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True Detective, 2.1

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Orange Jennyslipper

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Oh. Hell. Yes.

Got us a list of characters with more flaws than a $35 diamond ring.

Get a deep seat and a faraway look boys and girls. This ride is going to be spectacular!

True to form, Pizzolatto is going to make us watch each episode a few times to understand what we think we saw. It's breath-taking how much information he can tell us about an entire cast of characters in an hour and yet we know that we're really just barely getting to know them at all.

Ray Velcoro has already made Coale and Marty look like Sunday School teachers. Well, OK, maybe just Marty, but it's only episode 1. We're going to need a program to tell the good guys from the bad guys.
 
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AggiesBoy said:
Oh. Hell. Yes.

Got us a list of characters with more flaws than a $35 diamond ring.

Get a deep seat and a faraway look boys and girls. This ride is going to be spectacular!

True to form, Pizzolatto is going to make us watch each episode a few times to understand what we think we saw. It's breath-taking how much information he can tell us about an entire cast of characters in an hour and yet we know that we're really just barely getting to know them at all.

Ray Velcoro has already made Coale and Marty look like Sunday School teachers. Well, OK, maybe just Marty, but it's only episode 1. We're going to need a program to tell the good guys from the bad guys.
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I walked away not sure what to think. So convoluted that I will certainly need to watch it at least once more. I just hope this starts to tie together, in a coherent way, soon, or I think many will lose interest. So much information and really no one to root for at this point.

I checked some reviews this morning and most the critics seem to feel the same. It's a tall task to follow something that caught lightening in a bottle. I'm truly fearful that they may try so hard, that this will end up muddled. I'm along for the ride though.

And yes ... Lots of broken people ... Lots.
 
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I thought it was pretty good. Didn't hook me as hard as the first season did but that may have had as much to do with subject matter as anything else. Do you all think that since the motorcycle cop had to take the little blue pill that that implies that he was innocent of the BJ charges?
 
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NeekReevers said:
I thought it was pretty good. Didn't hook me as hard as the first season did but that may have had as much to do with subject matter as anything else. Do you all think that since the motorcycle cop had to take the little blue pill that that implies that he was innocent of the BJ charges?
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My thoughts too. Even if it's not as good as season 1, it's still better than 99% of what else comes on TV these days.

As far as being hard to follow, I thought it was all pretty straightforward. Much more so than season 1.
 
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Needs more scenes of Rachel McAdams walking around in panties.

Otherwise, it looked pretty solid.
 
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I need to watch it again to get all the characters & plot lines (?) straight. It's either going to be really good or a complete mess. Too soon to tell. They were basically just introducing characters and setting up the story. Need a couple of more episodes to make an sense.

I thought it was pretty obvious Paul the motorcycle cop was set up by the "actress". He's the straight edge guy who gets accused while Colin Farell's character just wanders around taking bribes and beating people up with no consequences. They will clash at some point when Paul's character has a crisis of conscience. Everyone of course has deep dark issues.
 
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I thought the female cop, internet sex sister and hippy Dad was a little much. But I'm sure there's more story to follow.
 
I just have to look at season 2 as a sepatate entity to season 1. So far, I like it, but the first episode tried to do too much for character development. There may be a reason for that, but we will see. I will watch the whole series, almost no matter what.
 
NeekReevers said:
I thought it was pretty good. Didn't hook me as hard as the first season did but that may have had as much to do with subject matter as anything else. Do you all think that since the motorcycle cop had to take the little blue pill that that implies that he was innocent of the BJ charges?
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The fact he had to take the little blue pill to get aroused with that GORGEOUS gal, and the fact he has never spent the night with her, and he is apparently suicidal...makes me think he might be gay. Might even have some ties to the kinky City Planner. That's what I love about complex character development-it's always fun to speculate how it's going to play out.
 
I love character driven shows. We got some great characters in this show. I don't think it was convoluted so much as puposely overwhelming. It took until the final scene to even understand how these characters go together.

just raw material at first to introduce these complex characters, and will no doubt become less overwhelming now as it settles into the story.
 
Having read some of the comments, I'm beginning to make some sense of Episode 1. Great insights by this group. I was having a hard time trying to make sense of it all, so thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think this will turn out to be a very good series. The wifey hated it because she felt the first TD set the bar way too high and after one episode, she didn't feel it came anywhere close to the original. But then, she likes crap like Say Yes to the Dress, Real Housewives and Hoarders, so what does she know??? ;)
 
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Rewatched it tonight. Liked it better. Caught a lot of little things. He's obviously laying out a lot of stuff he will come back to and interconnect later.
 
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Line of the night: From Ray's partner when they are going through Casper house & seeing all his kinky sex stuff. "I got standing orders if I die you burn all my shit"
 
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I got it on first viewing, but I certainly picked up on a lot more "details" and small stuff watching it the second time around. Lots of things that I expect to be clues or play a part in the story line down the road.
 
I was not critical when they announced VV would play the bad guy, in fact I posted that he would be very strong and prove his acting chops with this role. I still like him as an actor and think he is going to be awesome in this role, but for different reasons than I first thought.

Now, I think the fact that he's a well-known nice guy who plays mostly nice-guy roles was intentional and possibly brilliant on their part. He's not playing the Yellow King. The whole point this season, I think, is that the good guys (law enforcement) have already proven themselves to be way more screwed up than the bad guy. Vaughn's character seems to be a likeable guy who happens to own a casino and has led a lucrative life of crime for many years. He's been successful enough that he literally hasn't gotten blood on his own hands in a long, long time. His wife/gf may actually be the brains of his operation. If not, she's certainly a near-equal with him.

On the other side, McAdams may be the most "normal" of the cops, but very few people would want to walk in her shoes considering her daddy issues and her family members we have met so far. We're not too sure what's eating at the CHiPs guy, but he's a tantrum away from suicide.

VV, on the other hand, has shown far more humanity toward Farrell's character than Colin has shown toward ANYbody. Det. Velcoro's outward display of "love" for the ginger who is obviously not his son is over-compensation for his screwed up relationship with his ex. I worked for a guy many years ago who could almost go toe-to-toe with Ray and a bottle of whisky. If I hadn't seen that guy drink a fifth or two of Crown Royal everyday and still maintain an outward appearance of sobriety, I would have to call BS on the amount of liquor Velcoro consumes and then hops up to drive out to a murder scene.

I think what we know of the plot so far is pretty straight-forward, but these characters are, well, f'n CHARACTERS! Every one of these characters will throw all of us for a loop a couple of times before season 2 is resolved. I am happily in the camp of fans who are satisfied this story will be as good as last year's.
 
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100TonsofOrangeFury said:
I'm a storyline dummy, and feel like I understand completely so far.

What is it that confused everyone?
Click to expand...

I'm with you. I tend to multitask while watching TV so I can get lost pretty easy. I thought it was pretty dang straight forward. Now I'm wondering if I missed something.
 
There's a bit of a "back story" here that people who are not as familiar with Los Angeles County, are likely not picking up on.

Since the 50's and 60's, there have been numerous small areas which have been incorporated as townships and cities in Los Angeles County. (The county is freaking huge @ 4752 Sq Miles; by contrast and comparison OK County is only 718 SM's!)

Many of these places, like City of Industry are nearly purely industrial, with some 2,500+ businesses located in its borders, but less than 250 residents. Some like Bell Gardens and City of Commerce, seemed to have been organized solely to become a profit center for the people who run the town. They are known for their corruption and near incestuous relationships between the City Managers, Council Members, Police/Fire Depts and the Town Treasurer. They typically allow for Casinos (which are actually quite rare in LA County) and are typically chock full of strip clubs, massage parlors, etc. An adjoining place, the City of Bell, you might remember from a few years back when it was discovered that the Chief of Police (overseeing a force of 48) was making double the salary of the LA City COP, who oversees some 10,000 employees. Their City Manager was also raking in double the salary of the City Manager of L.A.

If this fictional town and events that are transpiring therein seems excessive or over the top, I can assure you it's not. If you took a couple of the places in LA County and compared the amount of corruption, cronyism, the police working more as "enforcers" for the powers that be than actual LE, the operational and factual background would be near identical.
 
hollywood said:
There's a bit of a "back story" here that people who are not as familiar with Los Angeles County, are likely not picking up on.

Since the 50's and 60's, there have been numerous small areas which have been incorporated as townships and cities in Los Angeles County. (The county is freaking huge @ 4752 Sq Miles; by contrast and comparison OK County is only 718 SM's!)

Many of these places, like City of Industry are nearly purely industrial, with some 2,500+ businesses located in its borders, but less than 250 residents. Some like Bell Gardens and City of Commerce, seemed to have been organized solely to become a profit center for the people who run the town. They are known for their corruption and near incestuous relationships between the City Managers, Council Members, Police/Fire Depts and the Town Treasurer. They typically allow for Casinos (which are actually quite rare in LA County) and are typically chock full of strip clubs, massage parlors, etc. An adjoining place, the City of Bell, you might remember from a few years back when it was discovered that the Chief of Police (overseeing a force of 48) was making double the salary of the LA City COP, who oversees some 10,000 employees. Their City Manager was also raking in double the salary of the City Manager of L.A.

If this fictional town and events that are transpiring therein seems excessive or over the top, I can assure you it's not. If you took a couple of the places in LA County and compared the amount of corruption, cronyism, the police working more as "enforcers" for the powers that be than actual LE, the operational and factual background would be near identical.
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Interesting stuff, thanks for adding. My first foray to SoCal was spending days in a nasty City of Industry warehouse. Pointless aside: only time in my life I've gotten off work, laid down for a few minutes about 6pm, and slept clean through to 10am the next morning when I had to get up to catch a flight.
 
Did you guys watch episode 2 yet? There hasn't been a hell of a lot going on besides moping so far, but if they carry through on the end of this episode, that would be pretty ballsy. Based on what I've seen so far on other message boards, they're saying this character (trying to avoid spoilers for the moment) shows up in scenes that haven't aired yet, so there's speculation that maybe he was shot with rock salt or bean bags as a message.
 
After watching last night's episode I don't know about this season. It's not just the way the episode ended but they still haven't really hooked me on the story line. I think VV's character is starting to get interesting but the rest of them seem pretty stereotypical. I'm still sticking with it but am now officially worried about a sophomore slump.
 
The obvious out is the Ray is wearing a vest although theirs been no indication of that. Of course he was completely left out of the previews. Very Tony Soprano (not the end of the show but when he got shot). He's the most interesting character so far so I can't see them killing him off.

Storyline is starting to fill in. Hard to believe VV character would really have been that dumb or that Casper would have that much autonomy. Also don't really see where the Mayors muscle come from unless he's really the guy behind Caspers murder etc. and I don't see his motivation for that. Would seem VV would be the dominate one in that relationship.
 
I was kinda not paying attention at one point, so I wasn't sure: who was the guy who was attacked on the road and then implicitly threatened by Vince Vaughn?
 
I did notice, in the previews, that Ray's boss says something along the lines of "When one of my officers gets shot...". Of course, he didn't say, "when one of my officers gets killed", so I suspect that Ray is still alive. It seems kind of strange to go into such detail about his illegitimate son, to just kill him off this early in the story. My guess is that he was wearing a vest, and will be hospitalized for a bit, but return to active duty eventually.

What I found interesting was that the guy who shot him was wearing a mask. Let's think about that for a minute. Let's say you are going to ambush a cop from behind, then shoot him again when he is down. It would seem that there is no need for a mask. A mask might limit your vision and reduce your chance of being successful. If you are planning to kill the cop, it is you or him, so what is the point of the mask?

It seems 1 of two things are going on here. Either the guy who did the shooting is a character we have already seen/will see and HBO doesn't want us to know that he is the bad guy. Or, the guy who did the shooting did not want to kill Ray, but wanted to scare him off the case, and expects him to survive. (maybe the rock salt theory makes more sense in this scenario).

I guess we will find out the answer as the story plays out.

A couple other points of interest...

-It seems pretty clear that the young CHP cop is gay and is living in denial, Right?
-Why didn't Ray call the chick cop before he went to check out the house where he was shot?
-I thought it was weird that he didn't bang on the door and announce himself before sneaking into the house. Just because VV said it was Casper's other house, does not make it so.
-Not sure what to make of the bad guy dripping acid in Casper's eyes and shooting his junk off, then leaving the body to be found in a public spot. Obviously sending someone a message, but who?
-I have a feeling that Casper's creepy psychiatrist will end up being part of the story down the line.
 
Been Jammin said:
I did notice, in the previews, that Ray's boss says something along the lines of "When one of my officers gets shot...". Of course, he didn't say, "when one of my officers gets killed", so I suspect that Ray is still alive. It seems kind of strange to go into such detail about his illegitimate son, to just kill him off this early in the story. My guess is that he was wearing a vest, and will be hospitalized for a bit, but return to active duty eventually.

What I found interesting was that the guy who shot him was wearing a mask. Let's think about that for a minute. Let's say you are going to ambush a cop from behind, then shoot him again when he is down. It would seem that there is no need for a mask. A mask might limit your vision and reduce your chance of being successful. If you are planning to kill the cop, it is you or him, so what is the point of the mask?

It seems 1 of two things are going on here. Either the guy who did the shooting is a character we have already seen/will see and HBO doesn't want us to know that he is the bad guy. Or, the guy who did the shooting did not want to kill Ray, but wanted to scare him off the case, and expects him to survive. (maybe the rock salt theory makes more sense in this scenario).

I guess we will find out the answer as the story plays out.

A couple other points of interest...

-It seems pretty clear that the young CHP cop is gay and is living in denial, Right?
-Why didn't Ray call the chick cop before he went to check out the house where he was shot?
-I thought it was weird that he didn't bang on the door and announce himself before sneaking into the house. Just because VV said it was Casper's other house, does not make it so.
-Not sure what to make of the bad guy dripping acid in Casper's eyes and shooting his junk off, then leaving the body to be found in a public spot. Obviously sending someone a message, but who?
-I have a feeling that Casper's creepy psychiatrist will end up being part of the story down the line.
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A couple things: the guy who killed Casper and the guy who shot Ray are one and the same. We saw the bird mask in the first episode in the car with Casper's corpse.

I assumed Ray didn't call Ani because he was going to the house based on info from VV and didn't want to make clear exactly how compromised he is (she asked him, but he didn't answer).

It does seem like Friday Night Lights cop is gay, especially with his talk about wanting to punch the guy who hit on him.

Supposedly this season was originally going to be about the occult history of the US transportation industry, but the writer decided to scrap those elements. It seems like there's still some of the transportation stuff involved. Maybe the weird bird mask is the last remnant of whatever occult stuff was originally planned.

Edit: Oh yeah, the creepy psychologist was Rick Springfield, looking like death warmed over.
 
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cornichon said:
A couple things: the guy who killed Casper and the guy who shot Ray are one and the same. We saw the bird mask in the first episode in the car with Casper's corpse.

I assumed Ray didn't call Ani because he was going to the house based on info from VV and didn't want to make clear exactly how compromised he is (she asked him, but he didn't answer).

It does seem like Friday Night Lights cop is gay, especially with his talk about wanting to punch the guy who hit on him.

Supposedly this season was originally going to be about the occult history of the US transportation industry, but the writer decided to scrap those elements. It seems like there's still some of the transportation stuff involved. Maybe the weird bird mask is the last remnant of whatever occult stuff was originally planned.

Edit: Oh yeah, the creepy psychologist was Rick Springfield, looking like death warmed over.
Click to expand...

Thanks much. That clears up a lot.

I forgot about the bird mask in episode 1.

I didn't think about your point on the source of Ray's info. Along those same lines, it seems entirely possible that Ray might not trust that the info was accurate and didn't want to look bad in front of Ani (but if so, he would have knocked on the door before breaking in).

Didn't realize that was RS. Thanks for pointing that out.
 
Ray didn't knock for the same reason he didn't call Ani. That was not a legal search. Remember above investigating and solving the case his mandate from VV and his bosses is to control the investigation and make sure nothing negative on the city come out. He was looking for evidence which he was not necessarily going to share with Ani and the team. If he hadn't been shot my guess is he would have searched the place, removed anything that he didn't want to share and then arranged with VV for some kind of tip to have come in the next day so he could go back legally with Ani.

I agree not only the creepy psychologist but also Ani's Dad and the missing girl are all going to end up being tied in somehow. They went out of their way to link him back to Ani's childhood and whatever weird happened and then Ani got the call about the girl who is concerned people are looking for her after leaving the center. Wouldn't be surprised if she was hooked up in the whole Casper sex ring.
 
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I've been defending VV the actor, but he really let me down last night. That opening monolog about being locked in the basement with a burned out light and chewed on by a rat and then beating the rat in his hand until it was only "goo" was his chance to grab the audience by the short hairs and let us know he is a bad, bad man. He didn't come close.

I noticed last night he very rarely gestures with his hands when he talks. He acts like he never recovered from some high school drama teacher screaming at him to stop waving his arms around and made him go through several dress rehearsals with his hands tied behind his back.

I'm still loving the story. No way Ray is dead, but I bought it at first last night.

Lots of creepy characters, no doubt, and I wouldn't be surprised to see many of the peripherals end up tied together at the end. But S1 had plenty of oddballs who were just oddballs.
 
First, it's clear to me Birdman is attempting to takeout VV. Why? I'm not sure...a competing money interest?...simply because VV is a corrupt, underworld business man...a gangster, and Birdman wants that exposed?...simple revenge? It's not clear to me yet.

Second, so far in the show, VV has come off, to me, as an ethical underworld figure, not a brutal psycho-path; he's a Michael Corleone-type...I think. I mean it's obvious he's not afraid to cut corners, break the law or even hurt people when it comes to advancing his business interests. Yet, I don't see him as going after people who, in his mind, don't deserve it; but if he does go after you, he'll show no mercy (the opening monologue... the rat came after him...he just didn't kill it; he annihilated it.)

Additionally, VV's legitimate business interests seem to be on the seedier side - casinos, bars, strip clubs, possibly drugs, etc. But it also seems, like Michael Corleone, he wants to be legitimate (remember the line from Episode 1, something like, when it comes to "old" money in California, today, nobody cares how their families got it). This explains his venture into real-estate, buying up land to be purchased by California for its high speed rail project. (Admittedly, I don't think his purchases or planned purchases were on the up & up, i.e. his involvement with Casper, but his longterm goal is "clean" money, made from a legitimate investment.)


Cornichon...to your roadside beating question...I think it was storytelling device to demonstrate VV's current desperation at the moment. Casper obviously lost or stole VV's money to be used for his real-estate purchases. VV still wants to buy the land, so he's calling in all his markers. The guy beaten by VV's goons is probably into VV for significant money (gambling...maybe?...I don't know). Under "normal" circumstances, VV would probably wait on the debt or simply put pressure on the guy. But with VV on the verge of nothingness (he has no assets right now...I think he said something like that), desperate times call for desperate measures.
 
VV character is a small time hood whose gotten in over his head. I agree he has big aspirations to build something semi-legal mostly driven I'm sure by his wife. She seems to be the one behind cleaning him up. This made him a easy target for Casper and possible the Mayor.
 
I agree completely with your second point chillwell. This was Frank's chance to go legit which is his greatest desire. He's tired of the daily grind of running bars and strip joints and he's double tired of paying the corrupt city officials a monthly cut of his earnings.

I'd keep an eye out for goons from the slick dude with Catalyst. He strikes me as dirty as Frank, but he does everything wearing a more expensive suit. He might be the one pulling the birdman's strings.
 
I like Abigail Spencer as Vaccro's ex. She was Scotty in Suits and Suzzanne Farrell in Mad Men.

Will her character develop much or not?
137171360.jpg
 
Aggies Boy wrote: "That opening monologue about being locked in the basement with a burned out light and chewed on by a rat and then beating the rat in his hand until it was only "goo" was his chance to grab the audience by the short hairs and let us know he is a bad, bad man."

I didn't take it as the writer's intent to show him as a "bad, bad man" - in fact I kind of took it the opposite way. I thought it was to show that in some respects he was still a frightened confused child in some ways, in the dark trying to sort out why those he trusted (his Dad, Casper) had abandoned him. At this point, it's his fear that is driving him to try and sort stuff out and see how he can salvage his "empire" which seems now (with his $5 M missing) running on fumes.


The guy in the bump and beat situation was a "bookie" who was doing business in Vinci without paying a honoraria to the local "boss" which in this case would be Frank Semyon (VV). The message was to start paying, get out of town or get killed. Frank says something to him about running book in VInci, the rest I deciphered what was going on, when Frank was telling the mayor he was opening new streams of revenue.

The HP is obviously gay with some "mommy issues" (Lolita Davidovich, haven't seen her in a while but she was playing his mom.) I loved the world weary cop, Teague (played by W Earl Brown who played Dan Dority on Deadwood and Warren in Something about Mary) after hearing the info that Paul dropped on him (about how he "almost punched a f*g at the bank who was hitting on him) - tells the other two when they arrive: "Hey, the kids got a world class anecdote." (Don't have the exact quote, so paraphrasing from memory)
 
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