True Detective: Season 2, Ep 3

True Detective

Previously On True Detective

Frank Semyon tries speaking openly to his girlfriend about his dark past as child growing up with his father and things got hot for Frank as we see him get put under pressure by the business people, as they wont allow him to carry on with his plan since Caspar died, which is also troubling Frank.

Ray & Ani partner up to try and find the killer or killers of Caspar by looking round his personal properties and asking his psychiatric Doctor for information on him, but the two don't get very far. As for the newbie cop turned detective, Paul has his issues with his mother and girlfriend and leaves them both on bad terms for his new assignment with Ray & Ani and finds it hard fitting in with the new squad. 

When Ray gets a lead from Frank and tells him to check out a property of Caspar's, he goes to the house and finds a murder scene but as soon as Ray enters the house he gets ambushed by a masked gunmen and shot twice by a shotgun, leaving Ray on the ground. 

Episode 3 - Maybe Tomorrow

Ray's Lucid Dream

Country music at the local bar of Ray's and Frank's meet ups is the Lucid thinking of Ray's dream as we see the opening scene focus on a country singer in a baby blue country suit, lip syncing Conway's Twitty's "The Rose." Ray is sat down at the very same booth, where Ray and Frank have their discussions but only this time he isn't speaking to Frank, he's speaking to his own father who is dressed up in a sheriff's uniform. 

Ray looks from the wanna-be country singer and looks across the table where he sees his father looking back at him, with his father saying "You have your father's hands" and Ray looks down at his his bloody knuckles and they look as if Ray was punching a wall to death. They both talk about how Ray was nervous and how he lacked grit, but then his father begins to tell a chilling story.

His father says "I see you, running through the tree's, your're small, tree's are like...Giants. Men are chasing you," Ray: "I'm Right Here." "You step out the tree's, you ain't that fast. Ahh son...They kill you...They shoot you to pieces!" Ray begins to look around all worried, followed by a question "Where is this?" his father replies with "I don't know, you were here first" and Ray looks down towards his torso and see's a bloody gunshot womb to his chest. 

What a bizarre opening scene as it was all so very random and confusing, but from what i seen at the end of episode 2 with Ray getting shot, i thought he was dead and he was in hell...Maybe? Also why was his own father speaking to him like he wasn't his father, for example he says "You have your father's hands," that was just weird if i'm honest. The most chilling part of the scene was the story his father was explaining to him, it didn't make sense and who are "They?" I think its a memory from Ray of his father, maybe doing something bad or maybe its a warning for Ray. 

Ray wakes up in a puddle of his own urine and music playing from the radio and its Conway Twitty- The Rose. Ray looks around the room of the house he was investigating the night before and lifts up his shirt and his torso is covered in rubber bullet wombs, which have broken a couple of ribs. 

Wooo! He's alive! I'm glad that he's alive as i thought it would of been to soon to kill off one of the main characters of the show. From my previous True Detective post i thought he was going to be alive because he might be wearing a bullet proof vest but seems like i was wrong & right at the same time. 

New Partnership

Because Ray is taking the day to get checked out by the doctors, this mean's Ani needs a new partner for the day for the investigation of Caspar's death. Paul & Ani drive to the Mayor of Vinci's mansion to find out any further information about Caspar. The two explain to mayor Chessani's wife that numerous phone calls where made to the mayors house but the wife explains to Paul that she has no trace of thought of any phone calls or if Caspar and the Mayor had any business together.

When Paul is asking the wife questions, Ani wonders off around the house and ventures upstairs to have a look around for some clues. She finds nothing until she hears screaming coming from one of the bedrooms to find the Mayors son, so the two take the time to ask him questions before the Mayor gets back home. Ani and Paul get no where with the Mayor's sons and so he kicks them both out as they don't have a warrant to search the house or ask further questions. 

When Ani & Paul was asking him questions, he mentions that he does specialty events and that made me think that he might be some kind of pimp or organises sex events for clients. I added the two clues together with Caspar phoning the house and how he liked hookers or liked to watch them at least, so i thought Caspar and the Mayor's son were the ones who had business together and not with the Mayor.

Velcoro's  Dirty

Detective Ray Velcoro is all checked out and is already back to work, telling Mayor Chessani that Ani didn't find anything when her & Paul intruded in his house with out his consent. The Mayor is frustrated with Ani and also with Ray because the investigation is going no where and Ani is dragging the Mayor's personal life into the investigation, so Mayor Chessani tell's Ray that he wants Ani's badge and the Sheriffs badge, out of anger. 

Ray mentions that the person who shot him wore a mask and he couldn't identify the shooter and took the tape out of the cam recorder, leaving no evidence for the detectives to find and all this makes the Mayor and the rest of the team frustrated.

Back at Ani's boss's office she is questioned on Velcoro and one of her superiors tells her that Velcoro is dirty and she wants him, meaning she wants enough evidence to take him down. she explains that they have a crooked Vinci cop and that they could leverage him for the investigation but Ani looks concerned as she doesn't seem up for the tasks because its not her job to bring in crooked cops but to find out the murderer of Caspar.

This part of the scene is a bit two faced if you asked me because we are seeing two different sides of the same law speaking about each other behinds each others backs, when Ray tells mayor information about Ani and Ani is getting told that Ray is crooked. This will only complicate the future relationship between the two detectives as Ani won't trust Ray anymore, making the investigation harder for them both.

Paying Old Friends Is A Bad Idea

From the last episode we know that Frank is having some money problems because of the deal he made with Caspar, which lost Frank millions of Dollars of his own money because Caspar is now dead. Frank pays one of his old business friends a visit at a construction site. His friend explains that he done his part of the deal and helped out Frank in the past but Frank wants 20% of the net profit from him every month because he is very desperate. Frank says "Things change" meaning that the situation has changed for Frank and now his friend. 

Will Frank ever stop with his business plan? He's Ruthless!

Later that very same evening, one of Franks workmen turn up late at his hotel room and he has a very good excuse as he explains to Frank and takes him to the body of his old business friend he visited earlier. His friend had been brutally murdered the same way as Caspar did, with his eyes missing from his skull. Frank can't believe what he is seeing and is frustrated why anyone would do this to him, as he was a good man and didn't deserve it. 

Frank starts to shout at his workmen saying "Who's coming after me?" and tells them all to ring who works or used to work for Frank because he wants to ask them questions. When he arrives at one of the clubs he used to help run, he asks the workers if they had anything to do with the murder but none of them comply as they think they don't need to answer him. One of the main bosses who now runs the crew and the club thinks that Frank has gone soft and no longer has it in him to be tough and the two of them fist it out in the kitchen.

They begin to brawl in the kitchen of the club with both crews surrounded them and Franks beats the day light out of him, knocking him to the ground. As soon hes on the ground, Frank gets on top of him and pulls his gold plated teeth out with a pair of pliers one by one, as the people look at Frank as a mad man.

I said that Frank is Ruthless but this takes it to another whole level. The guy just knocked out someone twice the size of him and pulled his teeth out in front of his own crew, one by one! The guy doubted that Frank could be the monster he once was and you could see in Franks eye's he didn't want to go to that dark place again but he eventually did and beat the crap out of the guy. This made me think on how Frank used to be and why he changed to try and be a better person? I hope they show some flash backs to his life.

Paul Goes Solo

Detective Paul is wondering the streets on his own asking every hooker on every corner questions as he shows them a picture of Caspar. The hookers don't give him any information and Paul is thinking about giving up for the night, until one man see's Paul asking questions and he knows the man in the picture, so he decides to help Paul and point him in the direction of the nightclub he saw Caspar last. Paul thanks the man before venturing off to the unknown nightclub but the man stops him in his tracks and explains to Paul that they won't talk to him and they probably wont let him in the club.  

Paul is now inside the nightclub with the man who just helped him, looking around all anxious and cautious around the room to suddenly bumping in to Frank at the very same club he just pulled the mans gold teeth from, (Talk about coincidental.) and the two stare each other down for a few seconds to then walking away from each other. Paul goes in to full detective mode again, asking a bunch of questions about Caspar to one of the people in the club. He explains to Paul that Caspar would like to watch people have sex and gives Paul the name of one European girl who works for a private company that runs parties for rich people. 

I think this part of the scene is linked up with Mayor Chessani's son because one of the men mentions that the girl did private parties for rich men and the son is an event organiser as he explained to Ani and Paul. The last girl to see Caspar was European and Mayor Chessani's wife is also European. So either the wife knows something or the son knows something, time will soon tell.

They Almost Had Him

Ani and Ray are back investigating with each other and both are at a house asking questions for the investigation as usual. When things go normal as they should do when asking questions, they hear a blaze of fire and follow the orange flickering light that is fire coming from their car, someone set their car on fire when they were asking questions at the house. When they both see their car on fire, Ray can see the person who done it and they are wearing a white mask to cover their face, so Ray shouts them and they begin to chase him on foot. 

Ani gets in front of Ray and climbs over a fence to chase down the man who is running through a homeless camp that is set under the highway bridge, while Ray struggles to get over the fence with his broken ribs, he still runs with determination. Ani and the perpetrator run through the camp knocking anyone who gets in front of them to the ground, while Ray is far behind, he takes a detour and he finally meets back up with Ani just in time, as there is a huge truck coming her way as she pulls out her gun to shoot, but the suspect gets away and Ray pushes Ani to save her from the oncoming truck. Ani thanks Ray for saving her and Ray replies with "If you want to thank me, tell me what State has on me."

Well i think that's the most thrilling scene we have seen in the last 3 episodes of True Detectives, with all the fire blazing car, the intense chase through the dark homeless camp and we nearly seen someone shoot their gun BUT!... They never did. Plus we now all know that the person who shot Ray is toying with them by setting their car on fire and making them chase them just for the fun of it and they could also be the killer of Caspar. 

Ray also knows that hes being investigated by the state police and he tries to get Ani to tell him what evidence they might have. I'm excited what the next episode will have install for us as we might see tensions brew between Ani, Ray and the State Police. 

Conclusion

I would say this has to be my favourite episode by far as its beginning to make more sense to me as i link up some of the information i gathered from the episode. I think that Mayor Chessani's wife or son are big characters to come as i think they are part of something big but hiding it very well, making it one big mystery. 

I'm glad to see another side to Frank as he shows the audience how ruthless he can actually be when he wants something, telling us he had a very dark past and i hope to see more action from him and even a couple of flash backs from his past. 

The 3 detectives, i think will build up more friction between them all as the series goes on but i have no idea how it will turn out. Will it be good or bad for them?

Discussion

1. What did you think of the overall episode?
2. What was your favourite part of the episode? & Why?
3. What was your least favourite part of the episode? & Why?
4. What do you think will happen next with Ray and the State Police?
5. What do you want to happen in the next episode? & Why?
6. Will Frank find out who's after him and how will he deal with the situation?
7. Will Frank encounter Paul again or Ani?
8. Will Ani help Ray with the State police situation
9. How will Paul become more involved with the story?
10. Who's the masked man and why do you think that?