True Detective Season 2, Episode 1: Review

Frank: Never do anything out of hunger. Even eating.

After months, and months, and months of waiting it finally arrived – the second season of one of the best shows ever made (and I’m not even putting this up for discussion) – True Detective. A few quick words about the first season – it was dark, gritty, hardcore, perfectly written and with such a fantastic character development that it might just mark Harrelson and McConaughey as the best on-screen tandem of all time. The coolness of season one – beyond words. To set this differently, my expectations for season two (especially after seeing the cast) were sky-high. And the first episode fell short of my forecast at first. But then I thought about it a little and it came to me – this is not the same show! It is not a regular second season of a hit series – it is a whole new sequence! And it should be treated as such.

Lets start off with a brief character description. First we meet Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell) – a police detective on the verge of complete self-destruction – mixing alcohol with drugs, brass-knuckles and assault into a funnel of disaster.  The character is engaging, intriguing, tormented and completely insane, by the looks of it. On the whole, he represents a dirty cop. My guess is that he will be the fan favorite for the season. Next up we have Vince Vaughn’s Frank Semyon, who plays the role of a crime lord in shadow – the kind that you know is a mess, but not sure what his game is yet. Rachel McAdams’s Ani Bezzerides seems like a cliché at first – daddy issues, the tough girl act, carrying a lot of “teen anger” and generally looks like she might throw a bitch fit at any given moment. Hopefully that will develop into something more as the show goes further into the season. And last we have Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch) who serves as a war veteran cop, trying to escape from something (presumably the ghosts of his past). Kitsch also needs to work for some deeper character development as he falls a bit flat in the opening episode. Also, he is possibly suicidal which is quite boring. All in all, the role mash is promising, but definitely needs more work.

As for the plot – not much of a story is revealed so far as most of the screen time was left for character introductions. As Ray and Frank seem to be acting together, perhaps they will be stood against Kitsch and McAdams’s characters, but that also remains unseen yet. And now that I have spoiled that Farrell and Vaughn appear to be working together I might as well go ahead and reveal the moneyshot of the episode – the amazing over-the-table stare-off between their characters under the gloomy but gorgeous melody of Lera Lynn’s My Least Favorite Life. After the nearly indifferent first half, that scene was amazingly beautiful and contains within itself all the reasons we love the show – the kind of personal drives that are so primal and natural to them. All it takes is one look into their eyes for me to understand one thing: this person knows exactly what he is capable of. And it is not pretty. So my blind guess is that we are in for quite a ride with this season. All I personally need  to do is come to grips with the fact that it has nothing to do with the previous one. 

Ray: I used to want to be an astronaut. But astronauts don't even go to the moon anymore. 

~G.