and these antagonists... and it culminated in both Vaughn and Farrell getting blindsided in pretty lame ways. In Farrell's case, they gave the character the intelligence to spot it coming... then made him all the more dumb by just driving until his car was out of gas into the middle of nowhere. (Anyone else notice his phone was at 100% battery after all this? That's a badass battery!)

It would have made sense, after all this happens, to see our lone surviving hero getting revenge. It could have been pretty badass too. Have a final episode with McAdams unhinged, doing what it takes to bring these bastards to justice. But no.... Pizzolatto made a conscious effort to make sure nothing good/happy could happen on screen. We can only hint at some kind of actual formidable confrontation between our protagonist and antagonist, definitely can't have that onscreen, otherwise, shit, people might feel good.

And just as I don't mind ambiguous endings, I don't mind down endings. I'm not criticizing the ending for being down. I'm criticizing it for turning 3 of the 4 protagonists into complete morons and not letting us see them competently facing off against the antagonist. Audience's have no patience for dumb characters that aren't equipped for their final battle. Instead of having characters that were smart and competent but lost anyway against a greater foe we got:

1. Walks knowingly into a trap and nonchalantly walks out of it so he can get shot in the back.
2. Gets into his car that he knows is being tracked and drives into the middle of nowhere to make killing him easy as possible.
3. Gets captured and against all odds is spared, but values his pride (even in the middle of nowhere) over being a good fucking husband that can be there as promised for his wife and grow old with her.

At least in Vaughn's case, his character flaw, excessive pride, is what did him in. The other two guys were just dumb, especially Farrell -- and no, his love for his son wasn't the flaw that got him tracked and killed... it was spotting the tracker and being a moron until the anticlimactic end of his life that got him killed. I honestly can't think of any worse way for a character to go out than to notice a tracker on his car, decide to get in his car anyway and inexplicably drive it into seclusion to make killing him easier. I was convinced when he went into those woods, that he had some kind of plan, something set up there. Maybe the cabin was there and he could use it for something, I don't know. But nope. He was just making sure there would be no witnesses apparently, making things easier for the antagonist. What a way to go!

And then he had the same brilliant gameplan that the 20 Russians in the cabin had... Run wildly out of cover so you can be easily shot.

 

[FlowersisBritish]

Ah man, I must feel so dumb, because everyone remembered that piece of foreshadowing before the article and just didn't feel like shitting on it till after.

 

[Squalor]

Ah man, I must feel so dumb, because everyone remembered that piece of foreshadowing before the article and just didn't feel like shitting on it till after.

Actually, we're shitting on the article for saying it's "so cool."

 

[Zoned]

It's really hard to feel anything for our main cast's deaths when for sure we know that Frank was a gang leader who killed people and Ray, a guilty murderer who then went on to kill dozens of people just because their boss killed his friend. What a POS writing.

 

[timetokill]

They were in the finale at the unveiling of the highway named after him.

They both were at the memorial reveal with his baby.

Huh, I missed that part. I think I was still annoyed that he ended up being a self-hating gay man cliche after all. Anyway I AM surprised that his mom didn't end up completely ruining things for him, I thought putting those two in a room together was a recipe for disaster.

They never showed them having beers and catching a ball game together, but I thought their relationship was characterized pretty well. Blake told Frank that Nails was the only loyal member of his crew and that Blake didn't even consider approaching him about turning on Frank.

Sure, it just seemed like Frank's little one-on-one with him at the end of the show probably should've happened a bit earlier. Just felt a little flat to me.

 

[Squalor]

It's really hard to feel anything for our main cast's deaths when for sure we know that Frank was a gang leader who killed people and Ray, a guilty murderer who then went on to kill dozens of people just because their boss killed his friend. What a POS writing.

Well, that's all very misconstrued and out of context.

 

[Imm0rt4l]

I don't see what's so cool about the foreshadowed death tbh. And I doubt that it went over many peoples heads.

 

[Squalor]

I don't see what's so cool about the foreshadowed death tbh. And I doubt that it went over many peoples heads.

It's not cool in such a blatant and unoriginal way.

The reason a lot of people didn't remember it is because the show never really gave us a reason to care.

 

[rtcn63]

It's Ray subconsciously acknowledging how trite the story is. He knows how it might end because he's seen the exact thing happen in like twelve other cop dramas.

 

[NotTheGuyYouKill]

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood...-true-detective-season-2-better-than-season-1

I spent the ensuing weeks across a table from Nic, hashing out plotlines. It gave me a chance to study him at close quarters. No one was more vehement about character and motivation than Nic. Now and then, he’d do the voices or act out a scene, turning his wrist to demonstrate the pop-pop of gunplay. He was 37 but somehow ageless. He could’ve stepped out of a novel by Steinbeck. The writer as crusader, chronicler of love and depravity. His shirt was rumpled, his hair mussed, his manner that of a man who’d just hiked along the railroad tracks or rolled out from under a box. He is fine-featured, with fierce eyes a little too small for his face. It gives him the aura of a bear or some other species of dangerous animal. When I was a boy and dreamed of literature, this is how I imagined a writer—a kind of outlaw, always ready to fight or go on a spree. After a few drinks, you realize the night will culminate with pledges of undying friendship or the two of you on the floor, trying to gouge each other’s eyes out.

The last time I saw Nic Pizzolatto was just a few months ago, in downtown Los Angeles, on the set of the second season of his brilliant and astonishingly successful HBO crime series, True Detective. I stood outside his trailer like a supplicant, surrounded by handlers, as anxious as a pilgrim. The critical acclaim for his show, its noir-ish mood and cult-like aura, the way its heroes seemed to shamble after some esoteric, Pynchon-esque truth had turned Nic into something more than just another TV writer or show-runner. He’d become an auteur, rich with wisdom, packed with answers. Stepping out of the trailer, he enfolded me in an all-encompassing hug. He was the same but different, having joined the upper echelon of the upper air, knighted by showbiz. What had been rumpled was now smooth; what had been dirty was now clean. He led me inside, where I watched as he polished dialogue for a scene he’d shoot later that day. An assistant quietly placed what looked like a power drink at his side, the top pre-loosened, then stepped away. When I first met Nic, in Indiana, I thought he was in my life. I now realized I’d been in his life. I was just another one of the technicians at ground control, watching the rocket make its way from launchpad to deep space—corduroy-coat-wearing professor to writers’-room hack to Orson Welles—in three blips across the radar screen.

 

[Squalor]

Wait, Vanity Fair ran that this year?

I thought you had been quoting that ad nauseum from an article that came out a while ago.

 

[Zoned]

nvm

 

[Saladinoo]

Well done, Pizzolatto. You were somehow able to go back to the script for episode three once you finished eight and write in his death as inexplicably accurate dialogue, and with the subtlety of a hand grenade...

Insanely impressive.

I think one of my biggest qualms with the finale is it really should have been the penultimate episode, with a final episode focusing on McAdams bringing down all the cops. But they obviously left that portion open. And I'm fine with endings that are open to interpretation, but I don't feel like they went this route for ambiguity's sake. The entire season was building up to a showdown between our protagonists and these antagonists... and it culminated in both Vaughn and Farrell getting blindsided in pretty lame ways. In Farrell's case, they gave the character the intelligence to spot it coming... then made him all the more dumb by just driving until his car was out of gas into the middle of nowhere. (Anyone else notice his phone was at 100% battery after all this? That's a badass battery!)

It would have made sense, after all this happens, to see our lone surviving hero getting revenge. It could have been pretty badass too. Have a final episode with McAdams unhinged, doing what it takes to bring these bastards to justice. But no.... Pizzolatto made a conscious effort to make sure nothing good/happy could happen on screen. We can only hint at some kind of actual formidable confrontation between our protagonist and antagonist, definitely can't have that onscreen, otherwise, shit, people might feel good.

And just as I don't mind ambiguous endings, I don't mind down endings. I'm not criticizing the ending for being down. I'm criticizing it for turning 3 of the 4 protagonists into complete morons and not letting us see them competently facing off against the antagonist. Audience's have no patience for dumb characters that aren't equipped for their final battle. Instead of having characters that were smart and competent but lost anyway against a greater foe we got:

1. Walks knowingly into a trap and nonchalantly walks out of it so he can get shot in the back.
2. Gets into his car that he knows is being tracked and drives into the middle of nowhere to make killing him easy as possible.
3. Gets captured and against all odds is spared, but values his pride (even in the middle of nowhere) over being a good fucking husband that can be there as promised for his wife and grow old with her.

At least in Vaughn's case, his character flaw, excessive pride, is what did him in. The other two guys were just dumb, especially Farrell -- and no, his love for his son wasn't the flaw that got him tracked and killed... it was spotting the tracker and being a moron until the anticlimactic end of his life that got him killed. I honestly can't think of any worse way for a character to go out than to notice a tracker on his car, decide to get in his car anyway and inexplicably drive it into seclusion to make killing him easier. I was convinced when he went into those woods, that he had some kind of plan, something set up there. Maybe the cabin was there and he could use it for something, I don't know. But nope. He was just making sure there would be no witnesses apparently, making things easier for the antagonist. What a way to go!

And then he had the same brilliant gameplan that the 20 Russians in the cabin had... Run wildly out of cover so you can be easily shot.

The diamonds were in his suit though - there was no way he could just give everything up.

 

[FantasticMrFoxdie]

Holy shit this is the worst finale i've seen since Dexters.


Got to be kidding me.

 

[Dennis]

No one was more vehement about character and motivation than Nic. Now and then, he’d do the voices or act out a scene, turning his wrist to demonstrate the pop-pop of gunplay. He was 37 but somehow ageless. He could’ve stepped out of a novel by Steinbeck. The writer as crusader, chronicler of love and depravity.

Is this an indictment of Vanity Fair or Nic Pizzolatto? I can't tell.

 

[Squalor]

Is this an indictment of Vanity Fair or Nic Pizzolatto? I can't tell.

It's an indictment against the writer and Vanity Fair for publishing that nonsense.

Holy shit this is the worst finale i've seen since Dexters.


Got to be kidding me.

How many finales have you seen since Dexter's?

While the finale wasn't good, it certainly wasn't nearly as bad or worse than Dexter's

 

[-MD-]

Holy shit this is the worst finale i've seen since Dexters.


Got to be kidding me.

You've got to be kidding me.

 

[FantasticMrFoxdie]

Then it would have been harder for him to try to stop the bleeding with the diamonds. I think a lot of people didn't notice this additionally really dumb point:

I didn't notice that.

omg what a fucking stupid finale. Went full dumb. Like below b-movie teir. The shootout scene in the train station. Somehow all the main characters decide to go to Venezuela and all the minor characters are pretty much forced to go to Seattle and Oregon. Velcoro took out the entire russian mob and can't figure out how to remove a massive bright transponder or lose a tail. Vaughn's character death sequence was cool and all but that fucking diamond gif negates that now. "You can't act Frank." For a show that has tried to be smart and complex, the inconsistency of decisions by the main characters just took a dive.

Absolutely no resolution at all. What a mess.

It's an indictment against the writer and Vanity Fair for publishing that nonsense.

How many finales have you seen since Dexter's?

While the finale wasn't good, it certainly wasn't nearly as bad or worse than Dexter's

I kind of worded that tricky. I didn't mean it was worse than Dexters just that it was the worst one i've seen since then.

 

[Kadayi]

The hyperbole of hate is truly limitless.

 

[Einchy]

I didn't notice that.

omg what a fucking stupid finale. Went full dumb. Like below b-movie teir. The shootout scene in the train station. Somehow all the main characters decide to go to Venezuela and all the minor characters are pretty much forced to go to Seattle and Oregon. Velcoro took out the entire russian mob and can't figure out how to remove a massive bright transponder or lose a tail. Vaughn's character death sequence was cool and all but that fucking diamond gif negates that now. "You can't act Frank." For a show that has tried to be smart and complex, the inconsistency of decisions by the main characters just took a dive.

Absolutely no resolution at all. What a mess.



I kind of worded that tricky. I didn't mean it was worse than Dexters just that it was the worst one i've seen since then.

Why would that gif ruin the scene for you?

The hyperbole of hate is truly limitless.

It's been like that this whole thread.

A character could walk into a room, say hello and you'd have a bunch of snarky posts about how awful Pizzaman wrote the scene.

This season was really messy and a lot of criticism was valid but some people just went over the board and started nit picking every single line.

I saw some people complaining about the, "what gave it away? the tits?" line in the last episode. If this was season 1, people would've thought that was funny or wouldn't even have twice about it.

 

[FantasticMrFoxdie]

The hyperbole of hate is truly limitless.

I enjoyed the past couple of episodes. Sorry if it seems like hyperbole but the quality of this finale went downhill fast compared to the decent quality of the past couple of episodes.

Why would that gif ruin the scene for you?

Its such nonsense and borderline pandering. "Blood diamonds! get it?!"
Frank could have probably survived if he took off his jacket and tied it around his wound.

 

[Einchy]

I enjoyed the past couple of episodes. Sorry if it seems like hyperbole but the quality of this finale went downhill fast compared to the decent quality of the past couple of episodes.



Its such nonsense and borderline pandering. "Blood diamonds! get it?!"
Frank could have probably survived if he took off his jacket and tied it around his wound.

They were showing you that he had the diamond on him and that's why he didn't want to give away his suit.

He was in the middle of the desert with a stab wound, he wasn't going to make it out of there.

 

[mmazurkiewicz]

Holy shit this is the worst finale i've seen since Dexters.


Got to be kidding me.

lol EXACT same thought I had towards the ending of the finale yesterday. shit was so stupid it felt like the Dexter finale.

 

[Tremis]

You keep saying this, but people have actually been very vocal about the reasons why they disliked the show. You also claim that people were waiting to hate it, which comes off kind of paranoid and defensive.

There are so many reasons to dislike this show:

- The writing is straight up atrocious; there are numerous examples of inexcusable lines from the show.

- The show is trying to pass off cartoon characters as serious. Bezzeridies' knife thing is a hilariously bad concept, and David Morse as her hippie dad is just laughable. Vince Vaughn's monologues about ceiling stains are insufferable and take up way, way too much screen time. Ray was absolutely hilarious in the first few episodes, beating up a kid's dad in front of him and then going to school to pick up his son with cocaine on his sleeve. Woodrough is sooo in the closet that we need to spend several episodes seeing it. Woodrough reminds me of that Onion article: "why do all these homosexuals keep sucking my cock?"

- Ray died in a straight-to-DVD quality action scene. He detected the transponder on his car, but then he just decided to go to a forest (wtf?) and die in a shootout.

- Arguably the only captivating mystery was Birdman, but the show ignored him for 95% of its runtime, and then he turned out to be a cartoon ("I am the blade"). I think Stan-related things got more screen time than Birdman overall.

- The plot mysteries (if you can even call them that, they are so mundane) are addressed via convenient "by the way..." revelations.

- The plot in general is ridiculously convoluted, and it all comes down to some robbery in 1992 which is hardly elaborated on, and Ray figures it out only because it's the last episode.

- There are some totally implausible arcs, like Woodrough's past military company is now working for Catalyst, and they end up facing off. And then Burris is waiting behind the door of the one exit that Woodrough decides to take, kills him, and runs off in a getaway car.

- There's quite a bit of parody-like stuff that is hard to take seriously, like the edgy musician playing in an empty bar (wtf?), Ray's son having his badge with him at school, and the shot of the phone after Ray dies; Frank putting diamonds in his wound because 2deep4u symbolism.

- Ani apparently had a baby with Ray, because the show is apparently a soap opera.


Which of the following is more plausible to you?

- People who liked season 1 hoped for season 2 to be good, but were disappointed.

- People who liked season 1 wanted to hate season 2 on purpose, in order to glorify season 1. Hint: nobody thinks this way.

Just finished it. This is all true. I was expecting the show to be good for quite a while, but all those points started to grate on me by the end.

 

[danthefan]

snipety snip.

Excellent post, agree with pretty much everything.

I loved the first series but this was just bad.

 

[the black pearl]

Lets do a Season 3 with Jack Nicholson and Michael Fassbender.

 

[ffejeromdiks]

He has better things to do than to be HBO's bitch.

Holy shit that is a powerful trailer, hadn't heard of it, from 0 interest to 100.

 

[Cidd]

I hope they go back to the 2 detectives formula it was really a drag watching all these uninteresting characters especially Vaughn and Kitsch.

 

[BizzyBum]

Maybe Pizzolatto made this season pointless on purpose.

You keep hearing complaints of a convoluted story line, pointless dialogue, dragged on scenes, nihilistic exposition.

In the end it was all pointless. 3 out of the 4 main cast died, the mayor's corrupt son Tony subsequently becomes the new mayor and is in bed with the Mexicans and backed up by Lieutenant Burris who killed Ray and Woodrugh. Caspere, Frank, and Osip are dead. The sister is who knows where and the son aka Birdman is dead.

Nothing fucking mattered, but maybe this was done to an extreme degree by Pizzolatto to show how utterly pointless and chaotic things are and no matter what people do it's going to play out as the universe intended. The tagline of the show is "We get the world we deserve." We're fucked up, we don't deserve a happy ending or the good guys pulling through.

 

[Finalow]

Pizzaman

.

garbage ending for a garbage season, nothing surprising here. I see that "why this season was a pile of shit and a waste of time" posts have already been posted so I won't bother.

rip in stans, True Detective.

this also was so on point that it's almost scary.