Why True Detective Season 4 Sucks (Part 1)

no don't you dare don't you dare no wait wait wait wait Jesus there's something missing with True Detective night country I know we're only halfway through the season and there's still hope it may turn things around but I feel like I can already gauge some huge differences compared to the first season which I still argue is the best of all seasons and it's interesting because even when I look at season 2 and three of True Detective there are just so many aspects missing or that aren't executed as perfectly like season 1 I know I know Season 1 is one of the greatest television dramas ever a and I don't want to be another mindless parrot singing its Praises like so many others nor do I want to just use it as a way to always say that the new seasons of True Detective will never be as good I mean I know that's probably true but I do feel like it's necessary to at least understand why why was season 1 so freaking good and where has night country gone wrong so far because for what it's worth I don't think it's completely terrible but there are a lot of missed opportunities that I can see right away and I Want to Break these down into different aspects of both shows starting with the broadest of Strokes the themes in my opinion the themes from season 1 were an aspect that made it stand out from the rest and when I think about what defines True Detective at its best I think only of rust Cole who was a big reason for the themes of the show rust himself provided us with several interesting intelligent and evocative philosophical ideas and arguments these included discussions on human consciousness and reality morality and Justice nihilism and pessimism Religion and Ethics corruption and DEC a evolutionary biology and the nature of good versus evil just through one character alone had there been so much interesting Insight being revealed and discussed now compare this to the themes of night country so far it seems really lacking because I can only think of two or three these are violence against women the search for justice and appreciating your cultural heritage but those are really scraping the bottom of the barrel because they're only ever touched upon lightly and it's this difference to me that makes me love season 1 way more because it felt like it had something more to say than just being a murder who done it type of show there was clearly thought put behind the philosophical questions and themes of the show that ultimately made it more intelligent when I look at night country that doesn't have this it feels like a lot of time is then wasted on filer dialogue or Exposition which brings me to the next aspect in character dialogue a perfect example to compare this buy with our two leads from both shows is when they have a discussion in the car talking about the case or whatever is on their mind in season one we have something like this I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution we became too self-aware nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself we are creatures that should not exist by natural law that sounds God [ __ ] awful rush we are things that labor under the illusion of having a self a secretion of sensory experience and feeling programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody when in fact everybody's nobody I wouldn't go around spouting that [ __ ] I was you people around here don't think that way I don't think that way I think the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming stop reproducing walk hand and hand into Extinction one last midnight brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal but in night country we get this I'm listening we're just not asking the right questions we will we'll find it who's the one that believes in Miracles fantasy football well Tinder you're in Tinder yeah I'm on Tinder who the [ __ ] is on Tinder and Enis [ __ ] old Norman Noy and Han prior oh he's taken poor [ __ ] yeah I set my Tinder radius for Fairbanks no I take some personal trips I don't [ __ ] where I eat you mean anymore [ __ ] you compared to season 1 the dialogue just feels off and awkward like what are they even talking about it's not really growing the relationship of our two leads nor is it actually inherently interesting to listen to I know again that this comes down to rust himself but he really carries season one on his back because he is such a fascinating character to just listen to he actually has something to say and it's clearly reflected in the dialogue even later on in season 1 Marty has his own moments that too shed a light on how his character has some poyant Reflections on life and what it means to see yourself get old I was going to play baseball ride balls you know you end you end up becoming something you never intended uh I guess you never really even know why next is with the format itself particularly with the use of interviews in season 1 versus what we see in night country that chooses not to include any so far now I'm not saying you always have to include an interview format to make the show good but the point of using them is to reveal how characters have changed over time as well as to provide more insight to their thoughts ideas and State of Mind unless you have ways of doing this through character dialogue or Exposition you're not going to be able to give us as much interesting information as an interview format can do that's what season 1 was great at because it employed the use of a nonlinear narrative that paired so well with the interview format to Showcase how characters think and feel about past actions often in times when they don't truly disclose what occurred in reality and it's this Jos that keeps things interesting it also makes the aesthetic of the show feel more like a police procedural where like the detectives interviewing rust and Marty you two are literally placed in their shoes of trying to figure out what happened to them in their past investigations and in turn solve the mystery for yourself while being taken on a ride with them in night country we don't have any of this and it's more of your stock standard police udut mystery where you just watch and follow them wherever they go which leads me to the next aspect of story progression or lack of it in season 1 there was always something going on we watched rust and Marty constantly expanding the search visiting different places seeing new things and clues of evidence that in my view truly kept the ball rolling and stopped the show from ever feeling stale by episode 2 we were already visiting a prostitution Ranch finding a church and then in the next episode learning more about the schools and putting apbs out on potential suspects so much was going on narratively speaking that even if you didn't enjoy the character dialogues at least you could see that things were happening and that the case was expanding on this later note I have to add that in season 1 the mystery also didn't stop with one murder it grew wider and by the end of episode 1 we were hooked into realizing that our characters didn't catch the right guy and that there were so many more murders to solve n country doesn't have any of this or very little of it it starts off with the murder of a big group of men but doesn't really expand much in location nor with other murders we get inklings that one of the men related to the group becomes a suspect and he has had a relationship with a victim from another case but apart from that we don't really know too much so far of course there's still more season to come but just to get to that point three episodes have had to have passed and we haven't even visited that many places to get there most of the time has been spent with characters talking either at home or at the police station with the occasional interview with a witness here or there I know it's Alaska and the setting could be limiting from either a budget point of view or a practical standpoint but still can't we be showing somewhere else in the town cuz compared to season 1 it doesn't feel like things are happening or going to places as fast as they should be it just feels slow and missing something more which is also something to be said for the villain of night country because at least in season 1 we were given an actual hidden figure to stand in as the villain which also then expanded to other suspects who became entwined within the case there were clearly different bad men to hunt down and Chase but in night country there's practically no one we don't know what kind of evil occurred who enacted it nor who could be involved apart from potentially someone close to the group or someone else yet unnamed there's really no sense of any bad guys to find and finally I want to just briefly note some smaller aspects of the shows which could come across as nitpicky because they're not really groundbreaking elements like story or character but to me they're still important flourishes that I feel are worth while to mention starting with the theme song because I'm not sorry night country's theme song is a spit in the face of the show and what came before in season 1 we had a theme song that defined what a theme song should be a truly mood setting and relatively unheard of song that immediately was both catchy and that set the dark tone for the show ahead Billy ish's burier friend is none of those don't get me wrong it is a good song but it's not a True Detective song why not employ her to write an original song just like the bond franchise if you really wanted to have her at least then it would be something unique and not just another pop song from a well-known artist secondly the hallucinations or Supernatural occurrences in our country this is becoming more of a thing it seems like they're leaning more into Cosmic Supernatural Dark Forces coming into play with them being somewhat mixed with the themes of culture and the indigenous natives of the land this is a big difference and it makes it feel something more like the movie the thing where a hidden Supernatural monster force or alien is the real villain of the show I don't have a huge problem with this but it does feel like a conflicting abuse of why having similar hallucinations in season 1 was so powerful in contrast because over there they were used lightly and there was an actual logical reason for it that being rust's own Affliction through being an undercover agent who had to be exposed to years of drug abuse that left a lasting impression why is this important well it makes it feel more grounded in reality and to me it's the right amount of balance between exploring themes of Supernatural Darkness or the areas of our physical world that we cannot explain and where such Notions intertwine with our reality it's that intersection of the darkness in the unknown Divinity and the Darkness of our own known Humanity in night country this becomes more of a supernatural horror element leading us to worry more about monsters that aren't grounded in reality even if it does turn out to be a logical explanation behind them such as the mining towns spiking the water to cause such hallucinations one that doesn't change the presentations of these hallucinations which are more horror-like and visceral as opposed to being subtle and two that's a dumb reason and I'd rather there be a supernatural monster or organism affecting someone to be the actual villain and the same can be said for my last minor point with the CGI effects of the show because having one watch that opening of night country with the dodgiest looking group of caribou I am genuinely worried about the rest of the CGI or special effects for the season so I hope that's as bad as it can get and that's that ultimately I am still hopeful for the rest of the season for night country and I will still be tuning in to see where it goes one of its strongest aspects is the choice to be set in Alaska which is such an incredible setting and one that I would genuinely love to see more of I'm also curious to see if they will continue with more links or connections to season 1 and if the relationship between the two leads will improve to provide us with some more interesting back and forth exchanges having said all that I feel that the first season of True Detective was genuine lightning in a bottle and it may never be captured again I have no idea if the Creator and original writer Nick pelato is a genius or he was just completely in the zone during the making of that first season and perhaps he had a huge help from others like director carry Joie fukunaga because after that Nick hasn't really been able to capture that same Ingenuity in writing my only hope or wish is that one day he decides to return to that world and importantly to that character Rus and Cole because to this day nothing has ever compared to having seen him on screen and I'm not sure anything else will do in the future to realize that all your life now all you love all you hate all your memory your pain it was all the same thing it was all the same dream a dream that you had inside a locked room a dream about being a [Music] person I like a lot of Dreams there's a monster at the end of [Music] [Music] it I mean each season of True Detective has been phenomenal but it's had its own very distinctive character I mean just overall what do you think you know is unique about this iteration of that show I think what's unique about this iteration of True Detective is that it's uh women driven uh it takes the male detective story and replaces it with with two women uh jod Foster and Kaye Reese are are the two leads and uh yeah it's really cool it's just it's [Music] uh I couldn't believe it when I got when I got to episode 6 I just could not believe it um um for me it's my favorite episode of all of them and there's a a cinema to episode 6 where suddenly everything in the entire season made sense um but we did need to go back we need to go back and fix 5 4 3 and two and one you know cuz when you get to the end you're like oh that's what I was going to say was it always going to be two females leading the series or is that something because obviously we all know that the last three seasons were all guys this one's you know two females and two you know different you know diverse backgrounds yeah the thing is I um you know I completely understand what Nick was coming from there because he's a guy you know and and and he was writing men beautifully um the that especially that first season for me is like a meditation on what means to be a man and and male identity and the way that uh a man deals with the secrets of the universe and with the with the horrors out there and tries to bring a little Justice and what type of man you are and how they relate to women it's all about the male experience and it's great it's really well done so uh and we had seen it we have seen it to three seasons there's Rachel McAdams in the second season but she's only one of three characters and if you look at the totality of the series it's about guys it's about men and um you have a chance to make a fourth season and you have to take it into new territory take keeping the things that make it unique and that feel like true detected but you have to make it this own thing the most natural thing is let's answer to that male experience and and and male existential dread with the female version of it and I went into that me myself being a Mexican woman um thought that at least one of the two detectives had to have some Latino jeans and I gave them to her but I also knew that if I was going to set this story in the northwest of Alaska where 70% of the population is indigenous it she had to have also this makeup because I don't believe in white people coming to save the day you know [Music] so

Channel: Motion In Art

Views: 62,800

Keywords: true detective, woody harrelson, matthew mcconaughey, nic pizzolatto, true detective season 1, true detective intro, true detective soundtrack, true detective rust, true detective analysis, true detective video essay, true detective explained, true detective movie review, true detective review, true detective matthew mcconaughey rust cohle, matthew mcconaughey video essay, matthew mcconaughey acting analysis, true detective character study, rust cohle, how rust cohle evolves

Id: LeS6CFJX8Z8

Length: 17min 57sec (1077 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 03 2024