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True Detective - Season 2 - We get the Season we deserve - Sundays on HBO

O

overcast

Member
Discotheque said:
yeah i think i will enjoy it but i'm most bummed out about the lack of director consistency.
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That seems to have hurt it a good bit. I feel like the high expectations didn't help at all and some seem to be knocking it down for being less.. different? This one is more strictly a cop drama, but I have no issue with that if it is done nicely.

Seems like most everyone loves McAdams which is cool.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
- Andy Greenwald: #TrueDetectiveSeason2: More Dark. More Real. More Mustachioed.
I would like to take this opportunity to confess something surprising about Year 2. I’ve now seen three episodes. And you know what? I kind of liked them.
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In its second season, True Detective offers much less to love yet a great deal more to like. It’s a familiar dream, but one blessedly free of a monster at the end of it. Which, for now anyway, is more than enough for me.
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C

Cornballer

Member
- Poniewozik for Time.com: More Angst, Less Poetry in a Lesser True Detective
Season 2 (HBO screened three episodes for critics) loses the novelty of the show’s first outing and highlights the weaknesses. A crew of new directors create a more intimate but more TV-conventional look, as Pizzolatto leads his cops past a parade of vacant sex workers, greasy pimps and blowsy dames. And where Louisiana made fertile and unusual ground for a noir story, both the setting and the dialogue this time around feel much more familiar. The original’s road-trip bull sessions and cat-and-mouse interrogations are replaced with clipped lines that play like poster copy: “I welcome judgment.” “Never do anything out of hunger.” “Everybody gets touched.”
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- San Diego Union-Tribune (AP review): 'True Detective' returns, staying true to its powerful past
What truly ties the "True Detective" seasons together: the voice and vision of Nic Pizzolatto. He created the series, wrote all last year's episodes and has repeated that feat for the upcoming eight hours. And he apparently has never heard the expression "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," having ditched the buddy-drama format that worked so well to do his thing in other, different ways this time.

How he's done it should become increasingly evident beyond the three episodes made available for preview. But he has clearly retained last year's "weird fiction" atmospherics of the Louisiana bayou despite relocating to an urban world. In this factory-and-refinery-choked corner of L.A., the macabre is in evidence, even in the interstitial aerial shots of tangled freeways, where cars look like corpuscles coursing through blood vessels.
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- Philly.com: 'True Detective' returns with new faces, places
Those who thought the first season was tainted by its treatment of women, as either victims or shrews, may be encouraged by McAdams' casting (or critical of the fact that we meet her for the first time in her underwear). I'm more bothered by the dialogue, which doesn't always ring true. (I do love the music. The album will be out Aug. 14.)

Sunny California or not, there's nothing in the first three episodes to approach the sheer joy of Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey in a car together.
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- Sydney Morning Herald: True Detective is predictable but addictive
And while this is distinctly and unmistakeably True Detective, it's also something of a reinvention: with the same sense of menace but less claustrophobic, less of a two-hander and with a broader, richer brief. All of which is to say, whatever your reservations about this show, its intelligence and its addictiveness are undeniable. 3.5/4.0 stars
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- Jaime Weinmann for Macleans: On True Detective, the flat circle becomes a merry-go-round
As True Detective returns—this time with a whole new cast—viewers meet the agony and genius of anthology shows. Are they the future?
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F

Fjordson

Member
Real Hero said:
Didn't he dislike season 1?
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He hated season 1.

A positive review from Greenwald is usually a really good sign, but since he so strongly disliked S1 I'm not sure on this one lol.

edit: he says in his review Fukunaga is still a producer? I didn't know that.
 
D

Daft_Cat

Member
duckroll said:
I don't understand this at all. I really want to believe it's just some poorly executed homage or non-malicious in-joke which went badly. It just seems so unreal. Fukunaga is still an executive producer on the show, his contributions to the first season is unquestionable. Why would Pizzaman need to take a potshot at him for no reason? Steinbeck would never have done this! T_T
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I'm hoping it's just this. It's always incredibly off-putting when behind the scenes drama rises to the surface in such an unprofessional way.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
Fjordson said:
edit: he says in his review Fukunaga is still a producer? I didn't know that.
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Most pilot directors are installed as EPs on series. They also typically get a cut of every subsequent episode, so it can be extremely lucrative. For example, Phil Lord and Chris Miller are EPs on Brooklyn Nine-Nine since they directed the pilot.
 
D

duckroll

Member
Cornballer said:
Most pilot directors are installed as EPs on series. They also typically get a cut of every subsequent episode, so it can be extremely lucrative. For example, Phil Lord and Chris Miller are EPs on Brooklyn Nine-Nine since they directed the pilot.
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Then why isn't David Nutter the richest man in television. Does he get a different sort of deal? Lol.
 
F

Fjordson

Member
Cornballer said:
Most pilot directors are installed as EPs on series. They also typically get a cut of every subsequent episode, so it can be extremely lucrative. For example, Phil Lord and Chris Miller are EPs on Brooklyn Nine-Nine since they directed the pilot.
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Damn, I didn't know that. That makes a lot of sense now lol...like Scorsese being EP for Boardwalk Empire. Good for Fukunaga, though.
 
Z

ZackieChan

Member
People are going nuts in here. I feel like we should see more than a handful of episodes and the context of the Asian American director scene before jumping to conclusions that will color your viewing of the show.
 
D

duckroll

Member
Cornballer said:
Heh. I just checked and aside from a few CBS franchises, it doesn't look like most of those were wildly successful. Lots of genre shows. He's best known for getting shows ordered to series based on the pilot, but that's no guarantee of longevity. Still, I imagine he's doing fine financially. ;)
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I think another thing is that being pretty much exclusively a TV territory guy, he's a go-to person when you want to get a pilot shoot done, but not so much a name brand to sell a package with. I've noticed the ones who seem to get really good deals for launching shows tend to be movie directors dipping into high profile TV stuff.
 
T

True Savior

Member
Everybody is forgetting this guy

Adam+Arkapaw+QTAkf9Vshi_m.jpg


He did Animal Kingdom , True Detective (S1) , Top of the Lake ,Snowtown , Macbeth to be released. Dude's amazing. His visual stamp is all over his work.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
- NY Times Review: ‘True Detective,’ Season 2 on HBO, Plays a Symphony of Misery
The actors are good, and their performances are particularly noteworthy because they are cast so far against type.

“True Detective” is monochromatic and self-serious, but it builds suspense with finesse and has a keen appreciation for the poetry of political corruption and urban decay.

That makes it intriguing, just not enthralling. Then again, a second novel is sometimes a prelude to a third that truly is twice as good.
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- Yahoo Review:
The two qualities that characterize the second season of True Detective are, let me emphasize, toughness and misery. Show creator Nic Pizzolatto, who will be writing all or most of the scripts, has smothered the occasional eruptions of humor that popped up here and there when Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson shared a dusty patrol car in Season 1. At that point, Pizzolatto understood that the stilted, doomstruck philosophizing of McConaughey’s Rust Cohle would strike a normal person (like Harrelson’s Marty Hart and, by extension, us) as pretentious nuttiness, so it required some comic deflation to make the drama work.

Now, however, Pizzolatto seems thoroughly committed to a dark, fatalistic worldview that permits no sunshine rays of hope or levity. He’s chosen the hardboiled-detective genre as his main menu, and given us three eggs so overdone, you couldn’t even stick a fork in them.
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S

Squalor

Junior Member
ZackieChan said:
Everyone who already knows this won't be as good as the first season are going to ignore this and read a worst-case scenario into this.
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Regardless, the hack Asian-American director who appears in one of the first three episodes is beyond coincidence.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
- NY Mag: A Timeline of How We Got to True Detective’s Second Season
Has there been a more discussed second season of TV than True Detective? I know, I know, it hasn't aired yet — and that's the point: The HBO neo-noir's first season inspired such critical and fan fervor that almost from the first episode, the question on everyone's tongue was, "What is the second season going to be like?" Actually, scratch that — the real question was, "Who's going to be in the second season?" Indeed, the absolute obsessiveness that's surrounded the casting process and overall genesis of True Detective's second season has been more all-consuming than whatever was on the Yellow King's face (was it tentacles? I guess we'll never know). Below, a timeline running down the year and a half of internet speculation that has brought us to this Sunday's premiere.
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- THR: How 'True Detective' Season 2 Differs From Season 1 (Beyond the Obvious) (some spoilers)
 
F

Fjordson

Member
Really bizarre if it's a dig at Fukunaga. Wouldn't anyone else notice it and be like "uhh...maybe this isn't your best idea ever". And even if Pizzaman has George Lucas-esque control over everything and could get that in there, you'd think someone as serious as him wouldn't take the time to put a joke character in the show just to take a shot at someone.
 
D

Discotheque

Banned
True Savior said:
Everybody is forgetting this guy

Adam+Arkapaw+QTAkf9Vshi_m.jpg


He did Animal Kingdom , True Detective (S1) , Top of the Lake ,Snowtown , Macbeth to be released. Dude's amazing. His visual stamp is all over his work.
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Fuck I didn't even pay attention to the cinematographer of these projects but all of these movies/shows have looked great

Will keep an eye out for this dude now
 
B

Blader

Member
Squalor said:
Does Justin Lin wear his hair in a bun? No. His hair isn't even long enough to possibly style that way.

You know who wears his hair in a bun? Fukunaga.
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Or maybe it was just a joke. Tbh, I've spent very little time looking at Justin Lin or Cary Fukunaga's hair lengths and buns (or lack thereof).
 
P

Pancho

Qurupancho
Still hyped, despite the mixed reviews. After the 1st season, its unrealistic to expect something of the same caliber. That sort of thing is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of deal. I'm sure I will like this season a lot.
 
N

NotTheGuyYouKill

Member
icarus-daedelus said:
Crossing my fingers that for season 3 they'll go for the meta crossover and cast Julianna Margulies and Archie Panjabi as a writer and a director who hate each other so much that they can't even stand to be in the same room together.



I know whose team I'm on.

cary-koji-fukunaga.jpg
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Make it super meta, and the writer and director are making a show about a true detective.
 
T

TheKaeptain

Banned
icarus-daedelus said:
Crossing my fingers that for season 3 they'll go for the meta crossover and cast Julianna Margulies and Archie Panjabi as a writer and a director who hate each other so much that they can't even stand to be in the same room together.



I know whose team I'm on.

cary-koji-fukunaga.jpg
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My friend has the biggest crush on him. He worked on the first season of TD and said Fukunaga is the most beautiful man he has ever seen.
 
G

Gobias

Banned
If everyone starts to retroactively turn on season one and Pizza I want everyone to know I thought it was overrated before it was cool!
 
F

Fjordson

Member
How could someone retroactively turn on a static and unchanging piece of entertainment? Season 1 of TD will never be less than great lol.
 
R

rakhir

Member
Fjordson said:
How could someone retroactively turn on a static and unchanging piece of entertainment? Season 1 of TD will never be less than great lol.
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I cannot watch some great seasons of television because of some shitty later work, for example Dexter and HIMYM

But to be fair, TD S1 is a finished work, it doesn't have any ties to the future episodes, so that makes it different.
 
F

Fjordson

Member
rakhir said:
I cannot watch some great seasons of television because of some shitty later work, for example Dexter and HIMYM

But to be fair, TD S1 is a finished work, it doesn't have any ties to the future episodes, so that makes it different.
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Yeah, like a single movie or something, it makes no sense lol. It's like saying Chinatown retroactively sucks because The Two Jakes exists.
 
Kadin

Kadin

Member
I was really late to True Detective and just finally watched it a couple weeks back. Man what a great season that was. Not a huge McConaughey fan but I really loved him in that role. Just so good.

I have no idea what to expect from this new season but it looks like the initial reviews are mostly favorable. All of the actors in this new season I really like so I'm looking forward to it.
 
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