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Woody Harrelson

True Detective: Season 1 review

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“The world needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door.”

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We watched it, we discussed it, and most of us loved it, and now with the conclusion of season 1, True Detective has become HBO’s latest breakout success. Averaging about 10.9 million viewers across all HBO plays and platforms (and inciting a headline grabbing frustration when HBO GO crashed during the night of the finale), the show instantly found a following, and it’s easy to see why. An atmospheric southern gothic tale about unspeakable evil,  True Detective is every bit a well-worn story, just expertly crafted and delivered in a way just unheard of for American television, even on a premium channel. The show’s first season is pretty spectacular, and it’s exactly the type of gritty horror show that HBO has been trying to air for years now….and it isn’t even a traditional horror show!

True Detective’s plot, a story of two very different anti-hero cops and a murder case that will envelop their lives for 17 years, follows a very logical yet still satisfying trajectory. Being interviewed by a younger pair of police officers, the show’s two older protagonists of Rustin “Rust” Cohle  (Matthew McConaughey) and Martin “Marty” Hart (Woody Harrelson) recount their harrowing account on how they “solved” a mysterious murder back in the 1995, while also seeing the fallout the two have in their personal lives during the early 2000s. Eventually though, the narrative brings us to the show’s contemporary setting of 2012, as we see our two detectives finally reaching a conclusion over their long-gestating homicide case.

Throughout the show’s run, message boards erupted with theories as to what was coming. Many people seemed to think that their was a huge twist at the show’s end (could either Rust or Hart be the real murderer?), and some even expected that the show would take a turn into the supernatural. It’s certainly justifiable to think either of these things, as the show did have us bear witness to Cohle and Hart doing some pretty bad things, and the show had plenty of references to weird horror literature, most directly to Robert W. Chambers 1895 short story collection The King in Yellow. That said, neither of those two theories played out, with the identity of the killer hardly proving to be a shock, and the show didn’t have any overt fantastical elements to it. Throw in the fact that True Detective left many of it’s plot threads still lingering by it’s end, and one could make a case that True Detective ends on a bit of disappointing note. I admit, that I myself was a bit hesitant on giving the season finale any accolades at first, but looking back at it now, the whole series just felt so organic. Rather than being a gimmicky whodunit, True Detective played almost like an existential buddy-cop show instead, and one that really lucked out in the casting department.

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Yes, Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey were mesmerizing in their roles, and their chemistry is the real binding for the show’s success. While initially it seems that Hart is the more level-headed of the two detectives as he isn’t spewing pessimism like Cohle is, we quickly discovered he is a very flawed man. He’s an adulterer and a violent hot-head, but we also get inside the character’s personal dilemmas and realize that their is real apathy in this man as well. Matthew McConaughey, an actor who is easily amidst the peak of his career right now, once again gives a fully committed portrayal of a complex lead character here, and it’s so fitting that the season’s finale aired a week after Matthew McConaughey scored his first Oscar win. It’s a decree to the man’s newly relegated position as one of Hollywood’s most elite, and here’s hoping that he’ll be placing an Emmy on his award shelf in about a year from now.

As I said in my review for the pilot, I had predicted that True Detective was going to feel like an eight-hour movie upon it’s completion, as every episode would feature Nic Pizzolatto as writer, and Cary Fukunaga as director. I can now say that the show absolutely felt like that, but I feel it was more due to Fukunaga’s contribution than for Pizzolatto. As consistent and talented a crime writer Nic Pizzolatto is, I feel that this season didn’t entirely escape the trappings of genre tropes, while Fukunaga’s film making was light-years ahead of what we’ve come to expect from the television milieu. He really did shoot the series like a horror film, and has even admitted David Lynch’s Twin Peaks as a crucial influence on the show’s development. What’s more, the show really did look like a film rather than a weekly television serial, due to it’s highly skilled camera work. Hell, the single take tracking shot in episode 4 will probably be discussed in film school classes for many generations to come. It’s understandable that Fukunaga has revealed he will not be returning to the show next season so that he may pursue other film projects, but I feel his presence shall be greatly missed.

So yes, True Detective’s debut season is really something special, and it’s the first new show since Justified to really understand noir storytelling. Pizzolatto and Fukunaga have given viewers a bleak, desolate and insidious world, that’s so rank that one can almost smell the cigarette smoke and booze. While HBO has yet to reveal whether they will order another season or not, giving the show’s fast success it seems like a sure-fire bet that they will. Pizzolatto has explained that True Detective is an anthology season, and that next season will feature an all new cast of characters, setting, and story. It is upsetting that Woodly Harrelson, Matthew McConaughey and Cary Fukunaga will not be returning, but at least they’ve left an ideal blueprint for the series model during this riveting freshman year. True Detective may very well go down as this generation’s Twin Peaks.

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HBO’s True Detective – Series Premiere Review

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The TV dry season is officially over! The holidays are behind us, the new year has begun, and once again TV networks are giving us high-quality shows at a weekly rate (please watch Community!). Therefore, it’s also time for people to begin anticipation for the year’s new television debuts, especially in light of the current transitional period TV is going through with several high-profile series winding down to a conclusion this year or next (Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, Sons of Anarchy, How I Met Your Mother, etc.). People are all eager to see what the next Breaking Bad could be, which frankly is saying a lot, but fortunately viewers might very well be getting another taste of a brilliant crime series, and quicker than they might of thought. HBO’s new series, True Detective, premiered last night, and if the quality of this pilot is any indication of what’s too continue, then TV’s most prestigious channel may just have another masterpiece on their hands.

Telling the series in a non-linear but concise fashion, the storyline flips between 2012 and flashbacks pertaining to a police investigation regarding a seemingly ritualistic murder back in 1995. The storyline revolves around two Louisiana detectives, one being the relatively straight-laced and humble Martin Hart (Woody Harrelson), and the other the more hard-edged and potentially tortured Rust Cohl (Matthew McConaughey). In 2012, both of these detectives are being questioned regarding the 1995 case, with a pair of younger detectives hoping they can shed some light on updating the case file. We see that Martin hasn’t changed too much in the 17 years since the case (besides Harrelson’s loss of a toupee), but Rust has become a sloven alcoholic. It’s clear that there’s more to this case then what’s in the police books, and it’s also clear that we as viewers are going to see all of the details over this season’s eight-episode run.

Created and written by novelist Nic Pizzolatto and directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, the show immediately lets us know what kind of a story this is. True Detective certainly isn’t averse to using some rudimentary crime-fiction/noir tropes for the pilot, but one can’t shake off the notion that any familiarity in the show is only there to get the ball rolling. There are two aspects of this pilot episode that really stick out as being outstanding, and that’s the acting and the mood, with the latter possibly being the most important card in the whole deck. The show is suitably eerie and grim throughout, and it’s definitely the most potent sense of rural noir that I’ve seen on the small screen in a long while. Expect plenty of consistency in this area too, as all eight of this season’s episodes are written by Pizzolatto and directed by Fukunaga, which makes True Detective another example of how the television medium is becoming more and more like film. I’ll reserve final judgement until watching all of this season, but I have a strong feeling that True Detective is going to feel like an eight hour movie.

It’s no doubt that the show’s star power will call in an immediate fanbase, but in this case that’s another good reason to watch the show. Matthew McCouaughey continues to prove he’s not only one of Hollywood’s best actors, but one of the hardest working as it’s almost impossible to envision how he can appear in a healthy string of movies each year, yet still finds time to star in a TV series. Yet once again he delivers a complex and highly entertaining performance here as detective Rust, who is in some nature a character we’ve seen before, yet also something much deeper. Rust is different from the rest of his police team as he’s distinct in his investigative methods and potentially a better detective, yet through little snippets of the show’s dialogue we find that he has had divorce and violence in his past. His musings on why humanity is doomed and inherently evil are chilling to hear, and provide a great contrast to his partner Martin’s more lenient views. Woody Harrelson once again delivers a sturdy performance here, and it’s enticing to see where this character goes as he uncovers more of the darkness that he seems foreign too, yet Rust seems to be a first hand witness towards. The dynamic of these cops is certainly something that’s been done before, but rich acting, writing and dialogue keep viewers fully immersed in the “chemistry” between McConaughey and Harrelson.

So yes, True Detective has a very strong premiere episode, and word says that the series is only going to get better in the subsequent ones. Pizzolatto has described True Detective as being an anthology series, and he says that if they do get another season that it will involve new characters and a different case. Therefore, we as viewers can rest assured in receiving a complete story in this season, rather then being left with an unsatisfying cliffhanger, a method which other crime shows like The Killing (which Pizzolatto did write for) have been criticized for. At first glance True Detective appears to be a gritty, character-driven, and well executed piece of neo-noir, and here’s hoping that that first impression lasts.