US: True Detective

I'm not sure how I feel about the season as a whole. Good but not great I suppose. The final episode left me a little flat. It didn't land it's reveal at all for me, a shame. I like most of the writing and the acting but the last episode just didn't work. Silly plot choices and character actions and then a finale that left me unimpressed.
 
Finished series 4

The good : The series started well and I very quickly adapted to the main roles being women for a change. The bleakness of the Alaskan winter was fantastically depicted as was the remote research base and the indigenous spiritual/horror elements initially. The overall feeling of dread just around the corner really kept me on edge for the first two or three episodes.

The bad : I found myself caring less and less about the struggles and issues of the indigenous Alaskan people after each episode. For me this was attacked way too hard and took over what should have been more subtly presented and allowed for a tighter and more coherent script. Consequently I gave up on trying to work out what might have been be going on as things progressed, which I very much suspect would be the exact opposite of what the writer/director would want from the audience in trying to highlight these issues. There were also way too many loose/dead ends and dropped ideas along the way. The end was fairly lackluster, petered out and the so called revelation was more than a little bit silly - the cleaner ladies did it and they cleaned up so well there was no sign of them at all…oh apart from the one perfect handprint that is.

6/10 – I’ll remember the intro music and the setting for a while but not the story sadly. It was better than series 2, but that’s not saying much.
 
Mr Blonde said:
Finished series 4

The good : The series started well and I very quickly adapted to the main roles being women for a change. The bleakness of the Alaskan winter was fantastically depicted as was the remote research base and the indigenous spiritual/horror elements initially. The overall feeling of dread just around the corner really kept me on edge for the first two or three episodes.

The bad : I found myself caring less and less about the struggles and issues of the indigenous Alaskan people after each episode. For me this was attacked way too hard and took over what should have been more subtly presented and allowed for a tighter and more coherent script. Consequently I gave up on trying to work out what might have been be going on as things progressed, which I very much suspect would be the exact opposite of what the writer/director would want from the audience in trying to highlight these issues. There were also way too many loose/dead ends and dropped ideas along the way. The end was fairly lackluster, petered out and the so called revelation was more than a little bit silly - the cleaner ladies did it and they cleaned up so well there was no sign of them at all…oh apart from the one perfect handprint that is.

6/10 – I’ll remember the intro music and the setting for a while but not the story sadly. It was better than series 2, but that’s not saying much.
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For the most part I enjoyed the series, but I was ultimately disappointed with the reveal of what happened to the scientists.

Also did we even know about 'Holden' before episode 6? If we did I must have missed it.
 
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Season 4 started well but the longer it went, the less I cared about any of the characters at all, and the last episode was a let down. Poor conclusion, some bits didn't make much sense, and too many unanswered questions.
 
Finished season 4 over two nights. Only got into it from episode four and the ending was a little disjointed. The setting and music were excellent. Overall good but series one is still be best.
 
Felt like a somewhat unsatisfying concluding episode. In the end all four "cops" weren't great examples, 2 were outright murderers, (the "Father" cop and the indigenous cop), and the other 2 (foster and the son) part of a cover up of 2 murders.

And then basically, after all the really strong spiritual lore and multiple people seeing long dead people, and hints of something extra-ordinary, turns out a bunch of women just fired the guys out into the snow and they froze to death, so what was all that stuff that was mentioned earlier that the fear on their faces was not something you see when someone dies of cold, that you go unconscious first ?

And having caught the guy in the station, and tied him up etc, Foster just decides to go for a sleep ?

The only twist in the last episode that had some thought into it was that the scientists actively encouraged the company to generate more toxins, as that was accelerating their work progress in getting the DNA or whatever out of the permafrost....that's actually not unbelievable that a solitude group of "nerds" would see the logic in that in isolation.

And, the girl's tongue....that's just left totally unanswered ? The women said they knew nothing about it.

The only likeable character was the young cop, who frequently reminded me of a young Matt Damon
 
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Just finished this. Very disappointing finale. Seemed to think it was cleverer than it was. Terrible, terrible reveal.

1 >>>>> 3 >>> 2 > 4.

Jodie Foster was excellent at times, apart from deciding to bizarrely fall asleep.

The S1 references seemed crowbarred in and like a crutch, in my opinion. It’s not True Detective. It’s like a spin-off or riding on the coat tails of the name.

Found this amusing highlight when reading up on people’s thoughts:

The fact a cleaning lady accidentally spills a bucket of water, finds a hidden ice lab, looks at a scientific instrument, pulls it off the machine, [knows[ it pertains to a [6-year-old cold] murder case, knows someone who works in the police station, that person is able to get access to the Annie K files to find out she was murdered by something with a star shape... then the women of the village are able to deduct that murder weapon from 6 years ago for the Annie k case was THIS PIECE OF METAL in particular. OH! And they all knew somehow that ALL the scientists were responsible for the murder and thus all guilty. Sorry I pulled my back reaching so hard... what absolutely [****] writing.

I have to agree, I thought that part was ludicrous.
 
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So what was the point of the scenes with those animals throwing themselves off the cliff in episode 1 and the polar bear ?

Absolutely nothing presumably.
 
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