Almost Everyone Made It Out Alive

Please note: as always when I’m writing about a TV show that just ended, this piece will be likely full of spoilers. You’ve been warned

 

So, I’ve just finished watching the last episode of True Detective, and now a question is stuck in my head: who the f**k killed Caspere?!

 

Well, ok, truth being told we know who killed Caspere, but still the question remains. What have I watched for the last eight weeks of my life? To that question I don’t really have an answer. This season of True Detective for some weird reasons decided to build an impossible puzzle of incredibly twisted and messed up stories and I fear that even the writers on the show lost track of where they wanted to go.

 

For six out of eight episodes almost nothing happens. We are spectators of seemingly completely unrelated stories, which remain so until the penultimate episode when suddenly things collapsed together, to leave viewers in an even greater confusion.

 

Mid-way through the season the three protagonists find themselves with all the pieces of the stories on the table and they clearly have no clue about what they should do with it. That’s not a good sign. Not at all.

 

This season clearly had many problems, first of which was having to follow the majestic season one. The build up that led to the big reveal at the end of season two represented a major obstacle for the second instalment since the casting got announced.

 

Colin Farrell. Ok.
Rachel McAdams. Mm-ok.
Taylor Kitsch. Mmmm-ok.
Vince Vaughn. Oh come on….

 

How can you take four actors mostly known for their roles in romcoms and/or straight comedies and put them into what was supposed to be the finest drama series of the year? You can try to do that, but don’t be surprised if the common reaction is just an outcry of desperation and incredulity about the delivered result¹.

 

To me it wasn’t just about the cast. At the end of the day Farrell kind of saved himself, Kitssch remained in total anonymity, McAdams tried her best and Vaughn…well he’s a comedian…the problem was the story. There was no alchemy between the actors on screen. They all had arcs to follow to evolve their characters, but they all got erased from the story abruptly (well, almost everyone).

 

What made season one so beautiful was the slow build up that brought us week after week closer to the truth, while getting to know the dark side of the two protagonist. In season two we had four of them to keep track of and of course there wasn’t enough time to tell everyone’ story in a meaningful way. Plus the main story had way to many up and downs and consecutive cliffhangers that didn’t actually led to anything of sort. I can give you two examples: the street massacre and the orgy. Both extremely full of drama and emotions, both absolutely meaningless and useless. They were good to attract some newspaper headline the day after broadcast but they didn’t contribute to the story. Cut them out and you won’t see any difference.

 

It is kind of bad when the most meaningful quote of the season is from Frank (Vince Vaughn) during the last episode:

Everything’s ending. Time to wake up.

Yes, finally time to wake up. But to what? He’s dead, Ray’s dead, Woodrugh’s dead, Bezzerides’ on the run with a child (I’m guessing he’s Ray’s) and a new generation of bad guy is replacing the old generation of bad guys (because they are all dead too).

 

Season One gave us some hope toward the end, Season Two brought us down into a spiral of death and suffering where nobody seemed to have emerged as a victor. Yes admittedly they left the door open to a possible future where the Times journalist may reveal the story to the press or maybe not.

 

The only tangible legacies are one again of complete sadness: there’s an highway named after Woodrough and then there’s Ray’s paternity test that shows how he’s the legitimate father, implying that his history of violence was for nothing.

 

I had very big hopes and expectations for this TV show and I felt like I’ve been let down. I’ll be curious to listen to the TeeVee panel to see if and how they’ll be able to make some sense of all of this.

 

The only real consolation is that every season is a self-contained story, so we can just put this one behind us, thinking positively toward the future.