re: True Detective S4 Season Long Thread

Does anyone remember what Rust's dad did for a living? Was he a cop as well? I can't remember if it was even mentioned.

I am so glad I am easy to please. I am enjoying the show and have zero complaints.

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I am so glad I am easy to please. I am enjoying the show and have zero complaints.

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Agree, its intriguing thus far... But could be that separate of the ties to S1.

Hoping they don't shite the bed trying to forces a square peg into a round hole.

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What the actual F?

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I just looked and I butchered that quote a bit. And it wasn't light like whimsical and funny, it was more so in like how there's actal sunlight and brightness. But again, I quoted wrong so ignore what I said lol. This is from wiki:

"writer Issa López chose to create a "dark mirror" of the first season: "Where True Detective is male and it's sweaty, Night Country is cold and it's dark and it's female."

I’m rewatching Season 1 now. It’s actually insane how good that season is. Especially compared to this season

Season 1 was the culmination of a writer spending years crafting a tight narrative and pairing with a really talented director (Fukunaga) and cast. TBone Burnett’s scoring and audio just puts it all over the top.

I get why HBO has chased after trying to recapture that lightning in a bottle but it’s not going to happen. Just the perfect combination of people at the right time and I don’t think Pizzolato or HBO were prepared for just how well it was going to go over.

Ultimately, I think they did the right thing by trying to go anthology and not overexplain the world they’d created in S1 (and thereby strip it of its foreboding and horror elements). Which is also why this season is walking a tight rope between boom or bust; they’re either going to nail the mythos and expand the canon in a meaningful way or they’re going to frick it all up. With what they’ve introduced through 2 episodes, seems like they’re all in on going for the former.

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what's so crazy to me is this director has gone out of her way to basically insult anyoen that likes season 1. She has talked shite about "bros" giving negative reviews to her show because htey like S1 better, and also specifically mentiond that "True detective" S1 was light and masculine, while her show is dark and female. Direct quote. On teh face of it you'd think that she despises how great S1 is and feels inferior putting out a similar type of project that obviously isn't as good.

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first off - i'm still "in" on this season. i like the story and the overall atmosphere, and i'm interested enough in the characters to keep watching. gotta get that out of the way, because i'm not just a hater.

but

it's painfully obvious that she is trying to make the two mains, Danvers and Navarro, be some sort of female version of Rust and Marty and it is absolutely falling flat. and the problem is because they arent "female" versions. they are anatomically female, sure, but they are basically men. she has made them dark, brooding, biting, and harsh. they like to "frick" (good grief, we get it), and Danvers almost proudly acknowledges that she has cheated on past husbands, cheated with married men, carries on with multiple casual sex partners, etc. kinda the same with Navarro. her frick buddy is this tender hearted pancake guy who just wants to watch a movie but SHE WANTS TO frick (again - we got it).

these two "female" characters dont act like women. they act like men. right, wrong, or indifferent, fair or unfair, women like this in movies and tv just arent likeable because they dont seem like real people. they both seem like female versions of what a woman thinks an a-hole man acts like.

contrast this with Rust and Marty. both assholes with many of the same types of flaws.

Rust is dark, brooding, sarcastic, etc. quite unlikeable on the face of it. but he's also compassionate. he genuinely seems to long for a family like Marty's. we can almost feel how much he wishes he had that life when he goes to their house but he knows that it's just not in the cards for him. we feel his pain. plus we learn his tragic backstory from when he WAS a family man. we see him try it again with Maggie's friend. we see a light side of him. he's not just walking up to female characters like "hey wanna frick?"

Marty - serial philanderer. a-hole. treats his wife like shite. doesnt treat his kids much better. but we also see a human side of him that doesnt seem to understand why he cant just frick some chick on the side and then go home to his family. it's maddening, but we practically BEG for him to just stop cheating and go be a good family man. we're pulling for him. when he asks Rust "do you ever wonder if you're a bad man" we know that HE KNOWS he is a bad man, or at least a good man doing bad things. and we desperately want him to stop doing bad things. he also genuinely cares about that young girl who is trapped into a life of prostitution and gives her some money. wants to get her out of that life. obviously he fricks that up later on too, but we feel the good in him through that subplot.

these characters are both dark and kind of bad guys on the surface of it, but they still give us hope in their redemption which, ultimately, they give us at the end of the season. and while yes, the show is masculine and sweaty or whatever the director said, and ultimately that masculinity is celebrated as "saving the day", the failures (maybe the wrong word - maybe "weaknesses" is better) of masculinity are heavily explored too.

Danvers and Navarro inspire no hope. it seems that they are written in order to prove that "hey chicks can act like this too". fine, i dont care. act like that. but there has to be a human side of you that i can pull for.

Danvers entire motivation seems to be that her frick buddy (good grief, once again - we get it, she is super into fricking) screwed her over by giving her that job, so she's going to keep the case! ok, whatever. i dont give a shite about that. i only understand that situation thanks to some vague exposition. she also seems to give zero fricks about anyone. she's a heartless bitch to her daughter in law or whatever she is. she's mean and vaguely racist to the lady who was drawing the lines on the girl's chin. she's mean to all the men who work for her. and even though she's obviously supposed to be like a mentor type figure to the younger cop (the only somewhat competent and useful male in the entire cast), she's pretty much a bitch to him too. oh you have a kid you want to go home to? tough shite, fricker. go stare at thawing bodies. not even a trace of humanity or compassion. again - she seems like (as was probably intended) a female version of what a female thinks a man acts like.

Navarro's character seems to have a little more of a compassionate backstory, but her acting is so stiff, and she is so into being hardcore, icy, and WANTING TO frick that it's hard to tell. wanting to solve a loved one's murder and then also having a family member struggling with mental health - man, this is something we can at least understand, if not identify with. but we see no humanity in her. she seems more vested in "frick Danvers" and "they only care about white people around here" than in actually trying to help her family.

ultimately, i think it just comes down to poor writing, at least with the characters. the story is fine, even compelling. but the intended character development seems to fall perfectly in line with the director's quote above:

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"True detective" S1 was light and masculine, while her show is dark and female

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but while it stars females, it doesnt FEEL female. explore their femininity. dont just make them female versions of men. use their compassion and empathy as strengths, but also explore how they can be weaknesses. i sense virtually zero femininity, compassion, or empathy in their Danvers or Navarro.

and while it's definitely dark, she's got that going, you've got to have some light in there too. i dont know, i think Rust said something like that.

this is a lot of analysis based on two episodes, but, hell, its only six episodes long, so we're 1/3 through already. maybe the character development and these two characters arcs will change dramatically, rendering my above diatribe obsolete. i dont think so though. i think we are seeing exactly what the director and writers intended. cold, dark, brooding, biting, harsh anatomically females acting like men.


to anyone who read all that.

Anyone think that the ladies at the crab processing plant were sketchy? Especially the second lady that is smirking weirdly as she scurried away. Maybe it was just bad acting.

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Danvers and Navarro inspire no hope. it seems that they are written in order to prove that "hey chicks can act like this too". fine, i dont care. act like that. but there has to be a human side of you that i can pull for.

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I hear you on Danvers, but this is simply not true for Navarro. Navarro has the human side of having to try to care for her sister as well as she has the thing for seems like not just the Annie K story but a thing for helping women who have been taken advantage of, beaten or even killed. They've definitely played that up with her soft side in multiple different ways. Basically looking at your first part of your description of Rust, almost all of those descriptions match Navarro imo. Don't get me wrong, Rust is just a much better character, but mostly because McConaghey is just such a great actor that made him captivating, but that doesn't change that I feel the descriptions you gave him almost all match Navarro, other than maybe the sarcastic part. She's dark, she's brooding, she definitely has that compassionate side, etc.

Danvers, so far, not so much I'd agree there.


ETA: As I read the rest of your post, I see you hit on those things.

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ETA: As I read the rest of your post, I see you hit on those things.

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yeah definitely. i think she is MEANT to be more of a compassionate character, but is just poorly written and also not a great actress. it's more like "hey here's the character you should care about". SHOW ME dont tell me.