“Are you awakening to what you withheld?”
In “The Big Never,” True Detective trots out a whole new bag of toys to distract and tantalize the audience. While the task force’s uniforms tramp heavily over the crime scene, Wayne Hays hunts signs of the kids’ trail alone, walking with measured steps, and his care is rewarded. He finds Will’s missing D&D dice, then a grubby tote crammed with toys. Finally, with quiet but clear horror, he spots a cluster of rocks with Will’s blood and hair still sticking to them.
It’s a big break, or it should be, in both the case and the story. So is Hays’ discovery of the Purcell’s baby book (prominently titled Precious Memories), where a photo from Will’s first communion shows his hands folded as they were in death. If we didn’t know that was a meaningful clue, Mahershala Ali’s quiet intensity as he gazes down at it would tell us.
But that’s all True Detective is telling us so far. There are clues, and they are big. We can’t know what they mean, even to the detectives, because the writers don’t want us to. This season is designed to fascinate and frustrate, with the dialogue throwing out clues and hints, not facts or even intuitions.
The most overt of these hints is the two-part premiere’s mentions of “what happened to Julie and her father” in 1990. The event hasn’t been revealed, though the characters (at the 1990 deposition, at the 2015 filming, and Wayne Hays himself) know about it. That’s not a mystery. That’s willful narrative obstruction. At first it was playful. Now it’s edging on tedious.
True Detective’s third season is characterized by omissions. Maybe by season’s end, the show will have earned the trust that intentional blanks demand. But it hasn’t yet.
It’s hard to credit that two experienced detectives took a full week to wonder why the children lied about their destination the day they disappeared. It’s even harder when one of those detectives, a skilled tracker and an insightful thinker, explicitly describes his approach to each case as “everybody lies, period.”
Three episodes in, True Detective’s nominal mystery is dragging. The Purcell children are ciphers, not characters. Their disappearance is a prop to hold up a greater mystery, a mystery of the human heart and head. But the kids need to matter or nothing matters. And the kids don’t seem to matter much on True Detective. Not yet.
They’re not the only ones. “The Big Never” is full of characters made into ghosts. Lucy Purcell looms still and pale in a mirror, peering in as Det. Hays searches her daughter’s room again. Lagging behind her dad at Walmart, little Becca Hays (Kennedi Lynn Butler) flutters in and out of sight, her face obscured, foreshadowing the brief disappearance that strikes fear into her father’s heart. And, of course, the closest thing to a real ghost: the late Amelia Hays, her voice honeyed and ominous, appearing behind her widower as he sits at his desk, a revolver inches away.
Of these three characters, Amelia is the most present and the most fleshed-out, but here she’s used as an instrument of Wayne’s mind, existing to speak terrible truths. Sitting behind him in the dim room, the memory (or vision) of Amelia pontificates: “Einstein said past, present, and future are all a stubbornly persistent illusion. And are you waking up to that illusion? Now, while things fall apart? Are you starting to see them clearly?” There are question marks at the ends of those sentences, but they aren’t questions, not really.
Wayne Hays quakes with mortal terror, and maybe something beyond mere mortality. It’s not only that his case—his last case—is falling apart, that a cover-up is falling apart, that his memory is falling apart. For Wayne Hays, everything is falling apart, and falling together. His memory is churning itself into a mass of confusion. “Please, not like this,” he pleads. “Whatever’s happening, I don’t deserve this.” Amelia agrees. No one deserves this.
“You’re worried what they’ll find. What you left in the woods. Finish it,” Amelia (who isn’t really Amelia, but Wayne’s restless mind) says. But that’s just one more bag of tricks, one more distraction from what the series is really about. Amelia’s crucial line isn’t one that reveals Wayne’s professional secrets or his terror at the dissolution of time. It’s simpler, and sadder. “And at the end of all things,” she asks, “are you awakening to what you withheld?”
True Detective withholds evidence, and so did Wayne Hays. But he’s withheld more than professional secrets. He withheld himself from his wife, from their children. And just as he can’t change the choices of a past investigation, he can’t change the ways he let life pass while he fretted over cases. Over a case. He can’t change how that case changed the course of his life. The case is interwoven in his life, sparking his marriage, then seemingly destroying it, stealing his focus from his own children. As Amelia says of Robert Penn Warren’s Tell Me A Story, the story and the self are inseparable.
True Detective’s reluctance to let us into its secrets is purposeful, mimicking Wayne’s history and his predicament. He’s withheld so many things so long that finally he struggles to reveal them even to himself. My quibble isn’t with the story’s structure, the intentional omissions and the way characters talk around the facts. It’s with the story’s graceless handling of that structure, its failure to provide anything substantive while we wait, and with the show’s descent into self-parody while it sits on its secrets.
It sounds silly, almost prim, to say that this outing of True Detective—a show built on murder, missing persons, and staged corpses—is too violent. The show’s harshness is one of its hallmarks. But this season, it’s hard to know whether the violence is driving the story or coming along for the ride.
Hays and West dragging a suspect out for a violent interrogation, a gang of neighbors ambushing Brett Woodard (Michael Greyeyes): These scenes are crammed into the action with crass abruptness. As gut-churning as they are, they’re empty compared to the emotional pain unfolding in other scenes. When Amelia swaggers in fresh from interviewing the Sallisaw cops, her husband shames her for her glow of investigative triumph. In “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye,” young Henry (Isaiah C. Morgan) beams as he tells his dad of a triumph, and Wayne hears not a word of it. It’s small. And it’s the most important thing in life.
Maybe the violence, emotional and physical, is necessary to create the oases of mundane peace with which True Detective occasionally surprises us. In “The Big Never,” one such moment comes from Roland West’s visit to Tom Purcell. Light spilling into his kitchen shows the bereft father now sober, quiet, and reflective. Even West, a fidgety firecracker in 1980, radiates subdued calm in 1990. He’s the one who hauled Purcell “out of that hole” five years back; he’s the rugged lieutenant who takes his former partner’s put-downs in stride.
The performances are quietly contemplative, patient, profound. The story isn’t. It’s teasing us along with small revelations that mean nothing so far. A bag of toys hidden in the rocks. A set of D&D dice scattered on the cold autumn ground. A tantalizing hint of secrets willfully withheld by the very detective charged with exposing secrets. We’re not Elisa (Sarah Gadon), a documentarian with all the facts spread out before us. We’re not the deposition lawyers, skeptically poking into a known past. And we’re not the Purcell kids, ready to be tempted by a cheap bag of tricks.
There are mysteries, and then there’s trickery. Mysteries can be profound, unsettling, revelatory. Trickery is shallow. Like Wayne Hays, tormented by fragments of his own memory and the haunting sense that there is something more, something dreadful, looming behind those scattered pieces, we don’t deserve this.
Stray observations
- “This is like Afro Hart To Hart?” I would watch Carmen Ejogo and Mahershala Ali solve silly mysteries in swanky ’80s style for a decade, and again in syndication.
- Even before they start dating, True Detective shows Amelia Reardon and Wayne Hays walking along, half-flirting and half-fighting, their hands full of red (okay, orange) flags.
- I’d put money on the long duffle that Brett Woodard handles so gingerly being anything but Julie’s body, probably a shotgun or other weapon he plans to carry in case of future ambushes.
- After the heart-stopping fear of losing his daughter, and the inseparable way the Purcell case still gnaws at him, Wayne’s lecture to his wife makes perfect psychological sense. But it’s also an indictment of pop-culture preoccupation with true crime stories, an appetite for pulp and real-life potboilers that’s only grown in the years True Detective has been on the back burner.
94 Comments
Ahh, this is where many get frustrated with the True Detective series because, it is a procedural, it can be creepy and lurid, but a procedural. But I have to differ with Emily’s take on the children and omissions. First the three time lines are so brilliantly woven together, one does not lose the threads. But those time lines by virtue of their careful construction draw you in to fill in the gaps, taking clues from the years previous, apply to the time frame at the moment. I think that’s the appeal of True Detective, we aren’t just watching it unfold, we are participating in assembling the pieces.As for the kids, the twist I like very much is that they are liars, victims yes but they are more than “ciphers”, their characters are being built with each episode and it is getting quite arrestingThat said, any television that ends with one of Jerry Lee Lewis’ greatest C&W songs is right by me
Yeah, I wouldn’t say that it’s completely beside the point, but I’ve always thought that for season 1 and this season it looks like, the procedural crime mystery isn’t the main mystery. It’s more about exploring this connection of memory, time, and self-identity, and what it would feel like for that to start coming unglued. So, I really don’t care how long it takes them to get to the proverbial fireworks factory on the procedural, or even if they get to the fireworks factory on that front (I thought the first season should have ended without a clear answer to the procedural side of things).
the procedural crime mystery isn’t the main mystery. It’s more about
exploring this connection of memory, time, and self-identity, and what
it would feel like for that to start coming unglued…….Agreed, as with the previous seasons of TD, it’s about the people populating the stories with their flaws and foibles, mistakes and misdirections as it is about solving a murder case. The water is murky for a reason.
Im not one to complain about the writing on this site but this whole review was just bad. She completely missed the mark. The show is nowhere near too violent. Sometimes I read stuff in here and am just dumbfounded the reviewer was watching the same thing.
Agree – and one of her examples was Wayne “shaming” his wife for coming home from dinner with another cop/detective. Whom she clearly told her husband she would flirt with to gather information. Making it a date. Smelling of alcohol. I’m surprised the reviewer missed that this is also how he and his wife started, all of which – in addition to the terrifying event at Walmart (yes, 10 minutes without your child after a small town abduction is terrifying) – would lead him to react that way.
Yeah to try and put it delicately it seems like the author wanted to read into it stuff that wasn’t there and it just stunk of an agenda more than a review. Hopefully someone else will review the other episodes or I’ll just be tuning out the reviews here.
Yep, I am one of those people. Halfway into S1 I thought “wow, this show really is different”. I loved it, I was on board with all the Yellow King stuff. Words can’t describe my dissapointment in the last two episodes of that series. Nothing mattered, all the clues were just..I don’t know, interesting deceptions? It was just some tubby guy in a barn with speakers set up. Just terrible (IMO).
Season 2 was legitimately the worst series of television I’ve sat through until the end. It was the worst attempt at Lynchian television in recent history, I still shudder thinking of those bar scenes.
I know this is overtly negative, but it’s only because I really though this show had the makings of something much more brilliant. I’m watching the new season because I feel like it’s a step in the right direction so far and the acting is superb.
You know. In the first episode, during the funeral, they talk about a previous marriage and then they brush it off to the side and then Scoot demands the detectives to leave the funeral. It was Probably their previous mother who took them. Explains the toys, the children’s potential willingness to go with them, and the photo album, I’m sure she would have had to seen it (maybe even made it?) before.
There’s no “previous mother”. Scoot’s character got married due to a pregnancy, but his parents speculate that he’s not really that boy’s father.
girl’s (Julie)
It would be quite bizarre if Lucy’s body were in that bag, since we already know her prints turn up ten years later. I’m assuming weaponry in there plays a part in the 1980 investigation getting FUBAR.
100% expecting Woodward to be killed by cops because he’s armed when they come to question him next episode.
If they come looking for him at his house, he’s not going to be there. I’m guessing he gets into trouble before he even runs into them.
He’s also not hard to notice wherever he is, and won’t get far fast in that go-cart
I think what really makes this episode work for me — besides all the unraveling of the case and the uncovering of further clues — was the coup de grâce of seeing Hayes and Roland getting the band back together in 1990 to end the episode.It was arguably more powerful than seeing Marty and Rust getting together much deeper in season 1, having this happen so much earlier in the series results in a sign that the 90 plot line is about to rise into it’s own.
It really was a beautiful little scene. Between Dorff’s barely concealed little smirk and Ali’s uncomfortable shifting from playful bitterness to mildly drunken aggressiveness to bashful acceptance with shades of all in between. It even had a dick joke that made me laugh. The interplay between partners is by far my favorite part of this show.
Completely agree. I disagree with the reviewer’s assumption that the characters in 1990 know what happened in 1990 “with Julie and her father.” I think we are going to see, very soon, what happened with Julie and her father, after they are reunited. And we are going to see the repercussions of that on West and Hayes
Poor Brett Woodard, not only a victim of the war, but of the regional racism of the time, and further alienation that will probably result in him snapping.I wonder if Hayes failing career in the proceeding 10 years to the 90s timeline has to do with him blowing up at his superiors — based on Roland’s comments at the bar — for Woodard’s probable incarceration and railroading for the murder and disappearance of the kids.
there’s also the three ‘bad kid’ teens in the Beetle to consider.
Brown sedan.
I’m not sure how well this will tie into the rest of the story, either thematically or plot-wise. In this episode, it feels like a bit of sideshow, meant to generate some action while the main plot drags over the middle of the season. If the story ends up being about the psychological impact of the tragedy on the town (sort of like Broadchurch), then it fits in. But it seems like the focus is more on Wayne confronting something that has side-tracked – and perhaps ruined – his life, and getting closure. In which case, I have a hard time foreseeing how this Woodard stuff will amount to anything of consequence.
There was also the line, kind of a throwaway, I think between West and Hayes at the bar, that “the guy’s kids hired them/him” — which I took to imply Woodward’s kids had hired an investigator to clear their father’s name. I fully expect him (Woodward) to die, either in custody or in suicide or suicide-by-cop when they come to arrest him.
That line was actually spoken by the Purcell father to West when he goes to visit in the 90’s timeline, which would certainly add up, since they’ve made such a point of mentioning that Woodard has kids.
Carmen lost her american accent in the car in front of the walgreens…were there even Walgreen’s in the south in that year, it wasn’t like today, the owner used to visit each store every year, now he can’t…Wal-Mart and Walgreen’s product placement? Dorff is doing good. you do just keep having to ask are things more profound just because they are done slower? That is the question with True Detective a lot, but also with general HBO stalling. They need to either make their seasons six episodes and take the air out, or spend the time on actual character development. Rly, almost nothing happened during this entire hour.Also, Sarah Gadon (who might have the most perfect face in creation) needs to be doing more than this part if HBO hired her, she will go into the field and do something or her casting makes no sense, she is too good for this part so far, EBERT COMMANDS.
I got distracted during that scene in the car because I was looking up Walgreen’s history (Couldn’t determine if they had a footprint in Arkansas in the 80’s, but convenient that their logo has remained essentially unchanged since the 50’s.)
Wasn’t the Walgreens in question in Oklahoma (just across the AR border)? Still a valid point about if they had a presence there, though.
That Walgreen’s was supposed to be in Sallisaw, OK which is an easy drive from the Devil’s Den area of NWARK.
I too wondered if Walgreens existed in 1990. Fun fact I didn’t know until recently was Walmart was founded in the 80s.
Walgreens has been around since before prohibition. Scripts for alcohol during prohibition is what allowed them to build their empire. I think they went from like 20 stores to 500 stores during prohibition.And Wal Mart hq is in Arkansas.
Your fun fact is completely untrue therefore not much fun
Womp Womp. Ok, for my next totally unsupported guess even though it takes less than a minute to find out, I’m gonna say Walmart was founded in the 1960s. If not, there’s only one other decade it could be!
I have no clue about Walgreens, but you absolutely cannot show Arkansas in 1990 without Walmart.
Here’s how I feel about this season so far, although nobody asked.
Sometimes you fall in love with a new band. Their sound is different, exciting, compelling. They become one of your favorites by virtue of sheer audacity and envelope-pushing. That’s the first season of TD for me. And down the line, your relationship with that favorite band changes a bit. You start to see, well damn, they have a formula they stick to because they know it works. They reconfigure a few elements, and roll it down the production line, but it’s essentially the same song as that first one you fell in love with, years ago. That doesn’t mean it’s not fun. You can enjoy the hell out of the formula while seeing through the machinery to know that it’s formula. That’s this season to me.
And if we carry the analogy further, S2 of TD is the ‘difficult’ sophomore album that tries something new and loses that band all the fans they gained with their hot-shit debut. Season three is the inevitably ‘back to basics’ course correction album. Its the same song once again, but damned if it isn’t a good one. Good enough for you to choose not to notice too much that it’s the same song.
And to continue your metaphor, hopefully the “outro” to this “song” will be more satisfying than the first one – there’s always room to improve on something good.
As far as ‘too many unanswered questions’ goes, I prefer that to the unnatural forced exposition that the reviewer seems to desire, which would totally take me right out of the story, verisimilitude-wise.
The story isn’t about the kids, y’know? At all. Did Dory Lang ‘matter’ in Season One? Not particularly. We never learn much about her, or the kids from the meth lab.
Also we’ll learn more about them, like we did tonight with Will’s communion photo, as the case goes on. Episodic TV reviews in my opinion have this flaw of the critic wanting answers the show purposely waits to do, you know, otherwise it would be a movie. As long as the journey is interesting and told well, and I think it is.
exactly. i don’t get the impatience. it’s a television show, they aren’t gonna tell you everything up front. that’s part of the deal.
and this isn’t the first time i’ve seen this complaint on AVC, either.
Yeah, there were people complaining about that during Sharp Objects for sure. Unfairly if you ask me. Succession too, as little as it was covered.I kind of suspect TD season 2 is making people cautious about this one. You don’t want to go on record as being a cheerleader until you’re sure it’s going to hold up throughout.
Not to specifically bag on Emily, whose work I like, but it’s amazing to me that critics still do this after reviewing hundreds of shows. To be fair, she said she didn’t like how the mystery was presented, but her review still reads like she just didn’t like the lack of answers. I put this kind of complaint under the type of the critic wanting to be the writer, how they would do it. I’m not accusing Stephens of that but I do read a lot of negative criticism that I think is unfair to the work, faulting it for not being what the critic wanted, instead of the latter looking at what’s there on screen and why. But, you know, the writer, if he’s a good one, knows what he’s doing.
A gradual unfolding that requires full attention to minute details that have their reveal further down the road.. Dungeons and Dragons reference has me totally intrigued, there’s more to it than the kids just playing a very complicated and layered game. I’m really enjoying this show, the actors are all spot on in their parts. The three time lines can be a bit confusing though, but I don’t mind repeat watchings and even bingeing the whole thing after the fact.
Weird how we now have two recent shows that have a widower airing out his subconscious thoughts by talking to his wife’s “pretend” ghost. “The Kominsky Method” and “True Detective”.How the brown car could be left out of the investigation is beyond me; both detectives heard about it. Please don’t make it about the mayor or governor or Bill freaking Clinton (Arkansas Attorney General in 1979, Governor in 1980) keeping it hush, hush because it was some important woman or somebody in that car with a black man. That would be hackneyed. Wouldn’t it?
Well, if they mentioned Clinton by name or insinuation, it would be interesting.
It was Alan Arkin this whole time!
Re: the brown car and Clinton, didn’t the farmer say that the couple in the brown car were a black man and a white woman? Also, clues to this in the previews of future episodes. Not that there couldn’t still be a connection, but….
Yes, and the man had a scar.
Not the perpetrator but the one derailing the investigation for his own nefarious reasons.
Obviously, Clinton couldn’t be in the car but he could be placed in the story as the most powerful man in Arkansas. The one who derailed the investigation to protect the white woman in the car.
There’s no way Clinton was ever the most powerful man in Arkansas. The men who knew and covered up Cinton’s secrets, and the men who raised his political funds were always more powerful.
Interesting and frightening take on the subject.
Basic truth of politics: No one gets elected alone. The politician is beholden to someone. The question is always, to whom. Clinton had a lot of secrets and not a lot of cash, so those are the two areas I would look, if I were examining where his political power came from.
The acting this season is really incredible, too. The reviewer at least mentions that. Ali and Dorff especially are really settling into their characters’ skins. Even though the show by necessity centers around Ali’s character, I feel like the show needs the masterful supporting work from Dorff as a counter-balance to really work. They are entirely believable as partners.
I was surprised last week to see Dorff was so prominently featured, but this seems to be a role he’s more than capable of handling.“I’m making a point, son” was straight-up Raylan Givens bad-assery.
yeah, kind of makes me sad that he’s clearly a capable and compelling actor who’s been under-used in dreck his whole career.
Really enjoying seeing Dorff’s performance thus far.If you haven’t, go check him out in SFW.
+1 Backbeat
Dorff’s Arkansas accent is spot on as well- except the way he says “ville” – pronounced “vull” here. (As a person living in Arkansas, it makes his character that much better)
Hypothesis: Amelia did it, and that’s why old Wayne is afraid to dig deeper into the case that defined his life. I base this on a hacky, first idea a novice screenwriter may have. She got off on writing about the investigation that maybe she initiated by doing the deed herself. Her creepy ghost as a vision in Wayne’s mind did nothing to dispel my theory. But probably the show is smarter than this.For this review: Aren’t all mysteries, in all mediums, witholding? It’s 10 episodes; we’ll get to the firework factory soon enough. At least it’s not a multiseason mystery show. I liked Lost even though it didn’t answer questions right away, and currently dislike Westworld a little for the same reason.1990 Stephen Dorff looks like Luke Perry.
They did show her in a brown car with a white guy
I thought it was the inverse (i.e., a black guy and a white woman)?
Yeah sorry I got it backwards the farmer did say it was a black man and a white woman
My husband kept whispering “Dylan McKay” to me, and that “Donna is around the corner”. I then knew that my husband watched way more 90210 than I did.
It’s like the show gets off on being withholding.
No, he looks like Dennis Quaid!
And in 1980 he looked just like Dennis Quaid!
We’re a week away from THE True Detective episode of the season where the 2 prior seasons made, and then killed, the show for me. Season 1 started off great and kept it going, while season 2 started out okay, then completely fell apart more and more as the season went on. This season has been very good, so I gotta wonder what this next episode has in store for its BIG SHEBANG!!!
No one is here wants to bring up the D&D dice?
Of course you all don’t! You never did! You’re all in on it. In with the devil worshipers and baby sacrifices.
Heathens! We told you all years ago…it’s just like what we said…
THAT ACCURSED GAME IS OF SATAN’S NATURE!
Bazinga, I posted above or below about D&D, it’s got to have a much bigger impact on events than we see at this point. Dungeons and Dragons is not even mentioned as the name of the game. That’s significant. The toys??? game avatars?
The D6 looked like a backgammon doubling cube. Would produce strange real world D&D effects. “I attack the goblin with my short sword and do 49 damage.”
I’m just a little confused as to the distinction between “tricking” the audience and giving them a proper mystery. It’s definitely a little different than the first season, since with three timelines and more going on in the first two, there are more places where characters might naturally mention something that happened that we shouldn’t know. However, it never really feels like the characters are talking around anything. The closest I can think of is in the deposition scenes from the premiere where Wayne assigns some significance to when they searched Brett’s house. But those sort of oblique references were definitely a part of the deposition scenes in s1. This was undoubtedly a slower, piece-moving episode of the season, but I think that’s to be expected after two episodes getting us acquainted with the characters and world. Definitely respect Emily’s opinion, just wish it was more fleshed out HOW the audience is being tricked/manipulated. I just see it as an early stage in the mystery where things are being set up. I’d also point out that they definitely considered thay the kids were lying in last week’s episodes, but finding the body and the dolls, as well as following up the leads they had with the various suspects seemed to take precedence until they hit a dead end this week. But maybe I’m iust being generous. After being so thoroughly disappointed in S2, I really really want to love this season and so far I am! The performances are unbelievable, the dialogue less cheesy than ever (if we ignore Amelia’s ghost waxing poetic about time), and even without a consistent director, it looks like the visuals and cinematography will remain quite evocative.As an aside, was anyone else on the edge of their fucking seat when Becca disappeared? With so much ambiguity about where she is in 2015 and her relationship with Wayne, I was 100% sure we were seeing the beginning of Wayne’s deterioration. A fake out, but an effective one for sure. I also think it’s wonderful they’re moving away from the depositions in ‘90, it should add a fun dynamic with two investigations unfolding at once, rather than the S1 structure where the ‘95 investigation ended right as the ‘12 investigation began. I just hope we see Wayne start to open up more in 2015, bc I do love me interview/therapy/interrogation scenes that just involve two characters discussing the past.
And so we come to the bit where some critics have to start making up random rules about TV shows in order to find fault with TD.
Detective shows like this only really start rolling once the wall of crazy appears. This is the wall that has all the pictures and news clippings and string that obsessive detectives always have. I think season 1 even had an entire storage space of crazy.
It seems to me that they are not following the most important leads (at least in the most logical order as a real detective would). What was that hole in the Purcell kid’s room? Did the uncle had anything to do with that? Are they going to get that search warrant for the big house in the woods? Who was the “man in a suit” that queried the house owner? And they need to start looking into the brown sedan lead.The theory down below that Hayes’ wife had to do with the crime is rather unsettling and makes sense for now (she knew a lot about the kids for being their teacher, and naturally the kids trusted her).
Are they going to get that search warrant for the big house in the woods?I thought it looked like they’d taken care of this and were searching.
Big disagree. I think these reviews are too critical. We’re not even halfway yet. Of course they’re not going to give away all their answers. That’s not “dragging”; that’s pacing. And the pace is similar to both previous seasons. So far this is shaping up to be the best season, especially with Saulnier at the helm. Indeed, so far it’s been a masterful, beautifully interwoven slowburn that’s both atmospheric and intriguing (a very difficult balance). Also, it’s not about the murders. It’s about the detectives solving them. There are plenty of crime docs out there; this show is not those shows, thank goodness.
‘That’s willful narrative obstruction. At first it was playful. Now it’s edging on tedious.’I know there are different critics working on these shows, but the ‘narrative obstruction’ regarding the mystery plot in Sharp Objects was handwaved throughout the AV Club reviews as Exploring The Characters/It’s Not Really About The Mystery or some nonsense. FWIW I get the feeling so far the TD3 is setting the table really nicely for how the mystery will unfold in each timeline; every scene seems to add some relevant information or plot movement. It’s ridiculous to complain three weeks in that the show is guilty of ‘trickery’ when you have no idea what’s going to happen. (And I don’t think the problem here is the critic so much as it is the genre of episode recaps, which never serve mystery/procedural shows well.)
This week I found myself pausing the DVR a lot to dwell on some of the visual clues (the D&D character sheet, some of the drawings, the communion photos, the scrap of paper with notes on them). I noticed another tie to season one in one of the drawings (there was also one in episode 1, but it wasn’t as obvious). Anybody else catch that?
It’s hard to credit that two experienced detectives took a full week to
wonder why the children lied about their destination the day they
disappeared. It’s even harder when one of those detectives, a skilled tracker and an
insightful thinker, explicitly describes his approach to each case as
“everybody lies, period.”
They didn’t wonder because they didn’t know. Ronnie Boyle had invited them to come over but hadn’t gotten an answer. The difference between going somewhere you were invited and going somewhere you were invited and had confirmed you’d visit can easily seem trivial. Wayne Hays eventually fished out that minor discrepancy out of all the data they’d collected and realized – guessed, really – that it pointed to a lie. And you gave the reasons why he’d be the one to do it.
Thank you!! They didn’t know until later that the kids had never even hung out. As a detective I would assume they were friends just as the boy originally confirmed, and the dads had each other’s phone numbers. Of course, I’m not a detective.
It’s ironic how often, while asking questions around the kids’ extended family, they were confronted with some variation of, “why aren’t you out there finding those kids/that girl?” They were almost much shoved away from a major revelation. That crap with the politically-minded DA played to the same theme. And the crime ends up being pinned on the wrong person, doesn’t it?
The interviewer obviously isn’t just working on an unsolved mystery she’s trying to prove someone didn’t do it. I guess the 3 kids in the VW are going to be the Paradise lost supposed devil worshiping teens who got wrongfully convicted since they had the bike. The grandmother pretty much gave it away when she implied that the kids were probably fathered by Lucy’s ex rather than Tom Purcell and the detectives apparently didn’t notice
So far this has the ingredients of passable, but quickly forgettable Prestige TV.The acting is top-flight. The cinematography is gorgeous. The score is atmospheric. The pacing is deliberate and self-important. The plotting is deliberately convoluted and invites speculation (not necessarily a bad thing). These are things you could say about maybe 80% of the dramas output by HBO post-Sopranos, and many other high-budget Prestige dramas from other premium cable shops / Netflix. It takes a little something extra to stand out, and I’m not sure yet if this season has it, the way season 1 did. What it’s missing most is Fukunaga’s direction, which was propulsive and dynamic in a way that so far this season’s direction hasn’t been. We get great compositions, but not a lot of movement. It’s just blandly competent. An example from this episode is the really long walking scene with Wayne and Amelia in the field. There is a pause that seems to take forever (“why are we still watching this?”, I asked aloud). Then Wayne asks her on a date, and suddenly the pause makes sense. But nothing about the direction conveyed the tension that should have been present in that pause. They were just walking.The device of the three timelines that I thought worked really well in the first episode didn’t work as well for me in this episode. The transitions weren’t as fluid; it was more of a traditional A plot / B plot / C plot rotation. For example, nobody is remembering what happened to Woodard, because none of our future cast was present when it was happening. And we get a lot of cuts from Dorff’s character to Hayes doing stuff by himself. I don’t think it sucks, by any measure, but Ep 3 didn’t quite live up to the promise of Eps 1 & 2, in my book.
Yes, I agree. Ep. 3 feels mediocre at best. By contrast, after a stellar Season 1, Counterpart has come back with an even more brilliant Season 2. So it can be done. The greatness of True Detective ended with Season 1.
I laughed out loud at 3-4 lines that were meant to be serious. I was entertained, but if you take this dreck seriously… lol
As overwrought as Season 2 was, it at least attempted to distinguish itself from the overrated Season 1. Although I had very mixed feelings about 2, I at least appreciate its distinctiveness.
Season 3 often feels like a parody of Season 1: it seems intent on following its lead a little too closely as it pursues the theme of eternal recurrence.
3’s main redeeming feature (so far anyway) is that it appears to be personalizing its nonlinear narrative about time and memory, or how time can flatten and/or empty out our sense of identity.
The black man in the brown sedan is going to be played by Michael K. Williams right?
Honestly with a theme of the fragmentation and loss of memory being forefront in this I can’t bring myself to lash out at the writers for withholding clues and insights from the viewer until we see the season as a whole. It really depends on if they stick the landing or not – if they do then it is a good way to play into the theme, if not then, yes, it will be a frustrating waste.
Precious moments or treasured memories?
“After the heart-stopping fear of losing his daughter, and the inseparable way the Purcell case still gnaws at him, Wayne’s lecture to his wife makes perfect psychological sense. But it’s also an indictment of pop-culture preoccupation with true crime stories, an appetite for pulp and real-life potboilers that’s only grown in the years True Detective has been on the back burner.”YES. This is why I can’t listen to My Favorite Murder and the like. There’s a giddy frivolity to the whole thing like it’s a game.
pretty sure its not julie’s body Brett has since we ALL KNOW she’s alive. bang up recap tho.
I wasn’t annoyed at the pacing of the episode. At least until I saw how little the story had advanced when it was over. I do hope they stop playing these games soon. Although I am tired of the Heavy Exposition School of Dialog (“You remember how you planted that evidence on that kid three years ago?” If both characters know it, why say it that way?), But Pizzolatto needs to put some more meat on the story’s bones.
The West Memphis 3 case this season is based on ends up with the metal-listening RPG playing teens taking the fall amidst the early 80s “D&D is Satanic” moral panic. I think the kids were playing D&D with the teens and the teens are scared to come forward. The girls’ little notes are messages she sent or received from other players during game sessions to communicate without the DM or other players knowing what they were saying.
I liked the other seasons, but they were filled with so many characters it was hard to follow, confusion for confusions sake. Too much for 8 hours. This season is brilliant. You get a better chance to understand everyone, and I don’t think there are enough superlatives to properly describe Mahershala Ali’s performance. I can’t f’ing wait for the next episode and I’m sad when each is over.
The freakin’ hole in the closet wall!!! Someone is coveting her.If it was the brother’s doing, then they might have gotten caught in (or lured into) incest by someone who then killed the boy and took the girl.If it was the uncle, well, season over. But, enough about the actual case, let’s watch five more hours of character development.
I’m a week late on this show and ready to bail at this point. So far this season seems to be about miserable, tedious rambling with some time jumps to apparently make things interesting.
the series started out with a character dealing with his existential state and blah, blah, blah and that was interesting because it was kind of different but there’s nothing really interesting about depressed characters and a story that never moves forward.One more episode and I’ll probably bail.