So what exactly made this so great?
Don't get me wrong, I love it. It's my favorite out of the three. I even got the steelbook for it. But I have a hard time pinpointing just exactly what makes it so good, and why. I see a lot of people claim it was "lightning in a bottle," but why? What did it do right compared to the other seasons, or any other mini series?
Excellent story
Compelling characters
Top notch acting and production value
This plus daddario booba, like if you had to shoot one nudity scene they went ahead and picked the perfect girl for it. Everything about the production was KINO
>dark story in beautiful place done right
>conspiracy theories
>drugs and drinking
>edgy
>good acting
>interesting characters
>indie cinematic dialogue style
This whole series is proof that being an actual plagiarist (taking from Ligotti, King in Yellow) in an attempt to make something feel inspired is better than trying to be original and ultimately uninspired.
yup
>lesbians
An Inhabitant of Carcosa was a cool short story. I wish it was longer. Literary kinos like this?
McConaughey could read the frickin' phonebook and make it kino.
His autobio audiobook is amazing
The Louisiana setting helped a lot too. If it was set in NYC or some other generic city, it'd lose a point or two.
I was thinking about that as I was watching S2, before I dropped it.
The South is the most kino setting. Makes me wanna drink bourbon in a dive bar. Sharp Objects had a similar vibe.
There is a comfy sense of open space in the setting, like you can sprawl out, and also it's wild and removed from the reach of the law(even though they're cops they break the law a lot so it applies to them too). It retains a bit of the American frontier feeling I guess
rust is a literally me character
It’s not that good it was just one of the first time major Hollywood actors starred in a tv show so it got mostly hyped from that
Atmosphere
Simple as
The greatest thing about it is the writing. It makes the new season seem like it was written by a 16yo.
Mentally, the writer is a 16 year old.
There were two elements that made those 8 episodes as outstanding as they are. The first is the dynamic between McConaughey & Harrelson. The second is Fukunaga & DP Adam Arkapow bullying Pizzolatto and making the show good.
Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson.
Well first of all, you had two really great actors heading the project. You had a really great script. Dialougue that was interesting and flowed naturally. A mystery that you actually cared about. Daddario's breasts. Michelle Monoghan's ass. Simple as.
> mystery that you actually cared about.
This was the one off note for me. I cared about it too much and was left wholly unsatisfied. I don’t need things to have a happy, neat ending, but some resolution is called for.
It's not a mystery if it can be solved.
It’s not a story without a third act.
the ending ruins it. I'm not even talking about rust becoming a christian or whatever, I don't care about that. the issue is that the series started losing steam in the last episodes roughly when the protagonists part ways. it feels rushed and underdeveloped and the final showdown with the main nobody is extremely underwhelming. it feels like the writers have run out of coke by that moment.
you post this is every thread and you'll always be wrong homosexual
that's literally the first time I ever posted this opinion. good to know I'm not the only one who thinks that way
The ending was a brilliant culmination, a cathartic end to a small tendril of evil getting annihilated, and a man done wrong by life choosing to become more hopeful after experiencing the spirits of his father and daughter. You’re a philistine and should feel bad.
We get it hbo the new season sucks because you crammed it full of shitty modern feminist tropes, stop trying to slander the old one with whataboutism
>cathartic
Frick off, only in the most surface level revenge shtick way. There was no catharsis for the story, and that was the point, but it’s a bad way to make that point.
you didn't understand what I wrote and have the gall to call somebody a philistine
>The ending was a brilliant culmination, a cathartic end to a small tendril of evil getting annihilated, and a man done wrong by life choosing to become more hopeful after experiencing the spirits of his father and daughter. You’re a philistine and should feel bad.
hell yeah bro well said
"Well, once there was only dark. You ask me, the light’s winning.”
Im not sure Rust is familiar with the prevailing theories about what the early universe was like. It was very bright
Um actually there was a period where space was opaque to photons. It was only after matter condensed enough to create atoms that space became "clear". Sorry anon. You're technically wrong. The most egregious kind of wrong
Dont show me up in front of the other anons
Don't start no pedantry, won't be no pedantry
The plot showed a very well researched understanding of cult crimes and conspiracy theories from the era and made it feel real in the setting for the story. You have to go to a place and live in the environment to know how to evoke emotion in people with the setting. The giant oak tree standing at the edge of a field on some nameless country road has a vibe and you only know it if you've walked across a field to a copse of trees like that one. The plot crosses real life crimes that many people already know about. They never have to explicitly tell you this story is connected to those stories, it implied. Woody Harrelson plays a guy we have all known. Rust is the only anomaly. And he doesn't get along with anyone or fit in. But you learn why and how he is such a space case and a nihilist. He's a guy trying to do the best he can with his situation. The women in season 1 understand sexual dynamics. They know where their power is. Some of them are brilliant and you can tell they are smart because they are grappling with the reality of their struggles.
This. Everything was designed with intention, yet it never fails to feel authentic. You often have to sacrifice one to get the other, but S1 pulled a miracle and had both intentional design and authenticity in spades.
It's also probably the closest thing to Twin Peaks I've seen since Twin Peaks. Even shows that intentionally try to rip Twin Peaks off fail to do that.
Unironically, if you want something Twin Peaks-like, Boy Swallows Universe is a good watch. It's like a Twin Peaks story told by an imaginative child
A lot of stuff came together to make it work but probably the biggest factor was that the Rust-Marty relationship was very engaging. This is actually the narrative heart of the whole thing imo, moreso even than catching that one guy at the end.
All the other bits of the plot and the various themes kind of hang off this one central relationship between them. Even the resolution at the end where Rust has a change of heart and they catch the guy is mirrored by the two of them becoming friends and mending their relationship. Everything Marty and Rust go through in the rest of their lives with women, the job, drinking, religion, etc is always brought into their interactions with each other as a sort of exposition technique. This gives the whole thing a lot more substance and structure than the other seasons have.
In addition to this the overall atmosphere and vibe is just fricking impeccable
>the gritty louisiana backdrop
>the soundtrack
>the edgy philosophical monologues
>various bits of believable feeling violence
>the shades of horror elements in the killings and the cult
>This is actually the narrative heart of the whole thing imo
it literally is. why do you think it's called true detective? it's intentionally ironic
You're right about the relationship between Marty and Rust being the heart of the story. It's the story of two accomplished and talented men with very different approaches to life trying to be friends and partners and you get to see them both sacrificing a lot of themselves to solve the case. It's heroic. You could say it's the gun and knife fights and robberies but really the action is seeing two men answer the call of adventure. And you see how any relationship like that changes and eventually breaks up. If you're over 35 you already know that your relationships with people never remain static. So we can all relate to their predicament as they age.
The gay sex and troony ranch did it for me.
When butt stuff and adultery doesn't bat the public's eye, how do you generate blackmail? They could've gotten their mark and they still would've been on the outer rim of the political control op using the stuff.
>how do you generate blackmail?
Accusations of racism. It's the one and only cardinal sin. All else is forgivable.
it should have ended with rust personally executing reverend tuttle followed by a donnie darko director's cut level explanation of all the cult imagery and then they upend the entire political system and after a new order is established they both get medals and rust becomes the president
i just wasn't satisfied with the fake main villain also idk why he was british for some reason
He was an Acadian , with a blood line running back to Roman times complete with a familial cult for some Syncretic pagan god that survived the Christian conquest of Spain. And he probably grew up watching PBS reruns of British television
It had one of the most kino title songs in tv history which set the mood perfectly. The atmosphere remained extremely strong throughout every episode.
The Handsome Family had several good songs. Just like Tom Thumb Blues is a cover of the Dylan song of the same name. The whole album the intro song is on is good.
The wife is a poet. I bought one of her books for my wife. It's the real deal , not "my wife writes poetry would you like to read one?"
From the dusty mesa
Her looming shadow grows
Hidden in the branches of the poison creosote
She twines her spines up slowly
Towards the boiling sun
And when I touched her skin
My fingers ran with blood
In the hushing dusk under a swollen silver moon
I came walking with the wind to watch the cactus bloom
And strange hands halted me, the looming shadows danced
I fell down to the thorny brush and felt the trembling hands
When the last light warms the rocks
And the rattlesnakes unfold
Mountain cats will come to drag away your bones
And rise with me forever
Across the silent sand
And the stars will be your eyes
And the wind will be my hands
the title sequence itself is a masterpiece artwork
there's a good analysis of it out there done by the production company
The pacing of the cuts and the way they reveal the tone of the show with footage from episodes without revealing anything is great. The unfolding highways over Marty's face and that ass sitting down on the spiked shoes. It's provocative, lyrical, inspired
>and that ass sitting down on the spiked shoes
>"my fingers ran with blood"
chill evoking without even starting the episode
It's funny, I went looking for this picture of the girl in the intro, and all I found was ugly women reeeing about men's sexuality.
One of the things I liked about the show is that it's honest about both male and female sexuality. Marty is a philandering douchebag, Rust gives into his temptations to plow his partner's wife, Marty attracts a lot of women by being a powerful butthole, and Maggie is obviously attracted to Rust from the very start but only acts on it when she feels justified because she generally respects her husband even though he's a dick.
All the relationships in the story feel very believable and don't glorify either the men or the women.
True. Part of what makes woke entertainment so boring is the characters are fabrications. You have never known anyone with the drives or motivations of a progressive hero. Their sexuality never makes sense. Their choices never make sense. It's illogical and divorced from reality
The psychosphere
i don't like woody harrelson and i can't stand mcconaughey can i still enjoy this show
They're both in peak form here so your odds of enjoying them at all is probably at its zenith here
Sounds like you might be a moron so probably not
You owe it to yourself to watch then. There will be lonely season 4 shills here for months and they need someone to hate season 1 with. You might even have a few valid complaints people can call you a homosexual for mentioning
I thought I felt the same way and then I watched the first couple episodes and it blew me away and now I have a great respect for their acting ability, so yes.
They are both great actors. Who do you like, for reference?
To be honest I don't particularly like either of them myself but they're genuinely fantastic in this show.
because rust was right about everything
he is like Madara but for normies
the 2 main's chemistry
the actors might literally be related
look it up
It was 2012. Babys first exposure to philosophy, cosmic horror, and conspiracy. That's it.
2014 kys
Oh right that's worse.
Carl and Nic probably got their ideas off the internet and just published it.
Same basic idea though.
Nic read a bunch of stuff online, you can still catch refernces to Saturn being used to pad out the Yellow King lore in the show with no context. He published it in time to not look like a hack. Season 1 was lightning in a bottle at the last second.
>It was 2012. Babys first exposure to philosophy, cosmic horror, and conspiracy. That's it.
i feel like we should put forward a hypothesis that a rule exists within hollywood. it could be called "pizzolatto's rule":
>Television shows which are generally well received with a white male cast in season 1 will ride their good will out for a minimum of 4 seasons with each season new distancing itself further from the first.
*new season
This is literally just the basic formula for pushing progressive propaganda. You reel in the audience with a genuinely good show, then start inserting your party politics in it. Game of Thrones is probably the best example of this, it's literally every show now.
i think the propagandists are always looking for something popular to shove their bullshit into. maybe that's why they own literally all of the publishing and distribution etc. they just wait for a popular show and then get budgets to fund the sequels that their critical target audience (fans of the original) will see
Fargo
the heroes are deeply flawed individuals so it makes it easy to relate for everyone. the rust finds god ending is what made it appealing to the christ crowd while him being an edgy nihilist the entire series made him appealing to fedoras. also not a single token strong black presence in the entire thing. new s4 will be shit.
>we love true detective and are very happy our fans love it too... so now we will do the complete opposite of what you like teehee
frick no
-Rusts psycho-babble is 1st year uni student tier
-The writing is full of adolescent macho bullshit
-The "mowing the lawn" metaphor was pathetic
-the 58 year old bald character (who was also the producer) hooking up with women 1/3 his age was really awful
It's a good show for its dreamlike atmosphere and tone, but It falls apart after episode 4.
>Rusts psycho-babble is 1st year uni student tier
no it's very believable as a veteran cops drug-addled psycho-babble
Rust's character is developed in a way that doesn't make it seem pretentious at all
Nah, rust’s views are wrong from the beginning if you intuitively know the message of the ending before finishing the show
it doesn't matter the point is his schizo-babble feels authentic
Rust's adolescent worldview is authentic?
God no wonder he and Marty failed to solve the case for years. They were both moronic.
>Rust's adolescent worldview is authentic?
I know you've been over socialized by fedora memes but sometimes people just believe in edgelord shit.
Especially ones suffering from the depression of a child's death and living for years in the fricking gutter as an undercover narcotics agent.
Rust believes that stuff because his toddler daughter meaninglessly died. The show literally hits you over the head with this point, it's just an emotional problem for him.
e5 is kino as frick
Massive homosexual detected
>literally from the surrounding area of the show
>take random picture of neighbourhood I grew up in
>it's spooky for no reason
Huh never realized...
My dad’s family is from lake charles
*dark foreboding dreamscape music emanates*
I after reading this post I reread it imagining a Louisiana accent.
he was literally me simple as
It does almost everything right but for me the standout part is the ominous atmosphere they managed to create, it works perfectly in a mysterious detective show like this. That and the chemistry between Marty and Rust.
I think it's helped by its lack of cheap quippiness, diversity hiring as a priority over acting/writing ability, diversive political statements, gatekeeping, etc. It really feels like a TV show that prioritised being a TV show.