Comments on: True Detective S1E3 Review, “The Locked Room”

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 03:13:00 +0000

That’s the Michael Bay school of character development. If this was a movie, there would be a zero percent chance I’d see it, because I’ve seen the same movie before, probably at least a half dozen times.

By: Jam

Jam — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 20:17:00 +0000

Those scenes show how selfish he is. He is selfish in his relationship with his mistress, demanding sex when convenient for him – He is selfish in his relationship with his wife, makes up shit to get her off his back then has sex – he is selfish in his relationship with his kids, keeps an eye on the game while talking to his daughter about a potentially serious issue. The only aspect of his life where he is not selfish is as a cop. He actually gives over control to Rust quite frequently. In fact as fucked up as he and Rust both are, their most healthy relationships are with each other. Without those scenes of domestic instability we are not left with the full picture, and the “cop” part of the show exists in a different context. It is not gumming up the workings of the show, it is called character development. Think of these 8 episodes as a movie. A movie with enough time to expose the viewer to aspects of the main characters’ life that is not instrumental to the plot but important none the less in telling a larger story.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 19:44:00 +0000

You definitely win the prize on that one. But I’m betting the speech does get delivered near the end.

I think what it comes down to for me is that each episode so far has had at least one awful scene that doesn’t belong in anything as prestigious as an HBO cop drama. Woody cheats on his wife, then has the classically bad “marriage is falling apart” scene with her, which isn’t resolved at all but leads to sex? Is a 13-year-old writing this? Because that is a 13-year-old boy’s idea of relationship problems and their resolution. JUST DON’T DO THAT SHIT! Obviously is leading to the rift between Cohle and Marty, but they could have done that any number of ways and just left out all the domestic bullshit that’s gumming up the workings of the show.

By: Jam

Jam — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 05:02:00 +0000

There are only 8 episodes, so I will take that bet.

Let’s not be too harsh, the show definitely fires above a 7/10. So far nothing about the show is too formulaic. Does it dabble in cliche? Yes, but could it possibly be a cop show without doing so? The obvious setup is that Rust is the killer (or who better to be “a damn dedicated copycat on the loose decades later” than Rust), but then again, the show is skillfully written and I think we think exactly what they want us to think at this point. We are only 3 eppies deep.