True Detective (HBO) Official Thread

This makes me happy!

True Detective has been renewed with the same creator of Season 4 returning. It will likely be a different cast, as it is an anthology series.

Show of hands if you are excited about this? What, no takers?

Yes there's loads. And it shows. Terrible casting.

They really have ruined this show's legacy.

The ratings for it were massive, so it was guaranteed for another season. Who talks about MA and Stephfffffen Dorf’s season? I enjoyed it and can’t remember a thing about it besides the wife’s gorgeous hair and that prosthetic makeup.

I’m fine with it. We live in a world where engagement means as much or more than the viewing. How many pods and articles did I consume through the course of this season because I was activated

It doesn’t matter if this show is good/bad/other if it gets views and traffic. I’m happy for the people that enjoyed it.

Question for "True Detective" fans. I liked the first season, tried to watch a couple of episodes of the second season and then found it to be terrible and stopped watching, have never seen the third season and didn't like the fourth season. Are seasons 2 and 3 worth watching and revisiting? I'm not necessarily looking for it to be as good as Season 1, just looking for something of high quality that would be entertaining.

I really liked season 3, but that’s based on the strength of Stephen Dorf’s on-screen smoking prowess. Plus, I don’t remember it having the yo-yo rollercoaster of plot devices.

Maybe it’s being a former smoker, but the on-screen bernies fascinate me 🤩

Season 3 is very good and offers what you are looking for. Season 2, on the other hand, is only enjoyable ironically. You're meant to take dialogue like "my heart has blue balls" seriously, for instance.

I liked each season except #3.

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Season 3 is decent, and the second-best season...but there's still a huge gulf between the first season and all the others. And not just in quality, but in tone. S2 and S3 don't "feel" like S1. Weirdly, S4 (particularly the first couple of episodes) is the most tonally similar to the first season.

S3 is just too twisty, frankly. But it's not bad, and the performances (Ali in particular, unsurprisingly) are really good.

Curious to see if Pizzolatto (2tees2zees) keeps up with his s__t talking. Being an EP on the show, with no involvement, means that mailbox money is in full effect!

I didn't like Season 4, but Nick's behavior is really unprofessional. It's a very tacky thing to do to be trashing the new creator and her vision, especially when he continues to make money off of the show. If you hate it that much, have some integrity and step down from being an executive producer and stop making money from it. The classy thing to do would be to either remain silent, or just say, you know, this isn't the direction I would have gone, but my time with the show is done and others have the right to create their own versions of this story now.

About the first season, from 2014, concerning the show, Ligotti, and others:



https://lovecraftzine.com/2014/08/04...ti-and-others/

I think they are giving her another shot because the ratings were strong. Money talks, and in this era, that's often more important than the quality of the series. Additionally, creatively, it was a new direction for "True Detective" that many apparently genuinely liked, even though others did not. On IMDB, it appears the final episode is rated a 5.4/10 with close to 10K reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, Season 4 has a 58% approval rating, so it was a divisive season, but the audience rating for Season 3 was the same.

I think I'll check out Season 3, since some liked it on the board. Thanks for the guidance!

I just finished Night Country, and it was such a mess. Touting an agenda trampled over storytelling and ticking enough boxes on the virtue sheet was more important than quality writing. I kind of feel like I wasted those six hours. Maybe 1.5/5 would be a fitting rating.

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Lopez seems very talented to me. Producer, writer & director of the entire 4th season.

I loved it!

I just finished Season 3. I enjoyed it much better than Season 4, so thanks for the recommendation Yoda! I also found it to be a bit too twisty, and the shifting time periods were a bit difficult to follow for me, but the acting from Ali, Carmen Ejogo and Stephen Dorff were top notch and the story was interesting. I did find it to be a bit slow at times, and I didn't understand the purpose of the jungle scene at the very end and what that was supposed to signify. I see some people talking about that in this thread, and I still don't understand that scene. I also found they focused a bit too much on Ali's descent into senility, sometimes more so than the actual crime story that was supposed to be the central story.

While this is not as good as Season 1, I think this is a great example of what you can achieve with a non-agenda driven approach to story. They focused on the story, all of the main characters had a good amount of character development, both men and women characters were featured, and they weren't seeking to send a message with the story. After Season 3, it's understandable that the creator would be upset with the direction they took the series in this latest season.

I rewatched the whole first season not long after the current Night Country season ended.

It reminded me of just how compelling that whole first season was, how well it was crafted and pieced together, and how well it was acted and written. And it made me sadder about how much season 4 was NOT like that first season. (sigh)

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