criterionforum.org

Big Ben wrote:Hopefully this time Pizzolato can craft something worth remembering. He wrote Season 2 in less than a year. The first took about eight years. Obviously it was plain as day that this was the case. Excited nonetheless.

Did Season 2 improve by the end? I’m intrigued by the IMDB ratings for some of the later episodes when contrasted to the early ones (yes, I know it’s IMDB, but I find that it’s a reliable way to see what a cluster of fans of TV show X think are the best episodes of any given season). Wondering if, say, an 8.6/10 or a 9/10 are relative to the quality of the rest of the season or indicative of a general level of quality worth suffering through those rough early episodes for.

I would say no. But it's more nuanced than it looks.

True Detective, at least where I was was really freaking big. Everyone was talking about it. How it was just wonderful. Even Obama asked for advanced copies of episodes! And then they announced announced Season 2. When something is perceived as great, at least as a general consensus people get an idea in their mind of how things should be. An idea of quality and what not. Season 2 had the gargantuan task of topping or being on the same level as the first one. Pizzolatto had very little time to craft something on par with the first season and it quite clearly showed. The lines were goofy (Vince Vaughn had a line about blue balls that made me wince) and certain scenes just did not work. Overall the season came together as something we've all seen before. A rushed product made by a studio wanting to capitalize on the success of a previous iteration.

People talk about the second season like it's the coming of the Antichrist but I take a more sympathetic view insofar that I think that it's quite clearly a rushed sub-par product from someone who CAN deliver a high quality one. HBO is on record as saying it was less than stellar as is the majority of people who have seen it. With this in mind I'm personally going to give Pizzolatto another shot because I feel it's warranted. Without HBO breathing down his neck to defecate a script and a capable director perhaps he can recapture that old magic. I don't know anything about this Milch fellow but I think Pizzolato will benefit from some assistance there too. I'm very much someone who is willing to give someone another shot based on their past track record. Is it possible he'll deliver something that surprises us all? Sure. If not, well Pizzolato unfortunately won't be the first tree to bloom in the forest quickly and appear to be great...and then wither away as fast as it came in.

I would say that S2 very much got better as it went along (maybe bar the fifth episode, which was kind of dull) - the last three episodes are by far the best of the season, which is fairly mediocre when taken as a whole but really does reach some powerful and engaging heights when it comes to life.

To build on Big Ben's general thoughts, which I largely agree with, I think a factor in the rush to label a mediocre season a terrible one was the urge to bring Pizzolatto down a few pegs after he came off a little too self-satisfied in the aftermath of the Season 1 hype storm. Hopefully this season could have expectations tempered to the extent that it could be evaluated separate from opinions on its creator(s) or borderline unreachable expectations based on its predecessor.

I don't think Season 2 is the Uwe Boll level beast people said it was (I read earlier in a comments section that Pizzolatto was in fact "Pizzafraud"). I certainly don't think it's good but I understand why it wasn't.

If the casting about Ali is true I'll be interested in seeing how Pizzolatto plays off his faith much like the way he did McConaughey's as it completely changed my opinion of McConaughey as an actor. I'd find it interesting to see a practicing Muslim espousing similar pessimistic views in a diseased lanscape filled with awful people. Ali doesn't have the...track record that McConaughey does but even if you didn't like the first season no one doubts that it gave the man a career resurgence. With a little luck this will add to Ali's career.

oh yeah wrote:I would say that S2 very much got better as it went along (maybe bar the fifth episode, which was kind of dull) - the last three episodes are by far the best of the season, which is fairly mediocre when taken as a whole but really does reach some powerful and engaging heights when it comes to life.

I'll echo these sentiments. The season did improve towards the end. Part of that might have been how ludicrously over-the-top the initial episodes were, but I felt that a lot of it had to do with the actors starting to exhibit some substance behind their characters rather than just the having to go through more unnecessarily showy scenes. That's likely also a function of that narrative having to actually start moving forward as the season was about to draw to a close. However, there were still some strange plot points even towards the end that required some shaky logic. If anything, I felt like S2 was a pretty good evidence that the raw uncut version of Pizzolatto was hazardous creatively and that he needs to be balanced with some other influences.

Well, not to be a contrarian, and with all-due respect of course, I'll have to disagree. As I've ranted about earlier in this thread, there was nothing mediocre in season two for me, the thing as a whole was just terrible. Starting blandly, it ramped up to one rediculous cliche after another in the later epsiodes, and I found that I could no longer justify the excuses I was making for it.

I would also like to mention that it wasn't just the about-face quality dip Pizzolatto's writing that stunned me, (especially when contrasted with the brilliance of season one). He does seem to be bit of a dick, but that is something that exists outside of (and what I want from) his work, and I have no wish to punish him for it. Difficult people can found throughout the various entertainment industries. But everything about the season was ineptly done, not just the by-the-numbers conspiracy storyline; the messy/illogical direction; the overall tone; even the set design. And I found it almost uncomfortable to see three very talented actors desperately trying to do something with the mismatched tools they'd been given.

All that being said, I'm terribly excited for the third season. I tend to agree that season two's failures were probably the result of a novelist who's process is to let things grow organically, being pressured from every conceivable angle to crank out a just-as-brilliant season of something entirely new, in less than an eighth of the time the first one took to create. Considering it under those parameters, the only thing someone like that, working under those coditions, could produce would be cliche. He needs to take as much time as he needs. And the first season engendered so much good will with me, that I'll forever have time for whatever he wants to offer.

And the addition of David Milch to the creative stable is a stroke of genius. With the possible exception of WKRP in CINCINNATI, DEADWOOD is my favourite television show of all-time; its depths and layers continue to reward more than a decade after my initial viewing. I can only hope that he'll bring those same qualities to someone else's project.

jazzo wrote:With the possible exception of WKRP in CINCINNATI...

Did anyone else have to re-read that to make sure it wasn't John from Cincinnati?
Now I'll also probably have the WKRP theme song in my head for the rest of the day (not a bad thing since I consider it to be one of the best TV-show theme songs).

Jesus , now I had to re-read my own post to make sure it wasn't John, but WKRP. I'm just idiot enough to have done that, too.

True Detective Season Three is (almost) on the way. And Mahershala Ali is confirmed to be the star.

Here's hoping for some (good) pessimistic rants.

Season three will tell the story of a macabre crime in the heart of the Ozarks and a mystery that deepens over decades and plays out in three separate time periods.

This is promising. One of season's one's strengths was its structure and how that was able to show the effect of the crimes and the characters' choices across decades.

I liked the first season but here's hoping the scope this time would be better portrayed. I always felt that with all the horrific imagery and symbolism shown throughout the season the finale was really undercooked and disappointing.
The less said about the second season the better.
I just wish Pizzolatto will fully explore the worlds he creates, and given Saulnier's involvement this already shapes up to be interesting

Carmen Ejogo (star of one of the seasons two of The Girlfriend Experience) has been added to the season three cast.

I saw that last night and was quite pleased to see her added. She'll be playing a schoolteacher with a mysterious past. (I realize that's old hat at this point for mysteries but still.)

Stephen Dorff has joined the cast of Season 3.

Some minor plot details of who he'll be playing there if you're at all interested.

Jeremy Saulnier Exits, Daniel Sackheim Signs On .

Saulnier directed two of the three episodes he was slated to do and has left production due to scheduling conflicts and disagreements with Pizzolatto. Sackheim is great though. He's done work on The Americans. It sounds a lot worse than it actually appears to be. But I guess I'll see how the season actually goes.

I hadn't heard til it was mentioned in this Deadline article, but Scoot McNairy is also playing one of the leads

THE YEAR OF SCOOT

All these people badmouthing 2018 suddenly seem like heretics

Looks good. Much better than Season 2, anyway, even if it has a little bit of a Sharp Objects: This Time It's a Guy vibe

Starring Adam Amys

Well, a lot of people did say Sharp Objects was True Detective ... with a Female Lead.

I didn't realize Mamie Gummer was in the cast. I'm slightly more intrigued now.