True Detective: Season 2, Episode 1

True Detective

Summary

True Detective is a collection of series in which police investigations unravel the personal and professional of those involved, within or outside the law.

Episode 1 - The Western Book Of The Dead

I caught up on last nights episode premier of True Detective season 2 this morning and wow, it was so slow and a bit pointless of a first episode if you ask me, but i'll get in to that further on into the blog. If you're wondering why i didn't watch it last night its because i live in England, so i have to wait a day later to watch things that air in America first, which sucks so much!

When ever i watch on a carry on series or a sequel to a film or anything on them lines, i'm always going to compare them together. Season 1 of True Detective was truly a great first season for the series, with great actors (Mathew McConaughey & Woody Harrelson,) amazing story plot and don't forget on how gritty and truthful it was, making the viewers want more. I think season 2 has got some serious work to do if they want to compare/compete with season 1 of True Detective.

After i watched the first episode of True Detective i was pretty much disappointing and left confused as i didn't know what the produces was going for, it didn't have any true story behind it and the cut scenes was to random to keep up with. The whole episode was basically the reveal of the characters and what their persona was all about. With season 1's first episode we knew who the characters were, what role they had and what the story was about straight away. OK, they gave a little bit about the new characters but not much as it might because they're more A list-ers in the mix.

Characters/Actors

Collin Farrell is our first A list actor we see in the first episode of True Detective playing the character Ray Velcoro. Ray Velcoro is a Lieutenant of the Vinci's police department, a fictional California city. Ray also has a side line job with career criminal Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn,) Who helped Ray 20 years early with some information on who raped his wife. This first scene where the two characters meet for the first time gives us a flash back to the past as we know True Detective loves to do from the last season. We know this was a flash back as we see Ray Velcoro with a clean shave with a mustache, looking sober and wearing a sheriff uniform but now Ray is a Alcoholic with relationship problems with his bullied son and has a hot temper as we see him brutally beating up a couple of people.

I think Collin Farrell's character will be one of the most explosive and main characters of the new season as he is dangerous and a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. I think Frank will play him as one of his pawns in the criminal world and he might get into some sticky situations.

Vince Vaughn plays the criminal businessmen Frank Semyon, a person who has climbed the ranks since the last flash back, 20 years ago. Frank now owns a casino and planning to make his fortunes with a 68bn high speed railway road through the city of Vinci. As being a buisnessman you would think he has left his criminal ways behind him, but Frank is just better at hiding them these days, but as soon as a corruption article lands right in-front of him he gets Ray Velcoro to do his dirty work and scare the reporter from showing the rest of the article. 

Franks Semyon is a hard character to read as we don't know if he can be dangerous or not as we didn't see him do any dirty work, but i think he will get his hands dirty as the season goes on. He may also make some enemies in his line of work to make him decide on some hard decisions to further his ranks in the his criminal career.

Our first female lead role is Rachel McAdam's who plays the tough cop Ani Bezzerides. Ani is trying to stay away from her family who she thinks needs help as her dad is a hippy and her sister is a sex cam girl as we see Ani and a team of cops raid a house when Ani's sister was caught doing her day job.
Ani is reckless and tough as she carries a gun in her belt and pocket, and always picking fights with casino bouncers as we see in the first episode.

Ani clearly has some issues in her personal life which may also effect her day job as a cop. I think this will be interesting as we might see her juggle from the two lives she lives in, even though she might not want to be part of her dad and sisters life. We also know that her mother died but not sure how it happened, so we might see some more flash backs to her mothers death.

The fourth and final lead role is Taylor Kitsch who plays the high road police officer, Paul Woodrugh. Paul is suspended from his job after being accused getting a blog job from a Hollywood actress. Paul is also reckless like Ani but in a different way as he likes to leave his girlfriend late at night to drive on his motorcycle at high speeds with his lights off.

From what i saw of Paul Woodrugh i think he will be one of the most important characters as he is very mysterious because he has all them scars on his body but wont share on how he got them, will this be some flash back scenarios on how he got his scars? 

Conclusion

In my experience in watching the premier of True Detective season 2, there wasn't much story i could talk about as it was only the first episode after-all. It was all to mysterious for the viewers to gather any valuable information. 

The only thing i gathered from the first episode is that the characters all have relationship problems as Ray's wife got raped and his son is scared of him, Frank has a girlfriend and seems happy together, Ani has daddy & sister issues and has one night stands as we see in the episode and Paul has traumatic issues with his scares on his body, leading him to have a erectile Dysfunction as we see him take a Viagra pill before he has sex with his girlfriend. So are we going to see them sitting down together in a relationship therapy center to sort their problems out? I hope not! I'm still waiting for the detective side to the story, but its still early days as its only the first episode of the season.

The only interesting thing we seen in the episode was how the characters got brought together at the end, as they all get called in to a crime scene where Paul found a dead body who is Ben Caspar, a buisnessman who was heavily involved in helping Frank with his Railroad highway project. But what now? and how will Frank react after this event?

Overall it was a very slow start to the new season as their has no depth in the story so far, but i am very interested on how it will all plays out.

Discussion

1. What did you think of the first episode of True Detective?
2. Could it of been improved? & How?
3. Was the Characters good/Interesting/worthy of the new season?
4. Who is the favourite character to watch? & why?
5. Do the characters suit the roles they are playing?
6. What do you think will happen in the season to come?
7. Should there of been more flash backs in the first episode? or do you think there will be more?
8. What did you think of the new these song of True Detective?
9. Is there to many A list actors that over shadow the story of the True detective?
10. What actors would you replace? who with?& why?