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Drifter posted:But there WAS no supernatural element to season 1. Just a bunch of crazy rich dudes fuckin' young chicks, and crazy poor dudes kidnapping more chicks to gently caress. I mean, just because I have a Shamanism book on my bookshelf doesn't mean I'm a wizard if I put on a feathered headdress. This is correct and I don't understand how you can be sad about elements of the show being removed that were never there. You imagined them the first time around, you can keep doing that if you want, no one's going to stop you.
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May 10, 2015 06:55
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I do remember being disappointed that the end of the first anthology wasn't nearly hosed up enough for my tastes. I mean, yeah, the show was never even nearly a cosmic horror story, but it was playing with those themes, and attempting to map them onto the human psyche. But the ending, instead of being transcendent or even attempting to drive me to a place of epiphany, it was just a little bit small. Partially deliberately (the dumb hick incest family) and partially just through a failure of concept. Rust seeing that great swirl in the air was nice and all, but it just wasn't enough for me. Compare that with, say, the end to the first season of BSG, or either season of Carnivale, which tread similar territory, but did it more effectively. Or, if you're looking for something more down to earth, then there's the Sopranos season 2 finale. Basically, I wasn't hoping for a finale that had even the tentacular hint of the Eldritch, but I wanted something a bit bigger and less prosaic than three men playing hide and seek in a tunnel.
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May 10, 2015 07:18
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Before Judge Doom implemented freeways in California large scale transport was done entirely through the Yellow Sign.
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May 10, 2015 08:22
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Drifter posted:But there WAS no supernatural element to season 1. Just a bunch of crazy rich dudes fuckin' young chicks, and crazy poor dudes kidnapping more chicks to gently caress. I mean, just because I have a Shamanism book on my bookshelf doesn't mean I'm a wizard if I put on a feathered headdress. And nowhere in my post did I mention the supernatural. But what season 1 did have was elements of the occult with the ritualistic nature of the crimes as well as a gothic element that the article specifically states the are also getting rid of in this new season.
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May 10, 2015 14:26
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hangedman1984 posted:And nowhere in my post did I mention the supernatural. But what season 1 did have was elements of the occult with the ritualistic nature of the crimes as well as a gothic element that the article specifically states the are also getting rid of in this new season. There was nothing occult about the crimes that served to helped the criminals get caught, or that furthered the criminals' methods. They were just basically name-dropping 'cause it was cool. And yeah, how shameful they're getting rid of bad rear end architecture when they're doing a show in LA. All those cool Los Angeles buildings will never get a chance to shine. I'm sure they'll find some neat visuals to display in this next season that don't involve hanging bird skeletons in trees or whatever. Maybe something with stained glass. Or tumbleweeds.
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May 10, 2015 14:36
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Isn't this season explicitly NOT in LA?
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May 10, 2015 15:24
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Henchman of Santa posted:Isn't this season explicitly NOT in LA? Ah. yes. I'm not really sure what a lesser known venue of CA is, Pomona? Industry Hills? Napa?
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May 10, 2015 17:01
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Vanderdeath posted:What's funny to me is that whenever I saw an allegation of plagiarism with True Detective, it was about the "Lovecraftian" overtones in the show. Except that they weren't Lovecraftian, they were based directly upon The King in Yellow by Robert Chambers and boy-loving-howdy did Lovecraft (and then August Derleth) take from that well liberally. Literally nobody did this. People accused him of lifting entire swaths of text and dialogue wholesale for Rust's monlogues; Rust's final speech about light beating darkness being almost word-for-word from an Alan Moore comic was probably the biggest but everybody from Burroughs to Sarte was used almost unchanged. The way that the show fell apart in the final episodes when he had no idea how to actually handle all the existential material he had copied without understanding and gave Rust a last-minute redemption and sunny outlook on life doesn't do much to dispel the idea.
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May 10, 2015 18:44
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Drifter posted:Ah. yes. I'm not really sure what a lesser known venue of CA is, Pomona? Industry Hills? Napa? quote:Just as the bayous and oil fields of Louisiana formed an indelible part of True Detective's first season, season two will explore the 400 miles of California between Los Angeles and San Francisco — in Pizzolatto's words, "the places that don't get much press and where you wouldn't normally set a television show." McAdams's character will hail from Monterey — a mecca of detective fiction — but much of the action will take place in "a fictional California town." As in season one, the show will be shot on location to capture what Pizzolatto calls the "psychosphere ambiance of the place." http://www.vulture.com/2015/02/true-detective-season-2-heres-what-we-know.html
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May 10, 2015 19:06
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Sleeveless posted:Literally nobody did this. People accused him of lifting entire swaths of text and dialogue wholesale for Rust's monlogues; Rust's final speech about light beating darkness being almost word-for-word from an Alan Moore comic was probably the biggest but everybody from Burroughs to Sarte was used almost unchanged. This. I still love season 1 but let's not lie to ourselves about Rust's more compelling monologues being outright copied and pasted from well-known sources.
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May 10, 2015 19:10
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Sleeveless posted:Literally nobody did this. People accused him of lifting entire swaths of text and dialogue wholesale for Rust's monlogues; Rust's final speech about light beating darkness being almost word-for-word from an Alan Moore comic was probably the biggest but everybody from Burroughs to Sarte was used almost unchanged. My idiot friends did but they're also "huge" Lovecraft fans and I try to ignore that about them. But, yeah, I complete agree. Rust's monologues were lightly modified Greatest Hits from the Existentialism playbook and made him feel like That Guy from College that has Everything Figured Out. I was that guy in college. Nobody likes that guy.
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May 10, 2015 23:37
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Hate the setting. Hate the actors. It looks like total garbage, but I will watch regardless because the first season was complete perfection.
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May 10, 2015 23:57
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My big is that it seems difficult to set a southern Gothic story on SoCal.
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May 11, 2015 01:21
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If this season crashes and burns then it will cement my suspicion that Fukunaga was the brains behind the first season. That said, I hope it's good 
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May 11, 2015 01:55
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Impermanent posted:My big is that it seems difficult to set a southern Gothic story on SoCal. Speaking of Southern Gothic, I'd love to see an anthology series based on Absalom, Absalom! done on HBO. That would be rad as hell. Professor Shark posted:If this season crashes and burns then it will cement my suspicion that Fukunaga was the brains behind the first season. Yeah, that's my take away. I hope it's good and I feel bad for Taylor "Box Office Poison" Kitsch at this point, so I hope it revitalizes his career a bit. He deserves better. John Carter of Mars wasn't that bad. 
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May 11, 2015 02:25
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Vanderdeath posted:Speaking of Southern Gothic, I'd love to see an anthology series based on Absalom, Absalom! done on HBO. That would be rad james franco's take on as i lay dying is on netflix now if youre just jonesing for some faulkner or southern gothic in general of course its not very good but builds up steam and ends on a fairly strong note. that may be the result of the source material though
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May 11, 2015 02:52
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Gothic or not, this looks like a stylish Michael Mann crime thriller and I love those films and would love to see TD's take on the genre. Kinda looks like Heat meets Chinatown so far. I recall the creators saying that the serial killer stuff wouldn't be carried past the 1st season, so any kind of shift isn't too surprising to me. Al Nipper fucked around with this message at 02:58 on May 11, 2015 |
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May 11, 2015 02:55
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Vanderdeath posted:Speaking of Southern Gothic, I'd love to see an anthology series based on Absalom, Absalom! done on HBO. That would be rad as hell. Light in August would work well as a miniseries.
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May 11, 2015 15:54
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Open Source Idiom posted:
Just wanted to hype this post because it didn't get enough love, especially for the Sopranos season 2 finale mention. That was without a doubt the best season finale I've ever seen - the closing montage was absolutely perfect.
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May 11, 2015 16:57
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OldTennisCourt posted:I mean, yeah the occult stuff was interesting, but think about it, how do you do that again without just being a retread of season 1? The reason season 1 worked so well was the slow introduction of this idea of a deep dark cult underneath everything. Now that we know that card is on the table it'd be much much less interesting or shocking when it turns out the killer was some guy from a cult who worshiped a spider-demon or some poo poo. I don't remember any spider demons or anything close to that in the first, and wouldn't be against it. If anything "this poo poo again?" is what I'd say to just another cop/detective show, I don't care how dark it is. The occult stuff is what set True Detective apart from the millions of detective and cop shows. Otherwise I'd watch old episodes of Columbo or The Wire.
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May 12, 2015 00:02
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Drifter posted:But there WAS no supernatural element to season 1. Just a bunch of crazy rich dudes fuckin' young chicks, and crazy poor dudes kidnapping more chicks to gently caress. I mean, just because I have a Shamanism book on my bookshelf doesn't mean I'm a wizard if I put on a feathered headdress. The thing is that you could look at it in several ways. Sure, some deluded shitbird abducted and murdered young girls in cahoots with a bunch rich, evil guys and he was finally stopped by a couple of dedicated cops, one of whom suffered some truly weird drug flashbacks. Or the whole thing was a big Call of Cthulhu scenario in which the detectives prevented the bad guys from performing the final part of a ritual that would bring Hastur to Earth to devour us all. What was presented in the first series allows both of the above viewpoints to be valid interpretations, which is great.
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May 12, 2015 00:58
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johntfs posted:The thing is that you could look at it in several ways. Sure, some deluded shitbird abducted and murdered young girls in cahoots with a bunch rich, evil guys and he was finally stopped by a couple of dedicated cops, one of whom suffered some truly weird drug flashbacks. Or the whole thing was a big Call of Cthulhu scenario in which the detectives prevented the bad guys from performing the final part of a ritual that would bring Hastur to Earth to devour us all. What was presented in the first series allows both of the above viewpoints to be valid interpretations, which is great. Nope. Not at all.
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May 12, 2015 01:04
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johntfs posted:The thing is that you could look at it in several ways. Sure, some deluded shitbird abducted and murdered young girls in cahoots with a bunch rich, evil guys and he was finally stopped by a couple of dedicated cops, one of whom suffered some truly weird drug flashbacks. Or the whole thing was a big Call of Cthulhu scenario in which the detectives prevented the bad guys from performing the final part of a ritual that would bring Hastur to Earth to devour us all. What was presented in the first series allows both of the above viewpoints to be valid interpretations, which is great.  , they couldn't have made it clearer that it was purposefully set up to be interpreted either way if they'd hit you with a sign with "It's Written to be Interpreted EITHER WAY" written on it, for some reason Drifter and a few others from the Season 1 thread are super against it for REASONS
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May 12, 2015 01:06
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These weren't fantasy shows; keep the trolling to a minimum please.
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May 12, 2015 01:16
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Drifter posted:These weren't fantasy shows; keep the trolling to a minimum please. The show was a beautiful display of modern urban fantasy and how it looks from the perspective of mundanes instead of the actual practitioners. The mundane cops are aware of something eerie but nothing is confirmed except that the so-called "priest" is rabid and needs to go down. I can see why they moved away from the occult influences though. Better to make something completely ordinary and examine the real ways evil manifests rather than imply the influence of something on the other side...it's such a tough act to follow.
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May 12, 2015 01:58
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I am okay with the show moving away from the occult undertones. But I hope the actual mystery/crime/detective stuff plays out better than the first season. Those elements were kinda weak sometimes in S1 but it was okay because there was a bunch of other stuff going on to be interested in, but if they're removing one of those elements then I think the plotting will need to step up.
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May 12, 2015 04:37
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Drifter posted:These weren't fantasy shows; keep the trolling to a minimum please. Religion isn't the same thing as fantasy. There is a pretty huge undercurrent of occult mysticism and spirituality, which the show treats with an unusual seriousness. One of the characters literally has a mystical vision at the apex of the show which might be shared by the villain, and the show generally treats Cohle's visions with an ambiguity very uncharacteristic for the genre. Calling it urban fantasy is too much, but there's a hyperrealism or magical realism to the way the cult is treated that invites people to see a supernatural presence. It's not a naturalistic show. Locations like the abandoned school, the collapsed church, or the ruined fort borrow heavily from pulpy, supernatural depictions of devil worship. That shot of whatshisname with the gas mask and the machete is bracingly monstrous, and really sells the idea that the guy might be more than human. It really feels to me like a show that believes in the Devil, even if that Devil is human created. Like the show is saying that it doesn't even matter if the cult's religion is true, because the will of human beings has power as great as any magic. Creating a demon from hell out of a gas mask, tighty whiteys, a machete, and lots of drugs. 
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May 12, 2015 05:01
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johntfs posted:The thing is that you could look at it in several ways. Sure, some deluded shitbird abducted and murdered young girls in cahoots with a bunch rich, evil guys and he was finally stopped by a couple of dedicated cops, one of whom suffered some truly weird drug flashbacks. Or the whole thing was a big Call of Cthulhu scenario in which the detectives prevented the bad guys from performing the final part of a ritual that would bring Hastur to Earth to devour us all. What was presented in the first series allows both of the above viewpoints to be valid interpretations, which is great. That second viewpoint isn't really a reasonable reading considering everything that we were shown and told. A big part of the ending is that the characters don't actually achieve anything too important. There is this rich people conspiracy and this ominous stuff, and it consumes Rust's life (and affects Marty's too in some level), but it all sputters out. In the last two episodes, the main characters are basically a bunch of losers with nothing left to lose, and this whole conspiracy has unraveled to some extent, anyway. Then at the end there' the whole line of 'we got OUR guy' when referring to how the rest of the people (who were probably the masterminds) don't actually get taken down by them. I don't think you're really supposed to think that Rust and Marty actually prevented anything hugely important from happening. Pedro De Heredia fucked around with this message at 06:59 on May 12, 2015 |
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May 12, 2015 06:55
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Drifter posted:These weren't fantasy shows; keep the trolling to a minimum please. You should stick to Law & Order
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May 12, 2015 10:04
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I don't know, saying that the first season of True Detective could be interpreted as involving real supernatural forces is kind of like saying that maybe the Fishers were really communicating with the souls of the dead in Six Feet Under. I don't think showing poetic imagery or visually representing a character's "head-space" or imagination means that "maybe" supernatural things are involved.
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May 12, 2015 19:50
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People are so hard up to believe something extra about a show that was really good that they'll bend over backwards and turn themselves inside out in order to fit their tumblr 'headcanons' into it. True Detective was an amazing show, but there was no magic, or spirits or occult poo poo. There may have been a cult and conspiracy what with the human trafficking and rapey stuff but there was no "occult" stuff. It was straight up the evil that men do, and only that. Now, there was some fantastic imagery and symbolism, I'll give anyone that concession. Drifter fucked around with this message at 20:25 on May 12, 2015 |
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May 12, 2015 20:22
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My favorite part was when Matthew McConaughey yelled EXPELLIARMUS
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May 12, 2015 20:40
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Drifter posted:People are so hard up to believe something extra about a show that was really good that they'll bend over backwards and turn themselves inside out in order to fit their tumblr 'headcanons' into it. And that interpretation is fine. It's perfectly supported by the source material. That said, there was no Scooby-Doo ending where Rust and Marty discover that the child killer was old man McGillicutty in a swamp ghost costume trying to scare people away from property that had a gold mine on it. The ultimate victory condition of a Call of Cthulhu scenario is the threat is defeated/prevented and the world gets to pretend to be fully mundane for a little while longer.
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May 13, 2015 00:51
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Yeah I don't know how you can interpret this shot as anything other than a nod to some seriously supernatural poo poo but whatever. Different strokes...
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May 13, 2015 02:38
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That's just the evil that men do. A perfectly natural thing to find at the bottom of a murder cult's secret fortress, where they offer up sacrifices in a wholly agnostic fashion.
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May 13, 2015 02:47
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Thank god the show hadn't already gone out of the way to explain and previously show Rust's acid-based hallucinations. And his ever increasing stress levels. Or maybe the time where the birds flew in a spiral was him coming into his own as the king of birds, or that one time where he actually drove ludicrous speed in his car?
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May 13, 2015 02:55
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Yeah those acid hallucinations were purely a biochemical response and had no bearing on the narrative whatsoever. It's all biological determinism with no creative exploration of metaphysical themes.
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May 13, 2015 02:58
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Weird, it's almost as if it's open to multiple interpretations.
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May 13, 2015 03:06
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Rad Lieutenant posted:Weird, it's almost as if it's open to multiple interpretations. I know - crazy!!!
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May 13, 2015 03:39
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Drifter posted:Thank god the show hadn't already gone out of the way to explain and previously show Rust's acid-based hallucinations. And his ever increasing stress levels. The show explains that Rust's hallucinations are due to past drug use, but it never actually suggests that those visions don't have insight, in fact it does the opposite on a number of occasions. It's also worth mentioning that Rust is literally portrayed as the smartest and most insightful character on the show, by a wide margin. Rust is basically an ascetic mystic who the show directly compares to Jesus Christ shortly after that scene. The show strongly blurs the line between hallucination and religious vision, and implies that they're basically the same thing, and importantly, doesn't reduce religious visions to mere hallucinations, but also elevates hallucinations. Just as it doesn't reduce the cult to mere psychopathic weirdos, but also elevates their occult behavior to being part of a cosmic struggle between light and darkness. The whole point is that Rust's visions are indistinguishable from religious epiphanies. The show is explicitly about the human condition, and how human spirituality and metaphysics fits into that. It's a show that actively questions what giant metaphysical ideas like the battle between Light and Darkness actually mean, and it takes its religion and occultism very seriously. The show literally ends with a character escaping nihilism by becoming Jesus Christ and finding a spiritual safe-haven as a warrior of light. Rust's visions are important. True Detective: a show about one man finding Jesus Christ. He spends the whole show staring in a mirror, looking for meaning, only in self-sacrifice in the fight against evil does he see Jesus. Praise the Lord. Periodiko fucked around with this message at 03:42 on May 13, 2015 |
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May 13, 2015 03:40
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