The first season of True Detective is still unsurpassable - a divine drama is a divine drama, and even the author himself has not reached the heights he once had. The King in Yellow may have directly manipulated the brain of screenwriter Nick Pizzolatto, which inspired him to write the first season such a masterpiece with perfect narrative, rhythm, characters, and atmosphere; now that the power is gone, Pizzo Lato is plagiarism and can make mistakes.
narrative
From the perspective of the use of the time line, the first season uses two lines of narrative, one line talks about the old case, and the other line shows the new progress. The contrast with the frustrated status quo makes the audience always wonder how they got to this point step by step; and the third season... I really don't know what it is necessary to deal with the case that happened in the 80s and the reopening of the investigation in the 90s. Parallel Structures - Does telling the story straight in chronological order get in your way, Nick? This short-lived parallel timeline did not create an appetizing suspense, and the broken narrative made the audience upset; if it was for character building, in addition to changing from a single dog to a family man, two generations of The male lead, Wayne Hayes, didn't show any great growth either. Is it worth writing an extra timeline for family chores?
role and performance
In the same space, the first season showed us two arresting protagonists: Marty, who seems to be sophisticated, can "be a man" and has the characteristics of an old boy, in fact "has never known what he wants" ; and Rust, whose mind is free from worldly values, the Texas cowboy whose body contains Nietzsche's brain, always obeys his nature, and chases his prey with the instinct of a hound; the collision of these two men fulfills their roles, they are each other's Added Flesh.
The screenwriter of the second season showed what it means to be greedy and chewy. The dumplings generally set a disastrous number of characters, and few people are willing to empathize, which has attracted a wave of bad reviews. So in the third season, the screenwriter was discouraged, and even the two male protagonists didn't dare to write, all the characters revolved around Wayne Hayes, and Wayne... uh... Wayne is an honest man, a good man, LRRP Veteran, good hunter, conscientious cop... but I can't think of anything that makes this dude stand out, anything that breaks the character of a masked detective. He is more like a human flesh camera that is constantly malfunctioning, providing the audience with a perspective into the case. As for himself... Come to think of it, does he have any moving personality or weakness? Alzheimer's disease?
When it comes to roles, you have to talk about acting. Matthew's acting is good enough to bring a character like Rast to life that is a little bit far from our daily experience. Among other things, what I admire about him is that he can make a large number of Schopenhauer-style philosophical monologues like a neurosis, convincingly from the mouth of a character who looks like a southern red-necked old farmer.
The screenwriter Nick has since fallen to the root of the disease. He began to write such long and incomprehensible dialogues regardless of the occasion and role. Matthew relies on his acting skills and "neuropathy", and he can handle it. . For example, the black boss in the second season, there were several times in bed with his wife and nothing to do, just living there, I think many of his opponents in his gangster career were probably annoying to death by him? And in season three, Detective Wayne spends a lot of time chattering and bickering and bickering and bickering with his wife, oh my God, are you making a fucking romantic movie? To be honest, these actors, even including the big pot of dumplings in the second season, are considered qualified in their acting skills, so most of the reasons why the characters are not empathetic should be counted on the screenwriters.
Overall, even though the writers didn't give Wayne much room to play, actor Ali got the job done, especially the frailty and amnesia of old age, which was heartbreakingly vivid. And Stephen, who played his partner Roland West, would occasionally make people play a little bit. For example, in a scene, when Roland said that he and Wayne were gradually estranged, his expression was a little too much, and it could be said that he winked. By the way, a word of makeup, Roland's old-age makeup is too stiff, like a lump of walnuts between his eyebrows.
Rhythm
This is probably the most patience season of all time: the pace is so damn slow. I don't complain about the slow progress of the case, the first season was slow enough, but the first season spent a lot of time on laying out the Cthulhu-style weird atmosphere and the clues surrounding the case; but the third season is slow, one is Because the screenwriter has set up three lines, the narrative is broken, and the second is because the screenwriter spends a lot of time for Wayne to fall in love, which is really "talking" love in the literal sense. Oddly enough, Marty's family life also took up a fair amount of space in the first season, but it didn't bore me as much as the third. I admit that there may be my personal bias here, but I guess that although Marty's family life takes up a lot of time, there are enough dramas: cheating, recovering, dealing with daughter, cheating again, Maggie cheating Rust, completely Finished playing. And Wayne... Except for writing books, quarreling and falling in love, the relationship hasn't changed much.
case
Everyone knows what a "mechanical serenity" is: the case can no longer be investigated, Ayumi did a random thing, and Watson made a casual comment, so there was a flash of "exaggeration", and the detectives forcibly cleared the siege. In this season's case, Nick's method is "mechanical trickery": the case is about to be investigated, and a surrogate ghost pops up immediately, for fear that the protagonist will accidentally close the case. The first time the death of the Indians was a half-time climax, but the second time, a scapegoat was forced to let the case go unsolved, which made people feel annoyed - the same trick, you can't face the same trick. Season audience play twice!
Honestly, this case is not even as good as the second season. The case itself is too simple to be stretched, and it seems that the screenwriter is very poor: he can't make up a case with a little depth, and he can't rely on the case itself to support a season. He can only use accidents to stumble the detectives. God, I just want to give the second season extra points.
surroundings
It's also worth discussing that all three seasons of True Detective, in addition to the characters, have a hidden storyteller: the environment. Especially in the wild, sultry wilderness of Louisiana in the first season, the damp and dull air makes you understand that these southern Gothic cases will never happen elsewhere; the second season is changed to impetuous California, hot and humid. , Dehumanized, dirty industrial area, you can almost smell the oil. I have no special feelings about the background environment of the third season, and I need to rewatch it a few times to figure out the flavor.
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