I’ve gone on record that True Detective season one [Note: can we start getting subheadings for these seasons? True Detective: The Mcconaissance?] is likely my favorite TV watching experience as an adult. It had everything I want in a TV show, or a drama at least. Enthralling character performances by dedicated actors, philosophical moments that make you question your very existence (if time is a flat circle should I bother getting up tomorrow for work?), a detailed puzzle that, if you stared at long enough you might be taken somewhere a little too real, and finally, of course, a healthy smattering of Lovecraftian DNA.
The Lovecraft element seems to be a good place to start when discussing season two of True Detective, which has expanded the size of its cast, but seems to have diminished its third eye. Most early reviews from “real” writers (you know, the ones that get advanced episodes) have stated that this season takes a right turn onto the Pacific Coast highway, leaving behind the mystical, or metaphysical depending on your preference, Louisiana roots of the show. Season two is a gritty detective show with some bizarre occult elements, sure, but you won’t be looking up into a dimensional void by the end of the season. Instead, perhaps, you’ll be staring down into the dark abyss that humans are all too capable of creating without any bogeyman waiting in the wings. For now, no one is turning on their blinker and taking the next off ramp to Carcosa.
To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’m a huge Lovecraft fan despite all of his shortcomings as a writer. Lovecraft’s style aside, there is something that has always fascinated me about forbidden knowledge, a staple of Lovecraft’s best writing. The glimpses of the beyond that we were privy to in season one, usually through the eyes of fan favorite Rust Cohle, were tantalizing. Like opening the wrong door at the Overlook hotel.
I for one, think this is an elaborate ruse. The first three episodes may be devoid of any mystical visions or unexplainable phenomenon, but I would wager that by around episode 4 or 5, we’re going to see something we won’t be able to explain. Like it or not, this show was at its best when it was blindsiding you with the unknown and the bizarre. I wouldn’t count it out quite yet.
Whether real or not, at the very least, Rust Cohle believed he was seeing what he was seeing in Louisiana. Which made him the perfect vessel to drop season one’s best one-liners. Listening to him wax poetic never got old.
In season two, Rust Cohle’s one-liner mantle has been picked up by Detective Ray Velcoro, played by Colin Farrel. In the first episode alone Velcoro has the following lines:
[after handing a wad of cash to a divorce attorney] “What, you like paying taxes?”
“And what? They shit on [your shoes]?”
“Aspen? That’s a boys name?!”
[to a 12 year old] “You like to bully kids, ass...head. You’re 12 years old and you’re already as evil as fuck.”
“Twelve years old my ass. FUCK. YOU.”
Hardly the Jim Morrison-Neil deGrasse Tyson mashup we were accustomed to with Cohle, but still a very solid showing, and very meme worthy.
But in a way their similarities are only skin deep. Velcoro is a much more tragic figure than Cohle. His wife was raped, leading him to make a deal with shady mobster Frank Semyon, played by Vince Vaughn, in order to find and presumably kill the rapist. Nine months later his wife gave birth to a red headed son, and despite the seemingly obvious conclusion that Velcoro’s son is actually the son of the rapist, Velcoro refused a paternity test and raised the son as his own. In the present, Velcoro’s marriage has failed, his son is a dumpy loser that gets picked on at school and is terrified of the aggressive fatherhood advice of Velcoro. Velcoro has spiraled into a drunken and corrupt shell of his former self. His love for his son seems to be all that sustains him, and everything else in this hard world - his ex-wife, the kids at school and his new divorce attorney - are trying to rip that away from him. He’s holding on tighter, but his life is slipping away.
Velcoro’s only friend is his former adversary turned confidant and employer, mobster Frank Semyon. In the best scene in the episode, the two share a drink and Frank both pities Velcoro for what his life has become, and feels guilt for having a hand in its destruction. A tender touch on the shoulder from Semyon won’t soothe Velcoro’s pain, but it’s a nice gesture and a beautiful moment in an episode filled with ugliness. Velcoro may feel like the world is against him, but Semyon, for now, is there for him.
The directing in this episode was phenomenal, especially the hidden shot at the beginning of the episode. If season one’s opening shots were any indication, we shouldn’t ignore the first 30 seconds of this episode. Season one opened with what appeared to be fireside rituals in the woods of the Louisiana back country, and we all know where the show eventually took us. Season two opens on a valley in California, with pink flags attached to stakes in the ground. There are hills and wilderness in the background. Something is being built far from civilization. On the surface, these are likely land markers for the light rail which is slated to be constructed through the middle of California (more on that in a second). But I can’t shake the feeling that the layout of the stakes is eerily more similar to the geometric patterns of a gruesome ritual sacrifice than an innocuous construction project. Were these stakes placed by a foreman or a hangman? In season two, they may be one in the same.
Let’s talk plot. There is a multi-billion dollar light rail construction project underway, which would run through the heart of California. Frank Semyon has aligned himself with Vinci City Manager Ben Caspere in order to finalize a land purchase which would finally legitimize him and provide for his future family. There’s only one problem, Ben Caspere goes missing the day of the presentation and eventually turns up dead, discovered by a suicidal Woodrugh.
The story centers around solving who killed Caspere, the corrupt and toxic city of Vinci, which, thanks to some great directing, acts like a poisonous tumor in the heart of California. It’s poison spreading outward through California’s many on-ramps and highways, reminiscent of the arteries of a human body. Unfortunately, it looks like it’s too late to amputate. The cancer has spread up the PCH. The highway shots also serve to give us the scope of the series. The plot after all, centers on building quicker transportation through one of America’s biggest states. The helicopter highway shots remind us that there is a large world out there, and it’s all converging on Vinci.
If you’ve noticed, I haven’t talked much about the other characters on the show. This is largely because Antigone Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams) and Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitcsh) didn’t give us too much this episode. Bezzerides is a tough female cop with a preference for...anal sex? Was I picking up on that right? Also, her father runs a hippy commune that apparently was leftover from the Mad Men season finale. Woodrugh is highway patrol cop and war veteran who both brought scars back from the war and took some very large ones overseas. Aside from producing the best “I’m getting a blowjob but I hate it” faces of all time, he doesn’t do much this episode. [Note: I’m a huge Tim Riggins fan, making me a Woodrugh fan immediately].
They drink too much, they’re detached, they’re in pain constantly and at the moment they seem to be trying to do their best brooding Rust Cohle impression. They both look like they’re a couple of texts from their exes away from killing themselves (Woodrugh even reenacts James Van Der Beek’s motorcycle suicide scene from Rules of Attraction, a criminally underrated movie).
It’s pretty grim. I wonder how long this can last, and I sincerely hope some depth gets added very soon, otherwise buckle up for 8 episodes of people brooding. We can’t have three Rust Cohle’s on this show, and at least he had Woody Harrelson’s faux optimism to balance him out.
This leads me to a theory I’ve had since they announced the cast for this season of True Detective: someone is going to get killed very early on. Four leads is simply not a sustainable way to run a show like True Detective. Add three more characters, and it becomes The Wire. But four seems like an unwieldy number. Combine that with the fact that HBO’s other successful franchise delights in killing off characters before the audience expects, and I think it’s a safe bet to say that someone is getting sent to the Yellow King in the sky sooner rather than later.
But back to the show and the reason these four characters are all bound together like a murder victim. One character quips “everyone gets touched”, in reference to a newspaper article hoping to unearth all of the corruption that Vinci was founded on. I have a feeling that the same can be true of California itself. If Vinci is the rotten core harboring some agent of malignance, the highways - and light rail - are the perfect way to spread its influence. Time may not be a flat circle anymore. Instead it’s been replaced with a flat four lane highway, and we may not like where this road trip takes us.