True Detective - "Haunted Houses" Review

by Lee Padrick, February 24, 2014
True Detective S1E6

Cohle plays shadow puppets

WARNING:  This review contains spoilers.

After two back-to-back action-oriented episodes, True Detective slows down with some character development.  But a needed change of pace to show why Hart and Cohle split up in 2002.

A lot of stuff that has happened as this miniseries heads toward the penultimate episode.  The internet has been abuzz with wild theories about what the show's two main protagonists have been up to for the past 10 years.  And a lot of those theories were squashed with this episode's revelations.  There is no supernatural (as of yet) stuff going on; this is a character-driven drama about the price that homicide detectives pay as they investigate some of the most horrifying crimes that humans commit.  

Maggie, Hart's wife, has taken the philandering Hart back.  And everything is peaceful in the Hart household.  But Marty, on a maxipad run for the women in his life, stops in to the T-Mobile retailer for a new cellphone.  A pretty young girl helps him find his new device.  And as he's walking back to his vehicle, he spots the Fox and Hound bar.  Holding a bag of maxipads, he gives in to temptation and has a drink.  As he is sipping a beer, the young lady who sold him the cellphone comes in, and approaches Marty.  Turns out its the young prostitute from the Hillbilly Bunny Ranch that Marty gave money and advice to back in 1995 when he and Cohle were investigating the Lang murder.  A few drinks later, and the young salesperson is flirting with Marty.  Marty gives in to his weaknesses, and ends up bedding the young lady.  But he makes the mistake of washing his clothes when he gets home, arousing the suspicion of Maggie, who searches his cellphone and finds a selfie of the younger woman.  This girl was apparently on the cutting edge of sexting.

Maggie decides to explore her value on the singles market.  She visits a local bar and flirts with another patron.  But she does not close the deal, instead showing up at the apartment of a hammered-drunk Cohle, where she seduces him and they have quick, rough sex.  Cohle, in a moment of clarity, figures out what just happened and throws Maggie out of his apartment.  Maggie, mission accomplished, promptly returns home and waits for Marty to arrive, so that she can tell him that she just cheated with his partner.  Marty does not take this news well, and briefly chokes his wife before regaining control of himself.

Cohle is warned by his new boss to back off of the Dora Lang investigation.  But Cohle decides his best career move is to confront Billy Lee Tuttle, after tracking down Theriot and finding out that some hinky stuff was happening years earlier with children at the Tuttle Ministry.  Cohle interviews Tuttle, and a tense scene ensues where Cohle lays down a veiled challenge to the Governor's cousin.  Cohle's boss, after getting a complaint from Tuttle, suspends Cohle. Cohle comes back to the office a few days later, and a fight breaks out between the two partners.

Flash forward to 2012, and Maggie is being interviewed.  Paponia and Gilbough ask a lot of questions about Cohle, but Maggie maintains that Cohle is an honorable man, and she does not understand how her interview can help their case.

Meanwhile, Hart has had enough of his interview with the 2012 detectives, as he figures out that Cohle is their prime suspect.  He leaves the interview, and is flagged down by Cohle, still driving his old F-150.  Cohle invites Marty to have a beer with him, and the episode ends on this cliffhanger.   

The penultimate episode is coming up, and we only have 120 minutes left with McConaughey and Harrelson.  We are now caught up to 2012.  Looking forward to how this show concludes.  I am just enjoying the ride.

Random Thoughts:

- Cohle looked like he let Marty beat him pretty bad before he defended himself.

- Still don't know who the man with the scars is.

- Tuttle makes a "Its hard to trust a man who can't trust himself with a beer" remark.  The Police Commissioner was there when they found the kids and killed the LeDouxs, and I remember as scene where they pour whiskey for Hart and Cohle, and Cohle declines.  And Marty is seen out drinking with his co-workers.  So its common knowledge on the state police force that Cohle doesn't drink.  Is the Police Commissioner the eyes and ears for Tuttle?

What did you think?

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True Detective - "Who Goes There" Review

by Lee Padrick, February 10, 2014
True Detective S1E4

WARNING:  This review contains spoilers.

After teasing the audience with a tighty-whitey-clad freak in a gas mask and holding a machete, True Detective comes back after a two-week break.  And does not pick up back where you would expect.  Before we confront the underwear-attired nutjob, we must find out how we found the underwear-attired nutjob.  And that is what "Who Goes There" brings to the table.  At a faster pace that we have seen thus far.  

This episode offers us a quick look at how Hart met his mistress, who turns out to be a court reporter assigned to cases where Hart occasionally is called to testify.  After his previous drunken escapades, Hart is trying to ratchet down their relationship, but his spurned mistress does not fade away.  Instead, she (off-camera) tells Hart's wife Maggie about the affair.  Maggie in turn packs up the kids and goes to stay with her parents.  After reading a "I'm outta here" note from Maggie, Hart tries vainly to convince his wife to come home.  He tries over the phone, and when that avenue does not work, he decides that a drunken visit to her workplace is a good idea.  Luckily, Cohle is called to come get Hart before he gets arrested.  So Hart and Cohle are now crashing over at Cohle's unfurnished apartment.  The same apartment that Hart chided Cohle about previously.  

In the meantime, the two detectives have a lead on an associate of Reggie LeDoux, and Hart gets information that LeDoux is exclusively cooking meth for a biker gang called Iron Crusaders.  Cohle happens to have a contact from his old undercover days, so he and Hart formulate an off-the-books takedown operation of Cohle's contact, in hopes of locating LeDoux.

Cohle has to descend back into the underworld, taking drugs, drinking, and generally breaking laws in order to establish bonafides with his old contact and mark, Ginger.  Ginger insists that Cohle help him with a drug heist, and Cohle finds himself in a housing project where the only certainty is that the heist will not success, thanks to the lack of planning by Ginger and his associates.  A 6 minute tracking shot of Cohle making an escape with Ginger as everything around him crumbles ensues, and offers the viewer likely the best scene that anyone will see on television this year.

In just four episodes, True Detective has delivered the most compelling show currently on television, and may well end up as one of the most exciting seasons of any show in recent history.  This is not a television show, but more of an eight-hour film.  And its good.  Very, very good.


Random Thoughts:

- Cohle, after four episodes, has become more likable, and Hart has become more unlikable.  A significant role reversal for these two characters.

- Checking his pulse before the shit hits the fan, Cohle's actions offer great foreshadowing for what's coming.

- As Hart's world collapses, he seems more willing to bend rules and break laws.  Interesting to see where this will lead in the second half of the season.

What did you think?

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True Detective - "The Locked Room" Review

by Lee Padrick, January 27, 2014
True Detective S1E3

WARNING:  This review contains spoilers.

As True Detective moves along this season, we see that Hart is not bound as tightly as he appears.

Over the past few episodes, Hart and Cohle have offered us a buddy film: a cerebral loner and a gregarious straight man.  But behind the facades of the two protagonists lies something much different than outward appearances.  Cohle, who has come across as a tortured soul, seems to be perfectly content with his place in the world.  Hart, on the other hand, is struggling with responsibility and middle age as he desperately tries to appear as the typical family man.

Last episode's church mural leads Hart and Cohle to a tent revival that is led by a fire-and-brimstone folk preacher, played by Shea Whigham.  Whigham's portrayal yields an Elvis impersonator that lords over his "flock," a collection of down-and-out country misfits.  Hart and Cohle attend a tent service, where they pit nihilism versus a Southern Baptist view of the world.  An amusing and entertaining debate ensues, and we learn more about Cohle's worldview.  

Later, Hart comes home and finds that Cohle is there talking with his wife, after returning a borrowed lawn mower and taking care of the Hart family's lawn.  A not-very-subtle argument takes place, with an angry Hart chastising Cohle for "mowing another man's lawn."  Mrs. Hart still seems to have her eye on Cohle, even going through the trouble of arranging a date for the loner with one of her friends.  The date goes OK for Cohle, but Hart loses it when he sees his mistress on a date with another guy, and drunkenly confronts and attacks her potential suitor later that evening.

The 2012 interviews are a welcome break in the dark world of 1995, as the older Hart and Cohle individually interview with the detectives.  Cohle appears to still be the prime suspect in the modern-day crimes, but you can't help but wonder if he is actually a suspect or a means to get into the killer's mind.  The cliffhanger this week is a shot of prime suspect Reginald LeDoux, who Hart and Cohle see walking around his property in a pair of tighty whiteys, a gas mask, and carrying a machete.  How's that for a parting shot?

No episode next week, as HBO breaks for the Super Bowl, but True Detective will be back on February 9th.

Random Thoughts:

- When a drunken Hart visits his mistress' house, he carelessly runs over a girl's pink bicycle.  Is this related to the death of Cohle's daughter?  Was Cohle the drunk driver of the vehicle that killed his daughter?

- Mrs. Hart's booty call in the middle of the night was odd.  Or was she really checking up on the whereabouts of the philandering Mr. Hart?

- Cohle's speechifying on his nihilism is fun to watch.  But it borders on teenage emo diatribes.  Its fun to watch McConaughey toe that line while spouting the viewpoint of the average troubled teenager.  So far, he is pulling it off.

- "I think its safe to say that no one here is gonna be splitting the atom, Marty"  - Cohle.  I almost choked on my tongue.

- "Its been that way since one monkey looked at the sun, then looked at the other monkey and said, "He said give me your f-ing share!"  This dialogue is as good as anything on television.  

What did you think?

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True Detective - "Seeing Things" Review

by Lee Padrick, January 23, 2014
True Detective S1E2

WARNING:  This review contains spoilers.

HBO has a real winner in its stable.

The dark, chilly buddy-cop show should not work.  This genre has an exhaustive legacy, so another cop thriller about a brilliant, troubled introvert and his rambunctious local-boy-made-cop would be expected to yield a watchable "been there, done that" product.

But True Detective delivers.  And much better than you would expect.  Powered by the performance of Matthew McConaughey.  McConaughey is a hot ticket right now, coming off accolades for Dallas Buyers Club.  And he continues his renaissance here.

Detective Rust Cohle is an intense man.  Thanks to the flashbacks/flashforwards, you get that he is a divorced man who lost his young daughter in a traffic incident in front of his home.  This event likely led to his divorce.  You don't yet know whether he may carry more responsibility for his loss.  After his daughter's death, he became an undercover narcotics officer, and he obviously took a few drugs.  Maybe took many drugs, since he is suffering from the effects years later.  

Cohle is also not happy that the politically-charged investigation of the murder of Dora Kelly Lange.  Because of the right Reverend Billy Lee Tuttle, Cohle and Hart must navigate an anti-Christian-crimes task force.  And Cohle expresses himself above his pay grade, leading to conflict with the task force members and his boss, Major Quesada (Kevin Dunn).  But he extracts information during the investigation well, using pressure point moves and hitting people with toolboxes to gain the intel he seeks.  His methods lead to Lange's diary.

Hart is occupied with his extramaritial activities, his job, and his home life, leading to conflict along the way.  He, as suspected, is sleeping with a young court clerk.  And he is having difficulty with his in-laws.  And his wife.  Cohle instigates a confrontation between he and Hart, by chiding Hart on his appearance after spending the evening away from home.  Which leads to a physical altercation where it is strongly implied that Cohle would not suffer the short end of the stick.  

Hart and Cohle follow clues in Lange's diary to an old, burned-out church.  Where they find a mural on the wall of a woman with deer antlers.  Stay tuned.

As I mentioned earlier, this show should not work.  But through the first two episodes, it does.  Carried by the considerable acting talent of McConaughey and Harrelson.  Both actors are demonstrating how compelling television can be, in the capable hands of two A-listers.  But the writing and pace are top shelf as well, and its just fun to sit back and watch these two great actors delivering a fresh perspective on a tired trope.  This is "great show" stuff.

Looking forward to where this show will lead this season, especially considering it should progress as a mini-series.

Random Thoughts:

- No Clarke Peters this episode.

- I like Kevin Dunn as the hard-ass boss.

- The flashback/flashforward is really working for me.  And in a better way than Orange is the New Black.

What did you think?

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True Detective - "The Long Bright Dark" Review

by Lee Padrick, January 14, 2014
True Detective, S1E1

WARNING:  This review contains spoilers.

We are all living in pessimistic realism.

HBO's new drama series, True Detective, is a show pairing two cops as they track a serial killer.  This genre has been done to death, right?  Well, maybe not.  If Criminal Minds had one too many drinks at the bar and found itself in bed with The Wire, the offspring may look much like True Detective.

This new anthology offers us two A-listers as the leads, as Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey star as Det. Martin Hart and Det. Rust Cohle, respectively.  Hart and Cohle.  Get it?  Say it again, then.  And this is where familiar ground ends.

Hart is your archetypal southern family man, a go-along get-along cop.  Cohle is the aloof loner, who just happens to be a brilliant detective.  Hart has a pretty wife, two kids, and lives the American Dream in a three-bedroom house.  Cohle lives in a spartan one-bedroom apartment with only a mattress on the floor and a cross on the wall.  Except he is not religious; he uses the cross to meditate and ponder his own godless existence.  And he battles an unhealthy relationship with alcohol.  

These two Louisiana CID detectives pull a murder scene, where a young prostitute has been murdered and left posed in some kind of serial killer fantasy crime scene.  With deer antlers.  You have seen this stuff before.  Literally.

But what you have not seen, at least in enough depth, is the effect that investigating crimes such as this has on the detectives.  Hart has to drink himself to sleep; Cohle has to buys some Quaaludes off of a criminal informant.  Sleep is a valuable commodity to those folks working the front lines between the psychotics and the rest of us.  And sometimes, some of that psychosis can rub off on those front line grunts.  

The show vacillitates between 2012 and 1995, and the depositions of Hart and Cohle, taken by detectives investigating a murder much like the one that former partners Hart and Cohle investigated and allegedly solved 17 years earlier.  As the season progresses, the story of what shaped these two men into what they are today will evolve.  And further development of McConaughey's Cohle will be fun to watch.

McConaughey and Harrelson bring some world-class acting chops to this show.  You have seen good actors with great scripts working other shows well, but this show (at least the pilot) is bordering on 'masterpiece'.  These two guys, within minutes, have you invested in Cohle and Hart, and you forget all about "Mr. Alright, Alright, Alright" and Billy Hoyle.

HBO appears to have hit another home run with this series, as it ranks up there with contemporary fare such as Rectified and Top of the Lake.  Its one of those shows that is made for binge watching; waiting a week between episodes just seems patently unfair.

Random Thoughts:

- So Hart isn't a faithful family man.  How long before Cohle has Mrs. Hart over to his apartment?

- Love the cinematography!  Rural Louisiana looks both beautiful and depressing.

- McConaughey's weight loss from Dallas Buyers Club is obvious, but his gaunt appearance sells his portrayal of tormented Cohle even better.

- Michelle Monaghan's role as Hart's wife seems pedestrian, compared to the other well-written characters in the show.

- A Clarke Peters sighting as a local preacher!  

What did you think?

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