“It’s too dark, man!” “I don’t care.”
A missing person, a murder, a touch of Southern gothic. Two stone-faced men driving through a desolate countryside. A narrative jumping from decade to decade, following the detective’s voice as he slowly, so slowly, spills the tale to us, and to the men in the deposition room who already know it. Long overhead shots of roads, always roads. True Detective is back.
Debuting five years (almost to the day) after the series premiere—and three and a half years since the season-two finale—True Detective’s third season starts in in November of 1980 in West Finger, Arkansas, where 12-year old Will and 10-year-old Julie Purcell (Phoenix Elkin and Lena McCarthy) have gone missing. And in 1990, when former police detective Wayne Hays (Mahershala Ali) is deposed on the children’s disappearance, and learns of new evidence. And in 2015, if Wayne Hays is to be trusted with dates, when despite his failing memory, a documentarian interviews him about the Purcell case.
A show as distinctive as this is easy to parody; and easily falls into self-parody. Time is a flat circle, and so on. For True Detective, which leaps from decade to decade in a flash, a flashback within a flashback is business as usual, or would be. And, as Erik Adams points out in his overview of this season, in the years since True Detective’s dormancy, viewers have grown accustomed to ever-greater intersections in television narratives. But in its third season, writer/creator Nic Pizzolatto is stretching to make even more out of True Detective’s multiple timelines, intersecting narration, and unlikely overlaps. In its third season, time really is a circle, at least for Wayne Hays.
So when “The Great War And Modern Memory” opens on a flashback, then eases into another, it’s not the frantic flailing of a writer frantic to cram in exposition at the cost of clarity. It’s an attempt to convey something of the confounding experience of living, like Vonnegut’s Billy Pilgrim, unstuck in time. It’s a tricky gambit, and one that doesn’t fully land in the moment. But as the two-episode premiere inches on, the muddled, multi-layered opening seems more and more fitting.
“Inching on” is exactly what “The Great War And Modern Memory” does, following Will and Julie as they ride away from Shoepick Lane, biking into the west. On each road, each corner, someone sees them, and the children see them back. A neighbor taking in Halloween decorations. A classmate waving from a yard. A trio of surly teens as grubby and vaguely threatening as any of Stephen King’s small-town hoodlums. With excruciating patience, the children are shown riding into what we know must be nothingness.
That slow burn is essential. If it doesn’t pay off, “slow burn” is (as Hays’ partner ribs him while they sit shooting junkyard rats) “another way of saying you’re slow on the draw.” If it does, that meditative patience is just one more element distinguishing True Detective from a standard procedural, drawing focus from the investigation to the investigator. True Detective has never been about the crime, or about the human monsters committing them. It’s about the detectives who hunt those monsters, and whether and why they may grow into monsters, too.
That’s demonstrated in the closing of episode one, as Det. Hays strikes off on his own to track the missing children. As he walks (and sometimes climbs) through the rough terrain, as he ascends the crude steps of the watchtower, the score clangs and jangles behind him like nerves, or like hard footsteps banging upstairs. Every time Hays turns a corner or sees a new vista, he’s braced for the horror of discovery, and so are we. It’s exhausting, and that’s the point: a bubble of dread rising, then popping into nothing, over and over, until he finds the worst. Eventually, his dread is not the grisly fear of finding a child’s corpse, but an existential dread greater still.
Wayne Hays has what he describes in a daily recording to himself as “memory problems,” problems his colleagues know about as early as 1990. But Wayne Hays has more than memory problems. Wayne Hays has time problems.
Some of it is small, mundane, the kind of everyday slip we all make. Reminiscing about his wife Amelia (Carmen Ejogo), Wayne slides from past tense to present and back again the way True Detective slides through the decades. “She’s a good writer, a good teacher. A good investigator, really,” he tells the documentarian sitting (not very patiently) next to the camera. “She was good at lots of things.”
It isn’t just Wayne’s memory that’s slipping out of his control. It’s his sense of time. Standing in the Purcell’s front yard on Shoepick Lane, Wayne is called out of the moment, and out of his time, by a voice from the future, and 2015 crashes in on 1980, as jarring as a wall crashing down. Reality breaks again when Hays, kneeling to inspect a footprint in mud by the light of the moon, sees that moon blink out of existence, and he’s yanked into 2015 again, when the film crew’s light has blown out.
It’s unsettling. It’s audacious. It mimics the fluidity of memory, and the chilling uncertainty of a mind lost in time. When these breaks occur—when Wayne Hays gets unstuck in time—Mahershala Ali breaks his character’s calm with devastating silent dread.
Ali does a lot with silence here, more than he should have to. The characters are sketched out, not fleshed out. But sometimes, that emptiness is effective. In his first meeting with Amelia (then Miss Reardon, a West Finger English teacher), Det. Hays asks, with quiet significance, “How is it here? You know.” She knows. “I hear something now and then,” she tells him, but mostly “it” is fine. In many spots, these episodes are underwritten, but here the spareness of the dialogue—his “you know,” and her answering “you know”—allows these characters, and these actors, to communicate as people often do about a shared fact of life: indirectly, knowingly.
Det. Hays and Miss Reardon—Wayne and Amelia, connecting as people, not as cop and possible witness—don’t have to identify “it.” The closest the first two episodes get to defining “it” is in a blow-up between Hays and his partner Roland West (Stephen Dorff) in “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye.” When the prosecuting attorney goes against the detectives’ advice and divulges their best lead in a press conference, Hays blames not his superiors, but his partner. “I knew they wouldn’t listen to me,” he says, tired. “You should’ve stopped that.”
It sure looks like people listen to Hays. In every investigative scene, Ali projects an air of thoughtful but clear command, an assurance that is both comforting and compelling. That’s how it looks. And in the strategy session, West follows the PA to the door, pitching reasons to withhold the evidence, then a final plea to salve the politician’s real fears: “They’ll get over it.” It looks like people listen to Hays. It looks like his partner went to bat for their strategy.
But looks deceive. In True Detective, everything deceives.
During the search for the Purcell kids, a uniformed cop scoffs at Hays’ lone-wolf technique until West sets the younger cop straight. In Vietnam, Wayne Hays was a scout for a long-range reconnaissance patrol, an elite tracker who walked the jungle and brought soldiers back. In 1980, he tracks boar on foot, hunts deer only with a bow, and walks the periphery of a possible crime scene, scouting out the crucial details that others miss. But his expertise doesn’t protect him from a rookie’s assumptions, or from his superiors’ indifference to his advice.
Previous incarnations of True Detective have split focus, narratively and visually, between teams. But in the two-part season premiere, director Jeremy Saulnier wisely keeps the camera on Ali, even when the focus isn’t. The camera wants to stay on him, and so does the viewer’s eye. Whatever else happens in he frame, it can’t compete with the subtle, concise layers of emotion and intelligence radiating from Wayne Hays, and from Mahershala Ali.
That’s not to slight any of the cast. Det. West isn’t holding half the weight of this show, and neither is Dorff. He doesn’t have to; he’s here to be the swaggering distraction, the companion and colleague but not the co-star. In his yoked blazers with double vents, wide ties worn loose and rumpled), he looks raffish and almost seedy, like Matt Damon playing Jim Rockford . (We know from conversation after the deposition that by 1990, Roland has “done well for himself,” but not how.) Roland West is Wayne Hays’ partner, but Stephen Dorff is undeniably a supporting actor.
Scoot McNairy immerses himself so deeply into worried father (and angry husband) Tom Purcell that it’s hard to see the actor underneath. He is Tom Purcell, is this man’s puttering absorption in his work, is his creeping worry, is his raw, keening panic over his missing kids and his guilty, resentful grief over his son’s death. (In conversation, fellow critic Dennis Perkins, who covered his work in Halt And Catch Fire, aptly described McNairy as “an inhabitor.”)
As Amelia Reardon/Hays, Carmen Ojogo casts a similar spell over a stereotype—a very specific stereotype, but a recognizable one: a book clasped to her bosom and a light in her eye; a gentle hand that elicits answers from a frightened child witness; her practical, stylish boots and A-line skirts. “She’s really authentic to the time,” Ejogo says, and I second that. In clothing and hair style, she looks astonishingly like the modest models in contemporary ads for office wear, and even more astonishingly like a childhood teacher of mine in Houston. (Respect, Mrs. W., it was a good look.)
When Amelia and Wayne talk in the bar, first swapping dossiers, then moving into flirtation, their connection is fast but not fiery, both plausible and palpable. It’s easy to see how the cop who declared in the first episode that he never wants to marry changes his mind, and over a woman he meets only hours after his declaration. And it’s easy to see why this paragon of cool competence immediately identifies her as “a good investigator.”
If any cast can make this assortment of types—the working dad in his beat-up baseball cap, the frazzled mom (Mamie Gummer) who doesn’t even sneak around anymore, the maverick sidekick, the smooth politicos who care more about elections than investigations—this one can. Along with the performances, attention to costume helps these clichéd characters feel alive and lived in: “Trashman” Woodard’s checked wool jacket, with grubby edges around pockets and cuffs; West’s rumpled blazers, like Jim Rockford as played by Matt Damon; Amelia’s eye-catching but practical winter coat. It’s not showy; it’s concrete. It feels real.
Hays looks even more imposing next to his rumpled partner, crisp and unflappable. But as Hays himself says in the first minutes, “the general rule is everybody’s lying, period.” No one and nothing here is telling the whole truth, and not just because, as his hostile former colleague pontificates, we cannot know what we do not know. Wayne Hays doesn’t keep his tie tight because he’s unflappable, but because his tie cannot be loosened. It’s a clip-on, one he wears because he’s “preoccupied” by the thought of being strangled by his necktie.
True Detective lies to us. That’s its nature. Wayne Hays, this pillar of cool but compassionate efficiency, was called in with his partner from a night of knocking back beers and shooting rats; he showed up with chewing gum in his mouth to mask the smell of his misconduct. He’s a man sought for his memories in two timelines, who is plagued by “memory problems.” He’s telling a story, and he has to remind himself what story he’s telling. Whether the details are more fogged by dementia or deceit, we can’t know yet.
We also can’t know yet whether the narrative underlying all this somber pomp is worthy of the performances, the careful costuming, the note-perfect ever-shifting period settings. The pace is taut, unafraid of long pauses and tension that evaporates into nothing. The visuals are austere and forbidding: broad aerial shots of the Ozarks as autumn leans into a long winter, the matter-of-fact grime of everyday work. And Mahershala Ali’s performance lends the first two episodes a grace and gravity far beyond what it’s earned. Here’s hoping the remaining six prove the show, not just the actors, deserve it.
Stray observations
- Welcome to season three coverage of True Detective! While comparisons to previous season are inevitable, early on I’m giving this season a chance to stand or fall on its own strengths. Whatever happens, clearly its greatest strength is Mahershala Ali.
- The premiere shares its title with Paul Fussell’s The Great War And Modern Memory, in which he posits that a generation of artists grew more brutal in their aesthetics and approaches in the aftermath of WWI.
- “There’s another one of them dolls further back, right where the trail got sketchy.” True Detective is always about the trail getting sketchy, and as often as not, the detectives are the ones disguising the path, clouding the questions.
- Those “straw dolls” appear to be cornhusk dolls. Either way, they’re one part Blair Witch Project, one part native arts, and, in close proximity to a child’s murder, 100% creepy.
- The Franklin scandal to which the Sarah Koenig-esque interviewer refers in 2015 was discredited as a hoax in 1990, because—again—True Detective is not about the crime. It’s about the cop.
114 Comments
Ali was great, I expected that, but Dorff was sneaky good.
Agreed, we knew what to expect from Ali, and we got it, but Dorff was surprisingly good in the partner role. The argument between the two was well acted as well as completely believable.I have to mention Scoot McNairy as well. He was great in Halt and Catch Fire and always good in everything I’ve seen him, but damn did he kill it these two episodes as the grieving husband and father. Can’t wait to see more of them.
Check him out in Godless on Netflix. He narrated the new season of Narcos and will be in the next.
I’ve seen Godless (you are so right) and Narcos: Mexico is on my list. Thanks!
I hope he’s not the killer. It would retroactively ruin my esteem for Gordon!
As good as Matt Damon playing Jim Rockford?
As good as Jim Rockford as played by Matt Damon
Dorff is really talented but has never seemed to land any roles of significance, not sure why honestly, but he was really good.
Very underrated actor, for sure.
I think he’s happy not working and waiting for projects that he wants to work on as opposed to over-working and taking roles ‘just because’. He seems like a normal person in that regard.
The entire tone may be familiar, the Southern setting similar to the first season, the lurid crime and sketchy characters beautifully cast, but damn does it not pull you in. I am gobsmacked by Ali, his commanding presence during the initial investigation, the make-up aging him 35 years complimented by his hunched near defeated carriage and addled mind is thrilling. I have no idea where this story will take us, but Ali is enough……more than enough.By the way, there was no Harvest Moon on November 7 1980, Steve McQueen’s death. Damn.
Looked it up myself, November 22, 1980 was the full moon. I hope it’s a statement about how memory can be faulty, and not a really dumb oversight that would be very easy to check, especially when they make such a big deal about both details.
I don’t mind that. It’s a work of fiction, and if “Harvest Moon” seemed more evocative, I have no problem with a writer using it.
It’s only two episodes but this is a perfect example of how the same aesthetic, mood, and themes can be great to replicate as long as you have a good and compelling story. I don’t care if it “feels” like season 1 as long as it’s good and not a carbon copy. It’s different enough so far that I’m completely in for what it’s putting down, especially with this cinematography and performances. The writing is back to season 1 levels and you can see how the extra time suits Nic Pizzolatto.Season 1 was a masterpiece and one of my favorite seasons of television even if the last couple episodes are a bit of a notch down. I’m not sure if season 3 can get to the perfection that was the first two-thirds of the first season but it doesn’t have to, to be great. The problem I had with Erik Adams’ season review on this site, was that he leaned on the familiarity as a detriment too heavily. That’s only time that’s a fair criticism is if it’s stroke for stroke (so far it’s not) and not very good (so far it’s incredible).
Personally, I think the writing has been better so far. Season one’s writing was overwrought (not just talking about Rust Chole, which was in character). What I’m looking forward too is if Nick P. commits to post modernism like he hinted at in season one in that there is something to be said about how we conflate the stories we tell others with those we tell ourselves.
It’s expanding on the themes introduced in season 1, visually showing how time is a flat circle much better than season 1 did (and season 1’s visuals were already great, but this one seems to feed into its theme better), and it’s a different kind of case (missing person vs. homicide), so I’d agree and say it’s different enough to warrant a “I’m watching the shit out of this” pass.
November 7, 1980 was just three days after the presidential election.
He really is doing a good job in playing Hays as a young man and old man. He is not just letting make up doing all the work.
A full moon on November 7 would not be a Harvest Moon, in any case
Just wanted to chime in and say that the Franklin Scandal is not a “hoax.” Sex trafficking is real and happens in America. Read “The Franklin Scandal” by Nick Bryant — it’s an excellent piece of journalism that goes into excruciating detail into one of the worst things to ever happen in the US, and the subsequent coverup by the media/police/government. Listen to the last podcast on the left episode for a slightly easier to pallet summary. Parts of it could be false, but the grit of it is very, very true.
I liked these two episodes. Marhershala Ali makes them. The cinematography is gorgeous. Too much reliance on the music to set the eerie tone.
I liked that racism didn’t play much a factor in Wayne’s life, so far, but that could be because reportedly Pizzolatto originally wrote Wayne to be white until Ali changed his mind (according to Vulture’s recap). But good rewriting with how Wayne and Amelia talk about racism.
Wayne in 2015 is an interesting story: he’s haunted by something, not just the case. We’ll see if thinking about it again is a good thing. Liked Mamie Gummer playing against the kinds of roles we’ve usually seen her in.
Before they get the call about the missing kids, Wayne not letting Roland kill the fox and their subsequent conversation about which prey to kill is probably thematic significant, and I think I know how, tied in with Old Wayne, but that would be a spoiler if I’m correct; I’ll have to see more episodes to see if the show is going where I think it is.
I think I’ve only seen Mamie Gummer in the second season of Manhattan, so I’m not sure what roles she usually gets. I do sometimes have trouble keeping track of which Gummer sister is which.Unless you’ve got inside information the rest of us lack, I’d say it’s just speculation rather than a spoiler.
She’s usually miscast. She often plays someone more glamorous and mysterious than she is…I’ve heard she is good on stage. I usually like her sister Grace Gummer more but her role in Mr. Robot is awful, she’s a kind of fanboy’s attempt to reimagine Kojak and Columbo minus any sense of reality. Kind of like Katherine Waterston, who is often cast in alluring charismatic roles and has the charisma of an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper. Whoops was that harsh? Oh wait, what do they have in common? Nepotism.
Eh, I think Katherine Waterston was great in Inherent Vice as an alluring femme fatale who doesn’t have that much underneath her.
she’s just a cold fish to me. The ending of the first Fantastic Beasts was completely perplexing, she treated Newt like a goober for the whole film then all of a sudden IT’S LOVE she was just playing hard to get meaning completely contemptuous and uninterested.
I’ll admit that I haven’t seen enough of Waterston on screen to properly rebuff what you’re saying, but I’d say that anything bad about Fantastic Beasts is more the fault of Rowling being an awful, awful screenwriter. Crimes of Grindelwald REALLY shows that she has no idea how to pace a script.
No I rly blame Waterston, the relationship between Queenie and Chubbster works great…it doesn’t help that the redheaded stepchild plays Newt like a wet snot dribble but the person opposite him has to sell that she’s attracted to him. Think about all those women through the years who sold that they wanted to make it with Ron Jeremy, it’s like that. Or sold that somebody who is very not physically intimidating (Tom Cruise) can beat them up (he can’t).
I didn’t realize Katherine Waterston was the offspring of anyone famous until you mentioned it, despite the shared surname.
Mamie Gummer had a CW show (Emily Owens M.D.) that was very Grey’s Anatomy-lite which is my immediate frame of reference for her so this definitely seems against that type just by virtue of the type of show?
In this interview it’s referenced that she was excited to play a disheveled redneck for the first time:https://uproxx.com/tv/mamie-gummer-true-detective-season-3-interview-meryl-streep/
I think I’ve only seen Mamie Gummer in the second season of
Manhattan, so I’m not sure what roles she usually gets. I do sometimes
have trouble keeping track of which Gummer sister is which.Unless you’ve got inside information the rest of us lack, I’d say it’s just speculation rather than a spoiler.
You should really just go ahead and share that speculation. That’s kind of the point of True Detective and the internet.
I thought the same re the cinematography. One shot thru the grass of Ali as he searched in particular, the town, etc. Ali is amazing. I pray to God that’s a wig Mamie is wearing and they didn’t destroy her hair.
“I liked that racism didn’t play much a factor in Wayne’s life”I have to disagree a bit. Check out the scene at the top of the manhunt where he gives two troopers their running orders, and they wait a good long time before deciding to obey. There’s a lot of really subtle stuff. (The documentarian’s attempt to bond with him over assumed racism is another one.)
I agree. I guess I meant it wasn’t overt, like you’d see in other stories like this. Though it might escalate as the series goes on.
Oh yeah, and that look he gave his son… Twitter saw it too
“Wayne not letting Roland kill the fox and their subsequent conversation about which prey to kill is probably thematic significant”Turns out you were correct!
Now here’s hoping they don’t kill off Ali partway through and replace him with another character. Jokes aside though I’m enjoying it so far. I know I watched the second season but, for the life of me, I couldn’t tell you now what it was about. This one already feels like it won’t have the same problem so here’s hoping that holds true.
With the second season, people might be better off starting with the fifth episode. Caspere is a completely unsympathetic victim and the initial investigation is something of a charade. It will be confusing without all the info in the earlier episodes, but it’s going to be confusing no matter what.
Interestingly enough, I watched season two multiple times, not because I loved it or anything, more because I wanted to like it more than I did and I was hoping I missed something. However, I still couldn’t really tell you what the story was about.
It is really killing me that I can’t watch this season, mainly because it’s taking place in Arkansas, where I live. Though, I’m in the southwest corner an hour out from Texarkana, and this season is located in the northwest near Fayetteville.
Cable hasn’t made it to the southwest corner of Arkansas?
Basic, sure. You want Premium you gotta go to Little Rock.
HBO costs extra.
I got Direct TV, but we can’t afford HBO at the moment. That will change when Game Of Thrones comes back.
I thought the racism was pretty present already. Like when Hays and West first speak with the father, Tom. Even though Hays was driving the questions, Tom was looking and answering them to West, and just turn his head back to Hays. As though just to make sure he was listening. And when Hays yelled out for the cops to stop standing around and start canvassing the neighbors for info. Those guys moved slow as fuck like they couldn’t be bothered even though there’s two kids missing. I’m getting this as deliberate due to Ali’s interview with Entertainment Weekly on how the racism is not so blatant and obvious.Anyway, onto the story, the reveal at the end of episode 1, that Julie was alive, put a jolt to the story where I’m not sure where it goes.
I noticed that too and thought it was really subtle and well-done. There was probably still a lot of blatant racism in 1980, but it was the smaller, less obvious stuff (I live in Louisiana, and believe me that hasn’t gone away) that was more aggravating to deal with, precisely because it was so ingrained and not even noticeable to white people.
I picked up on that latent racism too. I thought that was a great touch. Just the way you would expect that situation to play out, people unsure if they have to submit to this guy’s authority. And it also adds a layer to his 2015 answer of “no” when the TV lady asked if he thought racism played a part in marginalizing him. Did he really believe it didn’t, does he not remember, is he lying?
Remember when he blames Detective West for not speaking up and that he knew they wouldnt listen to him?
It’s why I think he’s well aware of the racism. I think he was dismissive of the interviewer because he sees she’s trying to me this interview a more serious journalistic approach when her job is more considered a rag or flighty journalism.
They already kind of cheekily tied this in to the first season: note the documentarian saying how the dolls could be a marker, like “the crooked spiral.”
I caught that too. Surprised the review didn’t mention it.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Ali ended up winning an Emmy and another Oscar this year. His performance here alone was as good an apology as any for Season 2.
Agree. Saw Green Book this weekend, he was incredible. Just incredible. Could make you laugh and cry in the same scene.
He didn’t bring soldiers back from his recons, he brought back scalps.
So he’s a black hole?
I enjoyed this quite a bit. They’re largely remaking the first season, clearly hoping to recapture some of the acclaim they lost with the shitsauce season two. But I’m fine with it. Ali’s a riveting presence, as always. I also like the idea of memory and time being fluid, and Hays not necessarily being the most reliable of narrators. But I do miss the philosophical bent of the first season a bit.
Foreshadowing fun: Roland telling his partner that he’s making about as much sense as a ‘grandmother with dementia’.
Callback fun: THE CROOKED SPIRAL
My thoughts after watching: In Season 1, from the start with that awesome opening score by The Handsome Family, writing, casting, etc., etc.—when all the pieces fell together, something magical happened. That something cannot be forced or created. It just sometimes happens. I became excited to watch from the first few minutes of Season 1. Season 3 just fell flat for me.
I caught a comment from Pizzolatto where he said that this season is about exploring the nature of memory through the device of a detective story. So, I’m guessing there is a philosophical bent, just not the sort of big philosophical question of season 1 (something like how we make existence worthwhile given the underlying absurdity and badness of the world). Maybe it’s because I’m also working my way through Homecoming, but I do think they could do something interesting here with regard to the connection between memory and self-identity and this sense that Hays is searching back through his memories to essentially put together himself. I would say that I’m waiting for Pizzolatto to namedrop Proust in one of his after the episode segments, but I feel like he’s the sort of pretentious that would find Proust too mainstream.
Also consider that he is searching through all this, at least in his elderly state, the effects of collective memory. In crass terms, when and why do you believe the bullshit we, and other people, tell about ourselves?
Feels a little harsh to say the characters aren’t fleshed out when we’re only 2 episodes in.
I’m laughing out loud at this tryhard post title. Calm down.
two thoughts:1) stephen dorff in dennis quaid cosplay is weird AF, but not bad.2) was terrified that this was going to be a West Memphis Three story line based on the interviews with the teenagers riding in the VW. hoping the show doesn’t go down that path, it’d be pretty lazy on the part of the writers and could never live up to the real story of that case.
THAT’S who Stephen Dorff reminded me of! I kept thinking he looked a lot like some other, older actor, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
In stills, I definitely kept getting a Billy Bob Thornton vibe, though he’s much shorter (or is Mahershala really tall?)
Mahershala Ali is tall but not crazy tall, he’s just over 6-foot. Dorff is pretty short (although not by Hollywood standards, where wee little men abound).
Me too when I saw the photo on HBO Go I thought they got Billy Bob for this season.
Ali is 6’2″
It is partly based on WM3, and Damien has been sharing articles about the season that explain the connection. I don’t know if he was involved with it in any way though.
Therew was an interview in, I think E last week and Pizzolato said it’s defintely not going to go down a WM3 route, which is good.
West Memphis Three was the first thing that came to my mind too, but It’s sounding like only one person was falsely blamed for the crime, so it may just be an allusion to misdirect viewers.
Ali does a great job. I was also pleasantly surprised by Dorff. In season 2, I found the writing to be clunky and out of touch. There were a couple moments in the first 2 episodes that were cringey but overall I got hooked.
Hays was a “LRRP” in the Army — which means he did long range recon in small teams of 5 or 6 (and sometimes alone), but he didn’t come back with “lost soldiers”. As Dorff points out, he came back “with scalps”. LRRP units were explicitly encouraged to ramp up kill numbers by their command to try to morph into non-traditional guerrilla warfare specialists much like the VC they were fighting. LRRP was the precursor to today’s Special Ops Rangers – a designation that had been mothballed after Korea.
Apparently the “crooked spiral” reference was a fun call back to season one and places both seasons “in the same universe”, but doesn’t have any deeper implications:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/true-detective-season-3-connection-season-1-explained-1175607
The crooked spiral is a symbol used by pedophiles to recognize each other and their sexual preferences.
Wayne screams unreliable narrator to me. Anyone else get that?
Yes, almost immediately. We’re watching memories, which are unreliable for anyone, mores so for someone with what seems to be early stage Alzheimer’s.
Pizzolatto has shot that down, much to my relief. I’m tired of unreliable narrators at the moment.https://ew.com/tv/2019/01/09/true-detective-nic-pizzolatto-interview-season-3/
Agreed. Hate feeling like I’m getting purposely fooled all the time.
What’s interesting is that although Pizzolatto reassures us everything we’re seeing actually happened, it’s what we don’t see – or moreover, what Hays didn’t see – that will end up being the puzzle piece that makes it all fit.
I miss Alphas.I’m definitely watching this, but I am really wondering how something can be 90% one actor who everybody says is utterly entrancing…but that the show definitely does not pull you in. Maybe like Capote, where you could kind of take or leave the rest of the movie? (and which was made at the height of those jewel-box boutique movies with three famous actors as the whole cast solely to get them into two theaters in NYC and a nomination).Also, Ali is who Pizzolatto wants to be, Dorff is who Pizzolatto is. Maybe if they lean into the trashy lovecraftian pulp and away from whatever possessed him to write those horrific Vince Vaughn monologues they’ll find a balance. I don’t want to read too closely to spoil it: is there supernatural stuff in this season? I’d be happy if they went all the way to The Horror at Red Hook.
“Ali is who Pizzolatto wants to be, Dorff is who Pizzolatto is”That is such a weird thing to take from the TD series.
The only thing that I noticed was in the boy’s room ‘ The Forests of Leng ‘ on the table which it says is an Advanced D&D module. Not many people knew about Lovecraft back then.
I keep going back to an article I read recently (maybe Atlantic?) that asked— what is True Detective about? Like what’s the recipe that makes up its anthology soup, vs something like AHS or Fargo, where you just kind of get it. True Detective’s charter is, I guess, a kind of moody detective noir? If that’s the consistent thread, I wish it pushed that concept (much) farther. This one is really going back to the season one well, which fine, but absent the original duo’s chemistry, it doesn’t really do much for me. It’s fine enough– Ali is good, though I don’t think he’s given much to work with (I know, he’s subtle!), but I wonder if anyone would be talking about this show if the first season hadn’t worked so well.
The Northwest AR area facebook is awash with OMG LOOK! I KNOW THAT PLACE!Interestingly, the show is okay calling my town by its name (Fayetteville), Ft. Smith and Little Rock by their name, but West Fork got the proverbial Finger on that front.
In clothing and hair style, she looks astonishingly like the modest
models in contemporary ads for office wear, and even more astonishingly
like a childhood teacher of mine in Houston. (Respect, Mrs. W., it was a
good look.)Oh, dear. I taught middle school in Cy-Fair for two years back in the late ‘90s. Fortunately, my last name does not start with a “W”! (Plus, my personal style is — only slightly — less marm-ish than Amelia’s, but she’s also three times more beautiful than me, so….)
“…graces the weight of True Detective with his gravity.” Well, this is one of the more nonsensical sentences I’ve encountered.
Getting serious West Memphis Three vibes from this.Didn’t consume any of the trailers leading up to this so when he came on screen I said aloud “Is that Stephen Dorff, holy shit it’s Stephen Dorff!” I know season 2 comparisons shouldn’t be a thing but holy shit I am all in on this in a way that I never was with S2.
What the fuck is that headline supposed to mean?
Can anybody prove to me conclusively that Carmen Ojogo and Tessa Thompson are, in fact, different people?
Wait, does Stephen Dorff’s character resemble Matt Damon playing Jim Rockford? I’m not clear on that point.
It’s like Emily was being paid by the Matt Damon reference.
it wasn’t very saulnier-esque. If these are the episodes directed by a guy with talent, and the remainder of the season was directed by TV hacks/nick pizzalatte, I strongly suspect it’s going to suck balls
I don’t know about gracing its weigh with his gravity, but he CERTAINLY blesses its mass with his momentum.
Once Ali forces himself onto a role, his inertia just keeps him going. That is, unless there’s friction with his coworkers. Then, it just grinds the performance to a halt.
I really enjoyed both of these episodes. The one nitpick I have, aside from perhaps a lack of dark comedy that the first season seemed to indulge sometimes, is the direction of the interview/heavy dialogue scenes. There’s a short critique video comparing the first two seasons that I always think of (link at end) now, which shows how the blocking for those types of scenes in the first season was much more dynamic, and very static in the 2nd, making it a far less interesting watch, since True Detective really lives in its person-to-person dialogue scenes. This season seems to be repeating the style of the 2nd, with most just being static shot-reverse-shot. I’m not familiar with Jeremy Sauliner, but I’m hoping he can deliver some more stylistic touches in the coming episodes. (video link)
Watch more of Saulnier’s movies.TRUST ME when I say this: the guy knows how to direct the shit out of a scene.I think he’s a much better candidate for this type of material than the half-assed work Justin Lin (who I normally dig) did.
Saulnier is definitely perfect for this show, which worries me that he was supposed to to do the entire season and ended up only doing a partial.
As someone who loved S1 and skipped S2 because of the poor reception and a scarcity of leisure time, do you think it’d be worth it to watch S2 before S3?
I wouldn’t bother. Just start S3.
Karma did you a solid. Don’t question it, and don’t look back.
If you are someone who likes to snark about the surface level of TV shows don’t watch it. If you are someone open to odd amalgamations of various “L.A. crime” styles it’s worth it.
I still enjoyed season 2 when I completely separated it from season 1 which was my favorite thing ever on tv. It’s a mess though but it had enough moments that I did like but I would not prioritize it in any way, especially before season 3.
I liked S2 quite a bit and its completely unnecessary to watch it before this one. I’d suggest checking it out someday when you do have time to kill.
I’m pleasantly surprised. The reviews I skimmed prior to the premiere were not kind to bad in scale and the first two episodes are way better than I was expecting. These ‘reviewers’ sheesh.. If I stumbled upon this like I did for the initial TD offering 5 yrs ago I would be as hooked as I was then on this series. Good TV.
Nic Pizzolatto appropriating Fussell’s book title is odd from every angle. It has a very limited culture resonance. There is a poignancy to connecting the soldiers of WWl through to modern policing. Many ex-servicemen have gone onto the force over the decades.
As fate would have it, this is also one heck of a flat circle for me. I was in Paul Fussell’s class at Rutgers in the spring of 1980, which he build around The Great War and Modern Memory. I think Fussell’s look at the archetypes of myth and their influence on/interference with memory may have more to do with what Nic is relating to, rather than the aesthetics of a generation.
This review went on and on and on just like the premiere
It might be nothing, but seems like a big deal in that they specifically pointed it out and have such attention to detail. November 7, 1980 was a New Moon, not a Full Moon. Just throwing that out there: I’m sure it will come back later as his memory issues continue to unravel his story. They are correct, though, in that Steve McQueen died that day.
Huh… I caught something that’s either a mistake, laziness, or a ridiculously deep clue/easter egg: when the two detectives go the the diner in 1980 to talk to LaGrange, the song playing in the background is “Reconsider Me” by Warren Zevon… which wasn’t released until 1987.
Nic Pizzolatto appropriating Fussell’s book title is odd from every angle. It has a very limited culture resonance. However, there is a poignancy to connecting the soldiers of WWl through to modern policing. Many ex-servicemen have gone onto the force over the decades.
As fate would have it, this is also one heck of a flat circle for me. I was in Paul Fussell’s class at Rutgers in the spring of 1980, which he built around The Great War and Modern Memory. I think Fussell’s look at the archetypes of myth and their influence on/interference with memory may have more to do with what Nic is relating to, rather than the aesthetics of a generation.
I quite liked this premiere. I quit the first season about halfway in (but I’m not a fan of McConaughey) and the second after its premiere, but I think I’m in for the long haul on this one.My big theory is that Wayne’s daughter, in the present, is dead. The son and wife seemed agitated to be answering the same question in a way that seemed slightly deceptive to me, and I think that’s what is going on. Is the house we saw them in Wayne’s house or his son’s (or do they live together)? My impression is that siblings generally don’t have solo photos of their other, adult siblings.
They’ve really nailed the feel of Washington County, Arkansas. I grew up in Central AR, but spent many years in Washington. The town in the show appears to be an approximation of West Fork and the surrounding areas. I’ve hiked all around Devil’s Den, and it’s terribly haunting to know exactly where they filmed the discovery of Will’s body. Aside from accent discrepancies for a couple characters (Northwest Arkansans don’t sound like they’re from the delta), this show is perfection in terms of setting.
I wonder what, if any, significance there is to the Freemason ring that the camera really wanted us to see Dorff wearing.
C+ versus a B+ so far
I understand why there’s dueling reviews here, but that doesn’t make the disparity between them any less silly
Ali is frustrating to me because I am so sick of him rolling his eyes in too, too many takes. That is not a good response. And he’s mumbling through the whole damn thing, or HBO fucked up on picking up his voice. HBO has a fucking AWFUL record on audio and they refuse to fix it, year after year. Thats why I dont have HBO!