US: True Detective

I struggled with the whole thing - lack of character development, 3 independent detectives mashed together, bunch of business folks doing shady deals and a fistful of corrupt officials / coppers, it was put together in such a manner that I had no empathy for any of the characters.

The final episode tried to join up the pieces but did it very badly, hardly surprised on the ending it had no where else to go.

I would not recommend True Detective Season 2 to anyone
 
It had it's moments....sadly both some amazing ones and cringe worthy ones in equal measure.

This is what you get when you have the money and the actors to make everything look great but not the writing and correct guidance to properly pull it off.
 
The 1st season of True Detective was one of the best shows I have seen but sadly season 2 was never going to live up to that!
It was really hard to follow and often I sat there thinking wtf is going on:confused: but the last 2 episodes really made me change my mind. I went from hating Vince Vaughn and Colin Farrell's acting/characters to really liking them by the end. The final episode was excellent IMO!
Was sad when Ray's message to his son failed to send at the end just before he got killed like the guy could just never catch a break for once lol.
 
It was pretty much as I expected / predicted for the final episode. A very forgettable season, that seemed to forget large parts of what made the first so good (cinematography, direction, writing, tone, mood, pacing, et cetera) and only remembered that it needed a good cast. It did have some good narrative/focalisation going on and played with a lot of 'classic' themes, but it was nowhere near good enough to rescue this.

The final was better, because we got the questions; we had the answers all along but the audience were too confused (through poor writing/exposition) to understand what they were supposed to be asking.

Farrell and Vaughn were excellent in my opinion; everyone else (supporting characters/other main characters) were all well done, but the cast literally was not the problem here.

Hubris.

Season one, remains one of the best seasons of television made. This is forgettable and a shame.
 
Tummy said:
It was pretty much as I expected / predicted for the final episode. A very forgettable season, that seemed to forget large parts of what made the first so good (cinematography, direction, writing, tone, mood, pacing, et cetera) and only remembered that it needed a good cast. It did have some good narrative/focalisation going on and played with a lot of 'classic' themes, but it was nowhere near good enough to rescue this.

The final was better, because we got the questions; we had the answers all along but the audience were too confused (through poor writing/exposition) to understand what they were supposed to be asking.

Farrell and Vaughn were excellent in my opinion; everyone else (supporting characters/other main characters) were all well done, but the cast literally was not the problem here.

Hubris.

Season one, remains one of the best seasons of television made. This is forgettable and a shame.
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Pretty much agree with all of this, the last episode wasn't too bad, but didn't make up for the rest of the series. I had just no investment in it, which was a real shame after the first. I hope that there is another series, but they learn from their mistakes with this one.
 
The ending was daft.
Colin Farrell took two guys out by playing it safe then instead of picking their assault rifles up jumps out from behind a tree in front of three people and gets blown to to pieces.
then vince gives his life up over some diamonds lol.
 
Some of the worst TV I have seen in a while. I was hoping it might end on a high, but the last episode was one of the worst. This and Hannibal season 3 have been a massive disappointment.
 
maddog said:
The ending was daft.
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1 - He took the money with him in the car to make the dangerous move of going to see his kid?

2- He still drove his car, despite knowing it had a tracker on it?

3 - He drove around until he ran out of petrol in the woods as an attempt to lose them?

4 - Small one, but annoyed me, he left the zip open on the bag of money, so when he dropped it, it went everywhere?

5 - Vince recognised he had been boxed in, but still allowed two or three goons to walk up to his car door?

I found it really quite annoying as I thought back about it.
 
Overall the parts of it that I understood, very little, I kinda enjoyed.
I wasn't too surprised at how it ended but a bit confused at how easy it seemed to be to take down Ray, Frank and Paul.

The shooting of Paul as he left the underground system was surprising with his combat experience of knowing to "watch your six" etc. Surprised also that he put himself in such a vulnerable position by knocking out the Chief and allowing the others to keep their guns, or their lives, to chase him.

Ray.... When he noticed the tracker why not contact Frank and let him know that they had been compromised...? Not sure why he felt the need to have the shoot-out in the woods with a pistol and a shotgun. He also seemed to waste his ammo without taking advantage of the better dropped guns around him. His suicidal ending seemed strange.
Sad that he ended up with two Sons at the end, well one of them having written confirmation to show that he was in all probability the father of Chad as well as Ani's baby. All that grief and anger he had carried around with him could have almost vaporised if he had known.

Frank... Again a veteran survivor who didn't do such a great job when he became boxed in. He had witnessed how ruthless the Mexicans were when they slit the throat of the woman "informer". Not sure if they would just have left him in his underclothes if he had handed over his suit...?

There are a lot more niggles but most of them are probably due to not understanding what was happening.

I'm kinda glad that it wasn't just me who had an issue in following the plot, after a while I sort of give up trying and just enjoyed it for what I could make it out to be.
 
Yeah there were a lot of head scratching moments due to the poor writing and name-drop characters that had little bearing on the story. I think the writers/producers thought Ray's ending was somehow fitting or poetic but I didn't think it was either. At least Frank died because he realised he was about to lose the diamonds that were in his jacket, he was relying on selling them in Venezuela presumably, Ray died rather pointlessly in the end.

They need to go back to basics for next season. Go back to two detectives, make the plot less confusing (maybe just a straightforward serial killer case or something like that) and set it somewhere different again, New York gets my vote. They could do a really cool Seven-like TV series there.
 
Finished watching the second season not to impressed, I watched the first season back to back just could not stop watching it, one of the best things I have watched in ages but the second just seemed to lack what the first one had.

Ending was rubbish also, ray should have made it he even said himself he was going to go to a carpark and lose them and instead he drove into the woods the one place where you get no signal to send a message to his son also the fact that he had no fuel in his car, hello you are trying to make a escape with the money you would have put some fuel in your car.
Just seemed dumb and franks ending was just as stupid.

could have saved me watching the whole thing if they had just shot each other in ep 1 and it would have been much the same in the end haha.

Hope the next season will be better :).
 
.... and just finished watching the rest of season one.

I did enjoy season 2 BUT season one was in a completely different league, it was so much better they don't even feel like the same show.

It makes me sad that season 2 wasn't McConaughhey and Harrelson continuing on as private detectives together, specially after the final scene of season one where Rust breaks down and shows that beneath it all, he really is as human as anyone else.
 
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