True Detective [HBO]

[Paul Kemp]

Is anyone else looking forward to this or super-intrigued? It's HBO's new show that's debuting next week staring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey (epic combination) about two detectives' twenty year search for as serial killer in Louisiana. The series is mostly told through flashbacks, as far as I can gather.

HBO is doing something a little different with the show. Every season is going to be a different storyline with different characters in different locations, which I assume is the only way they would be able to get Harrelson and McConaughey.

HBO site
Wikipedia page

I do admit there's some risk of them going "grimdark" with their talking of "being a bad man" and "entering the darkness" or whatever but it looks very well done (in contrast to something like Low Winter Sun).

[Lief 🗽]

God I hope it's good. Everything McConaughey has done in the past few years has been gold, so I have high hopes.

[Paul Kemp]

God I hope it's good. Everything McConaughey has done in the past few years has been gold, so I have high hopes.

I mean his name is Rust Cohle in it so...

[badgate]

I've heard from the television critics I follow on Twitter that it is very good, but I probably won't check it out until a few episodes have aired.

[Paul Kemp]

Andy Greenwald, one of my favorite critics, didn't like it too much but I'm still holding out hope...

[Paul Kemp]

Checked it out last night. Thought it was pretty good and compelling. Very well made and looks great. I just hope it doesn't take some predictable path towards who the killer is.

[Oakvale]

I might check this out. Maybe it will be like The Killing except not one of the worst things ever.

[Paul Kemp]

Some of the dialogue can be a bit heavy handed but I thoroughly enjoyed it, none the less.

[Oakvale]

I'm pi-- uh legally purcashing the first episode as we speak. From the trailer I'm hopeful it will tie into the 80s/early 90s Satanism hysteria thing which is one my favourite bizarre moral panics.

[Eraserhead]

Oops - I made a thread about this too. I'll delete it.

Anyway, I haven't watched the first episode but it seems like everyone thought it was excellent.

[badgate]

Yes I was very disappointed by The Killing. I stuck through an entire first season of that sh**t. Part of why I want to wait for a few episodes/reviews before I spend time watching this.

[Oakvale]

I watched the first episode on Mr. Kemp's recommendation. I enjoyed it a lot and I'm definitely along for the ride unless it takes some kind of awful turn in quality which isn't out of the question. Obviously anything with satanic ritual murders is going to be must-watch TV.

Harrelson and McConaughey are pretty well cast although I'm not sure how to feel about the fact that McConaughey's character's dialogue is so ridiculously metal that Woody Harrelson's character calls him out on it.

[Eraserhead]

Okay, I watched both episodes. This show is great.

[Eraserhead]

You guys still watching this? I'm loving it.

[Paul Kemp]

Just came here to write about how great last night's episode was. Fantastic. The last five minutes... holy sh**t.

I've seen some people on the internet talking about how insightful and enlightening Rust's monologues are. I'm not sure that's the intention. I think he's supposed to come off as a heavy-handed loon. There is some accuracy in what he says (particularly regarding religion) but I'm not sure we're supposed to completely identify with his thoughts or think of him as some sort of truth-teller like some are.

Too bad we need to two weeks for a new one...

[Eraserhead]

Yeah, every episode has had a great ending so far, especially this last one. The next episode looks like it's going to give people the action they've been craving and then some. (I think literally the only major criticism of the show that I've seen is that it's too slow/doesn't have enough action... a criticism I don't agree with but I digress...).

[Paul Kemp]

Yeah, every episode has had a great ending so far, especially this last one. The next episode looks like it's going to give people the action they've been craving and then some. (I think literally the only major criticism of the show that I've seen is that it's too slow/doesn't have enough action... a criticism I don't agree with but I digress...).

Yea, if anyone is criticizing it on those grounds they're clearly watching the wrong show and should turn back to CSI or whatever. I would think those awful souls have been weeded out already though.

[Lief 🗽]

Even ignoring the story and dialogue and acting (which is obviously great), the show is just freaking gorgeous as well. Stupid Super Bowl ruining everything.

[King]

Terrific show.

[Paul Kemp]

"To realize that all your life - all your love, all your hate, all your memory, all your pain, it was all the same thing. It was all the same dream, a dream that you had inside a locked room. A dream about bein' a person....And like a lot of dreams, there's a monster at the end of it"

Excellent.

[Boris]

Even ignoring the story and dialogue and acting (which is obviously great), the show is just freaking gorgeous as well. Stupid Super Bowl ruining everything.

Yeah, it does a fantastic job of depicting Louisiana as a complete sh**thole, but in the most cinematographically beautiful way possible.

I'm totally down with the McConaughey circlejerk like everyone else, but does anyone else find him a bit difficult to understand at times without subtitles?

[Eraserhead]

"To realize that all your life - all your love, all your hate, all your memory, all your pain, it was all the same thing. It was all the same dream, a dream that you had inside a locked room. A dream about bein' a person....And like a lot of dreams, there's a monster at the end of it"

Excellent.

*Cut to the epically disturbing looking Reginald Ledoux.*

[King]

Even ignoring the story and dialogue and acting (which is obviously great), the show is just freaking gorgeous as well. Stupid Super Bowl ruining everything.

Yeah, it does a fantastic job of depicting Louisiana as a complete sh**thole, but in the most cinematographically beautiful way possible.

I'm totally down with the McConaughey circlejerk like everyone else, but does anyone else find him a bit difficult to understand at times without subtitles?

This last episode's soundtrack had a intrusive bass line of some sort that was making the dialogue a little more difficult to understand.

[Lief 🗽]

can't believe they canceled this week's episode for that

[Eraserhead]

can't believe they canceled this week's episode for that

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. What a shame.