The first is the blurring of the central character. Although the first season adopts the traditional partner mode of detective dramas, Rust's strong personality charm makes him the absolute protagonist, and the whole case also unfolds with his persistence; the second season has three detectives: Ray, Annie and Paul, and gang leader Frank. In the inexorable stage aperture, the fate of the four people interacts with the case, which means that the case is no longer an independent object, waiting to be discovered by the "true detective" like the progress of the first season. It is presented in the encounters and personalities of the four characters, and even has new branches and leaves for it.
This creates a problem that is easily criticized: lack of focus and rambling. That's true, but it seems that the editor did it on purpose. I guess it is about to distinguish it from the too strong "Superman" style of the first season. The second season tries to construct a kind of muddy reality without borders, and reproduce the chaos and uncontrollability of real life in a "natural" way. Not only an understanding of "reality", but also an aesthetic effect.
Ray's wife was raped several years ago and turned to Frank to find the murderer. As a police detective, he pulled the trigger and shot him, completely changing the trajectory of her life; Annie was addicted to gambling and casual sex, alienating her father and sister , All this seems to originate from being imprisoned by his father's friend when he was a child; Paul tried his best to hide his homosexuality, maintained his relationship with his girlfriend on drugs, and kept silent about the massacre on the Iraqi battlefield. Three completely unrelated people are linked together because of the death of a city official, and this murder also causes Frank, who is trying to cleanse himself to lead a stable family life, to lose the wealth and industry that he has worked hard for many years. The four share a common goal, either out of work needs or out of business.
Rust contributes so many Nietzschean aphorisms that this season uses a lot of white space. Observing and vigilant in silence in the fog, the comfort after sympathy is superfluous, when fighting side by side and separating, just simply shake hands and say goodbye - you can feel that the characters are burdened with too many unbearable pasts to stop looking at the occasional flashes in life. past light. The three police detectives did not have a strong will to solve the case at first. They understood that they were only pawns of politicians, and they walked through the motions and waved their hands to return. How can you think that the government and police station of Vinci City have been corrupted to such a degree that blatant crimes and murders cover up the truth at the cost of the deaths of a large number of urban civilians. They are not only pawns, but pawns that are intended to be sacrificed. Forced to be desperate, a counterattack is imperative.
But the story is not intended to give hope. The sad guitar of the female singer in the bar lingers all the time, Paul was shot by the corrupt police, "I just killed a dead gay, so what?"
At this time, we realized in our fragmented statements that Lei was wrong. An innocent man rather than a rapist, Annie was imprisoned voluntarily and even with the vanity of a teenage girl - two "fallen" people who have considered themselves to be doomed. Crime and dark life are intertwined, the complete moral fall of the powerful and the hidden evil of the little people form a hopeless landscape.
Is this a reality? There are no heroes, only little people, and evil continues. Frank died in the desert because of diamonds and dignity, and Ray ended up dying in the jungle trying to catch a glimpse of his son. Annie finally handed over the incriminating materials to the reporter of "Time". This ending reminds us of what Rust said when he looked up at the stars at the end of the first season, "there will be more light", the fact seems to be the opposite .
Two women, a swaddling baby, and a loyal bodyguard are stubbornly tragic and hopelessly small in the noisy crowd in Venezuela. At the last moment you suddenly realize that this season has nothing to do with detective at all, it just wants to show you what life is like.
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