True Detective

The Louisiana season: Or how existential crime series à la Dürrenmatt dealt with a Scandi overlap thriller à la Larsson in a Deep Southern (and thanks to Rusty, nihilistic, and thanks to Marty hypocritical) way, with the essence of Southern noire. Which resulted in a (pan)genre movie with inimitable genius loci which is extremely existential, very symbolic, not literally reading the unspoken between the lines, very dismal, very subliminally disturbing, very mosaic-like in terms of narrative and primarily very (but really very) good. The Arkansas season: After the second, conceptually boldly different (however not completely successful) season, the third “yellow-bellied" season returns to what worked first time. And it works again. Again we have an oppressive and disturbing atmosphere-oozing masterpiece of cinema where the genre plot takes the back seat and serves purely as a catalyst for in depth character study of ambiguous, unbalanced animate characters across time. For its casting, performances, camerawork, production design, easy to follow despite three timelines... All of this is worthy of one of the current flagships of quality TV. The bigtime problem storyline is the one connected with the present which, thanks to paper rustling games with a problematic memory, serves as a carrot on a stick leading us toward gradual and final (non)revelation. And to make it worse, this becomes the central storyline of the last episodes. It doesn’t help that the creators are constantly would-be mysteriously hinting “just wait, you’ll see". While, to the attentive viewer, it becomes immediately clear where things are headed. In a purely crime genre where the case and (not)solving it play first fiddle, this would probably work on a scale of a few episodes. But not as the connecting thread of an eight hour movie “about characters and relationships", which season three tries to be. P.S.: Even HBO itself jumped on the bandwagon with the creators by beating about the bush with the description “frightful case of child murders". But this is like saying that the Red Sox won, but when you look at the results you find out that not only did the Red Sox not play, but the game ended in a tie. | S1: 5/5 | S3: 3/5 | (01/28/2014)

A very good crime drama with a couple of great actors and a priceless gloomy atmosphere. I liked the way the filmmakers played with various details, such as the aging of the two characters (although Harrelson's "young" tupé was very obvious, even worse than his accent, which was also agonizing) and how they managed to piece together the story, even in pieces. For my taste, however, True Detective lacked any surprises. I didn't want a shocking point right away, but still, some "Well, I didn't expect that!" wouldn't hurt. "It used to be just darkness. In my opinion, light wins." (08/26/2015)

True Detective develops a multi-layered plot that jumps back and forth in time between flashbacks, in which two diametrically opposed detectives, who have a hard time getting along, investigate a ritualistic murder, and the present day, where these detectives are talking about a 17-year-old case to other detectives investigating a similar murder. The heart of the detective story, however, lies in the gradual revelation of the changing relationship of the two main characters, whose accounts differ at times, and the reason why both have changed so much over the years. In doing so, the series plays with the concept of the unreliable narrator. The precise performances of the two leads (which are among the best of their careers) make for a riveting watch. HBO series have always successfully portrayed the atmosphere of a given place and time, and this existential neo-noir delights in the way it manages to build a dark atmosphere in a sunny Louisiana landscape. All eight episodes had the same director (Cary Fukunaga) and were written by one writer (Nic Pizzolatto), which was unusual in television up to this point. It is therefore more of an eight-hour film divided into eight chapters. In fact, HBO plans to treat the entire series as an anthology (each season will have a different story, different characters, and a different director). (01/14/2014)

After a very long time, I was able to downright enjoy a TV show. One season was enough to make me realize that you can still wonder about a story even despite the fact that the creators tell you a substantial part of it right from the start. True Detective’s selling points are its story and its atmosphere. Although the story itself seems like quite a classic plot at first glance, its narration is so perfect that it immediately etched itself in my mind. And not just because of the story itself, but, above all, because of the lead roles that Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson performed so perfectly. I haven’t ever seen them act better. In any case, thanks to them, this TV show has become one of the most intense show experiences I have ever had. (03/13/2014)

I'm probably the only one, but for me, this is possibly the biggest disappointment in a TV series in the past ten years. This is definitely not another Chernobyl, Mindhunter, Queen’s Gambit, or Money Heist. I haven't seen such an overhyped series in a long time. Maybe if I had watched it in 2014, I would have rated it differently, but in terms of Crime, Mindhunter and Night Stalker are on a completely different level of quality. Even the French crime drama from the same year, SK1, is much more intense. The only thing that can be praised are Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, who do a really good job in their roles, and the craftsmanship is also at a high level, but is that enough? Not for me. The most shocking thing is that there is only one murder throughout the series, and the introduction of the killer happens twenty minutes before the end, which is unforgivable in the crime genre. Ironically, the series should have begun where it ends. You hope for ritual occult murders that would add darkness, brutality, discomfort, and instead, they deal with typical family relationships, who's sleeping with whom, character development, and similar matters that absolutely didn't interest me. The only memorable scene in the whole eight hours is Daddario's breasts, and that is unfortunately shameful. In the end, the investigation and evidence collection play a supporting role (most of the time the series takes place at a station, in a car, or in someone's bed), and if someone finds rainy weather darker than mutilated corpses, then I must be living in a different world. Not to mention the slow and uninteresting pace. As a drama, I would be willing to give it a 7, but in terms of crime and thriller, it's a 4 for me, so a compromise somewhere around 5. (04/05/2021)