True Detective Season 2 | Page 4 | The Boneyard

True Detective Season 2

SubbaBub

Your stupidity is ruining my country.
Joined
Aug 26, 2011
Messages
32,094
Reaction Score
24,544
nelsonmuntz said:
I may have missed like half an episode somewhere, because i did not know about the LLC. I got that the hooker parties were for blackmail, but I don't understand what they were blackmailing the participants for. Maybe we don't know that yet.

I do think the hooker party was gratuitous and completely unnecessary. Having all these guys at the same party banging women in front of everyone else kind of takes away the expectation of anonymity up front. At least Kubrick had the sense to make everyone wear masks in Eyes Wide Shut. If the attendees at the hooker party were so powerful, you would have thought that some of them would recognize that this was a bad idea rather than banging hookers in front of their friends.

Ms. Bub calls it, "proving you are watching HBO"

There were two short scenes of exposition about Frank looking to get his piece of the deal back (IIRC, he can for $7M, maybe $10M). The point was there was no way for Frank to raise that much. So, he is looking for blackmail leverage while trying to retain/restart his crime empire, which wasn't a whole lot to begin with.

The premise is that all the guys at the party are in various shady businesses together. The politicians and investors are also there and perks of being in business with these guys. Gratuitous, sure but you do need a way of connecting the various business, criminal, and political players. The location of Vinci, a corrupt small town outside LA with it's entire municipal service infrastructure on the take is essential to the plot.
 

nelsonmuntz

Point Center
Joined
Aug 27, 2011
Messages
43,953
Reaction Score
32,129
Ms. Bub calls it, "proving you are watching HBO"

There were two short scenes of exposition about Frank looking to get his piece of the deal back (IIRC, he can for $7M, maybe $10M). The point was there was no way for Frank to raise that much. So, he is looking for blackmail leverage while trying to retain/restart his crime empire, which wasn't a whole lot to begin with.

The premise is that all the guys at the party are in various shady businesses together. The politicians and investors are also there and perks of being in business with these guys. Gratuitous, sure but you do need a way of connecting the various business, criminal, and political players. The location of Vinci, a corrupt small town outside LA with it's entire municipal service infrastructure on the take is essential to the plot.

Is Frank running the parties? I thought someone else was running them, although Frank's guy is involved without Frank's knowledge. I had expected Ray to kill that guy in the escape. Didn't Frank ask Ray to kill that guy?
 
Joined
Sep 16, 2011
Messages
48,024
Reaction Score
161,549
Is Frank running the parties? I thought someone else was running them, although Frank's guy is involved without Frank's knowledge. I had expected Ray to kill that guy in the escape. Didn't Frank ask Ray to kill that guy?
Frank asked Ray to follow that guy to see what he's up to, there is nothing to lead you to believe Frank is running the parties.
 

SubbaBub

Your stupidity is ruining my country.
Joined
Aug 26, 2011
Messages
32,094
Reaction Score
24,544
nelsonmuntz said:
Is Frank running the parties? I thought someone else was running them, although Frank's guy is involved without Frank's knowledge. I had expected Ray to kill that guy in the escape. Didn't Frank ask Ray to kill that guy?

No, but one of Frank's underlings runs the girls off the books and is involved as a side business. If Frank were running it, he'd have what he needs by now.

I'm guessing Frank is a notch or two below these guys on the criminal top 10 list.
 
Joined
Aug 26, 2011
Messages
5,867
Reaction Score
10,332
bottom line why the hell isn't cary fukunaga directing every episode??
 
Joined
Sep 16, 2011
Messages
48,024
Reaction Score
161,549
I finished the series and still don't really know what happened or I think I know what happened and none of it was all that compelling. I think the acting was actually good, it's the writing that led to all the awkwardness. Frank could have been a great character but the stupid storyline and silly dialogue made it so that he really didn't come into his own until the last few episodes. Glad it's over.
 
Joined
Aug 26, 2011
Messages
5,286
Reaction Score
9,284
Best part of the episode tonigh was during the scene where Vaughn is convincing his wife to leave without him and he'll meet here in Venezuela, she says "you're a sh1tty actor" (or something to that effect)... My wife looks at me and says "even his TV wife thinks he sucks in this series".
 

Fishy

Elite Premium Poster
Joined
Aug 24, 2011
Messages
17,958
Reaction Score
129,189
God, what an inane s--- show that was.

There was nothing redeeming about that eight hours of television.

If there's any justice, the show has a 1/2 hour epilogue next week where Vince Vaughn, Rachel McAdams and Colin Farrell beat the crap out of the writers.
 
Joined
Aug 26, 2011
Messages
33,489
Reaction Score
96,165
Just not very good at all. Nothing like the 1st season and not close for that matter in any regard.

Disappointing as I at least hoped the last hour and a half brought some sense back to the story but it never happened. Stop at 2 if you can't get back to some semblance of 1.
 
Joined
May 7, 2014
Messages
14,412
Reaction Score
29,099
It was a different story conceptually from the first season. More just a standard cop drama than a mystery. There was no real central, mysterious, evil villain that has to be caught. Like a cop drama, the goal posts keep moving as the crime network they stumble upon goes deeper and deeper. The Wire had 50 episodes to make it what it was. Eight here.

And the story was just bland as hell. You knew by the camera/shot and musical style that you were watching True Detective, but it had no real edge.
 
Joined
Aug 27, 2011
Messages
4,972
Reaction Score
10,537
It was a different story conceptually from the first season. More just a standard cop drama than a mystery. There was no real central, mysterious, evil villain that has to be caught. Like a cop drama, the goal posts keep moving as the crime network they stumble upon goes deeper and deeper. The Wire had 50 episodes to make it what it was. Eight here.

And the story was just bland as hell. You knew by the camera/shot and musical style that you were watching True Detective, but it had no real edge.

I basically agree with you, but i would put the first 8 episodes of The Wire against this season any day. I would put any 8 episode sequence of the Wire against this season.

I didn’t think it was bad, just not in the same league as Season 1. I think you nailed it..this was just your typical cop drama.
 

BUHusky

The original. Accept no substitutes.
Joined
Aug 26, 2011
Messages
1,459
Reaction Score
4,040
Welp...that whole season was just a huge waste of time.
 
Joined
Aug 24, 2011
Messages
10,837
Reaction Score
28,360
I watched the first episode and didn't like it enough to watch any other episodes. The reviews on the season are now so bad that I'll never watch it.

Anyone care to give me a wrap up of what it was about in 100 words or less?
 

intlzncster

i fart in your general direction
Joined
Aug 24, 2011
Messages
29,094
Reaction Score
60,516
I watched the first episode and didn't like it enough to watch any other episodes. The reviews on the season are now so bad that I'll never watch it.

Anyone care to give me a wrap up of what it was about in 100 words or less?

Seriously, probably not. Messy plot.

Crooked politician murdered. As a result, land deal goes bad for mob boss (vince vaughn); loses everything. 3 law enforcement officers brought together to investigate that and various related nefarious dealings: 1 drunk degenerate divorced father (colin farrell), 1 angry alpha bad ass chick with troubled past (rachel McAdams), 1 closet gay former special forces about to have a kid (Taylor Kitsch).

Lot's of convoluted happens. Somehow all connected. Massive shootout. Wild drug and hookers sex parties. Back stories brought to light. All is revealed. 3 cops become fugitives. Kitsch gets murdered. Farrell too. Vaughn makes one too many deals and is killed too. McAdams and Vaughn's wife escape to South America w McAdams/Farrells baby that was conceived during one night of sad sack sex and which he never found out about. McAdams gives whole story to a journalist who will hopefully get everyone arrested, but probably won't because politicians always win. End.

Words: 154. Zero editing. Better than wasting 10 hours watching.
 

Fishy

Elite Premium Poster
Joined
Aug 24, 2011
Messages
17,958
Reaction Score
129,189
I watched the first episode and didn't like it enough to watch any other episodes. The reviews on the season are now so bad that I'll never watch it.

Anyone care to give me a wrap up of what it was about in 100 words or less?

Yes.

The less than 100 words version:

The first seven episodes meant nothing. The eighth episode shivs the first seven episodes - whoever you think did what, they didn't do it. It doesn't even matter.

The 666-word version from Hell:

It opens with Farrell boning McAdams and then trading stories about how f---ed up they are. They are f---ed up. I can tell because they drink scotch straight from the bottle and that is what f---ed up people do. They engage in post-coital police work and peg the whodunnit on a couple of characters who were on screen all of four seconds through the first seven hours of the show. (The first seven episodes all died right then and there, but the show continued.) Then, a bunch of stupid s--- happens, highlighted by a scene in a bus station that should be shown to film students as they're admonished to never, ever do anything like that ever.

Rachel McAdams gets a haircut and then gets on a boat. The boat is 45' long and has no cabins, but it's taking 30 passengers to Venezuela.

Colin Farrell is supposed to get on the boat for more boning, but dies because he drives the same car all the time despite being wanted by legions of people with guns. Those people put a tracker on his car so they could track him...sounds clever, but begs the question why they didn't just wait by his car to whack him. (Answer - because writers love car chases.) During the chase, he records a message on his iPhone to his son in which he confesses that he never read the script and that he's firing his agent. He gets shot 87 times near a tree because someone thought a shot looking up at a tree would be cool. (It wasn't.) As we leave his bullet-ridden corpse, we see that the message was never sent to his son because he was on Sprint. (Ever notice that no bullet-ridden movie bodies are ever shot in the nuts? If you want to be an edgy film-maker, have your protagonist taken out by a hail of bullets to the giblets.)

Vince Vaughn dies after his car is inexplicably surrounded by people with an extrasensory ability to determine his whereabouts. He is brought to the desert because the panoply of contrasting nature scenes in the forest, desert and ocean was supposed to blow our minds. (It didn't.) Vince is then stabbed during a laundry squabble. The stab wound to his side somehow manifests itself as a strange limp even though his legs were left unmolested. (Acting!) He staggers through the blistering heat without thinking to remove his black suit jacket until he comes across the apparition of his wife beckoning him.

He celebrates making it back to her wherein the apparition helpfully and correctly points out that Vince's mortal body has face-planted some yards back and that their tortured dialogue has actually outlived his character. Ghost Vince turns around, sees Baking on the Sand Vince and then Ghost Vince, too, topples into history.

We bounce to Colin's ex-wife's kitchen where she opens a paternity test and sees that Colin did indeed sire the odd-looking redheaded kid. (Casting question...two people with dark brown hair and brown eyes might be challenged to produce that particular kid, no?) Anywho, she fingers a couple of pictures of old-timey Colin from better days and cries so that we know she loved him. (And is willing to overlook the fact that he died in a police shootout and was wanted for any number of murders.)

And then we go to Venezuela where Rachel McAdams and Vince Vaughn's still-alive wife are holed up in a hotel room living as what I like to believe is a relatively attractive lesbian couple. As we leave them, they're giving the evidence of the myriad of crimes to some reporter. That presumably will clear everyone's name and cause havoc among the surviving criminals, so happy ending there, right? Also, Rachel has a baby which we're lead to believe is Colin's because the baby has brown hair and not something crazy like red hair because two people with brown hair and brown eyes just don't have ginger babies.
 
Last edited:

SubbaBub

Your stupidity is ruining my country.
Joined
Aug 26, 2011
Messages
32,094
Reaction Score
24,544
I didn't hate it as much as some others until Fishy reminded of why I hated Film Appreciation class.

The last episode was Hella bad.

They had too many story lines following the four main characters. They should have kept it to Vaughn and Ferrell/McAdams running independent investigations. Kitch brought nothing to the table. And no one cared about McAdams past hippie family.

Vaughn and his wife trying to rebuild and recoup plus the two cops investigating the case really should have been it. 3 hrs of screen time each plus an hour of them crossing paths and at 90 minute resolution. They could have still kept the orgy.

Fishy's critique of the cinematic choices will haunt me forever, but this could have been an excellent original story if the bad guy was just the Russian with the dirty cops and left the diamond kids out of the rewrite.
 

intlzncster

i fart in your general direction
Joined
Aug 24, 2011
Messages
29,094
Reaction Score
60,516
Fishy's critique of the cinematic choices will haunt me forever, but this could have been an excellent original story if the bad guy was just the Russian with the dirty cops and left the diamond kids out of the rewrite.

No offense, but that Russians/dirty cops thing sounds dull as dirt too. Frankly, there wasn't much material to work with.

The series had 3 `big' moments, all of which were unnecessary.

1. Colin Farrell 'dying' in the 2nd or 3rd episode of the series - anyone with a brain knew he didn't because the series would have been even more duckcked. So... Worthless.

2. Big shootout in episode 4. Entirely irrelevant to the story. Some action.

3. The Orgy - while not relevant, it is always good to have an orgy in a series/film.

It also had a tropish gay sex scene, which Hollywood deams avant-garde/edgy. Of course, this was entirely unnecessary as well.

Basically nothing happens. Everyone is up. Everyone dies. Life is up and everyone dies. That's about it.
 

temery

What?
Joined
Aug 14, 2011
Messages
20,271
Reaction Score
37,171
Couldn't get past 1/2 of one show in season one. No interest.
 

SubbaBub

Your stupidity is ruining my country.
Joined
Aug 26, 2011
Messages
32,094
Reaction Score
24,544
intlzncster said:
No offense, but that Russians/dirty cops thing sounds dull as dirt too. Frankly, there wasn't much material to work with.

The series had 3 `big' moments, all of which were unnecessary.

1. Colin Farrell 'dying' in the 2nd or 3rd episode of the series - anyone with a brain knew he didn't because the series would have been even more duckcked. So... Worthless.

2. Big shootout in episode 4. Entirely irrelevant to the story. Some action.

3. The Orgy - while not relevant, it is always good to have an orgy in a series/film.

It also had a tropish gay sex scene, which Hollywood deams avant-garde/edgy. Of course, this was entirely unnecessary as well.

Basically nothing happens. Everyone is ed up. Everyone dies. Life is ed up and everyone dies. That's about it.

I think that was my point. Trash all the irrelevant stuff and focus on the events that would make some sense at the end.

If we follow Frank through his underworld connections eventually making the Russian and his old business partner as the source behind the land deal and at the same time follow the other two looking for the girl and uncovering the dirty cops, it would have been a lot better.


The first season was just Matt and Woody talking to people. The way they did it made it interesting.
 
Joined
Aug 27, 2011
Messages
6,929
Reaction Score
17,126
Couldn't get past 1/2 of one show in season one. No interest.

Took me like 10 attempts to get through the first 3 episodes. I couldn't figure out why anyone liked it. Finished strong though.
 
Joined
Aug 24, 2011
Messages
10,837
Reaction Score
28,360
Thanks to Intlzncster and Fish for excellent recaps. I am 99.9% sure I enjoyed them way more than I would the other 7 hours of this series. The only remaining question I have is, were there any sex scenes in this seasons that were even close to the topless scene with Alexandra Daddario in Season 1?
 
Joined
Aug 28, 2011
Messages
26,920
Reaction Score
65,081
It reminded me of the last episode of Mad Men where they decided that all the loose ends needed to be tied up so they made the weird girl writer and the weird hairy dude art director suddenly fall in love. In TD. the boys all died. And the girls had a baby to play with. The end.

My favorite scene in the whole thing was Vaughn pulling the grill off a weird Asian (?) dude. It actually made his character formidable for a couple of minutes.

And who hired that depressing singer for the meet up bar. Wasn't that bar depressing enough without making her the entertainment.
 

intlzncster

i fart in your general direction
Joined
Aug 24, 2011
Messages
29,094
Reaction Score
60,516
Thanks to Intlzncster and Fish for excellent recaps. I am 99.9% sure I enjoyed them way more than I would the other 7 hours of this series. The only remaining question I have is, were there any sex scenes in this seasons that were even close to the topless scene with Alexandra Daddario in Season 1?

No. There was that nice orgy i mentioned, but the Daddario scene was particularly moving. ahem
 

Online statistics

Members online
561
Guests online
3,963
Total visitors
4,524

Forum statistics

Threads
155,813
Messages
4,032,299
Members
9,865
Latest member
Sad Tiger


Top Bottom