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True Detective Season 3

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    True Detective Season 3

    HBO debuted a new trailer on Sunday night:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpUznQds8p4

    #2
    Started tonight in the US. I don't know when it begins in the UK. I will avoid spoilers at this point, but HBO ran the first two episodes back to back. There are some explicit links to season 1, which wasn't a feature of season 2. Part of the links would relate to geography and other parts to the case itself. I'm hoping those connections lead to a more complicated story and avoid that junk we had at the end of season 1. So far I'm intrigued.

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      #3
      Me too. It's not going to be the disaster of S2 which is good, but whether it'll be just a clone of S1 remains to be seen. There's also less concentration on the relationship between the two cops than in season one, which is a bit of a departure.

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        #4
        I've seen the first five episodes - previewer's privileges. I was instantly hooked but did wonder if they were playing it safe by retreading season one. It comes into its own. It's very different. The way it flits between the three timelines is ingenious, and, as the series develops, poignant.

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          #5
          I'm convinced and I have HBO, so I'll be watching. I'll report back with my thoughts. I know you'll all be on tenterhooks with bated breath.

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            #6
            I might have enjoyed season 2 a bit more than others just because I had read about the political corruption in that Los Angeles industrial zone many years back. It was and remains an intriguing story about political clout. But beyond that, there wasn't much that gripped me. Well, I loved Colin Farrel's use of brass knuckles; that was good. But the acting was poor and the storyline too over the top.

            I do enjoy the interchange between the three timelines on this one and the way that various answers unfold in that second timeline. Again, as long as we don't end up with some hillbilly killer or a kid abducted by aliens the ending will be better than season 1. The trick will be to match the intrigue in season 1. But I'm not watching anything else right now other than football and baseball analysis shows on MLB Network so this isn't taking me away from another show.

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              #7
              Episode 3 wasn't really working for me. It seemed to be a transitional episode, which is very early to be burning 60 minutes.

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                #8
                I'll forgive this series a lot if only because I get to hear Cassandra Wilson singing Death Letter once a week.

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                  #9
                  Episode 4 was much better for me: it was both slow burn and having some answers to questions unfold. Plus we have a genuine end of episode cliff hanger. I have a feeling that we're about to learn why the white detective/lieutenant (depending on the timeframe featuring at any given time) has a limp later in life. And so far I think the acting has been top notch (not something we can say about season 2).

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                    #10
                    I love this series as much as I loved series 1. I have major Nic Pizzolatto envy--why can't I write something like that and get it turned into something that looks as haunting and has T Bone Burnett making the music for it? Maybe I'm alone in this, but I love everything about it.

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                      #11
                      I'm a bit perplexed by T Bone Burnett's contribution. The opening credits are Cassandra Wilson's version of a Son House's Death Letter. The closing credits vary but last episode was Warren Zevon's Desperados Under the Eaves (also used the same way in a recent Ray Donovan episode.) I guess T-Bone's responsible for incidental music but I've no sense or recognition of it all. Not true of the series though. It's fine enough, though the earth hasn't exactly moved for me yet.

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                        #12
                        He produced the soundtrack. Here's an interview with him about the music https://www.esquire.com/entertainmen...ett-interview/

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                          #13
                          I think we're 5 episodes in and I have very mixed feelings about this show. On one hand, I like the context of the case and how it has unfolded with the daughter. I like the the attempt to have the story unfold via three different timeframes. And the acting is really good. On the other hand, the Hays character is mostly unlikable. There''s too much repetition with Chole from season 1 but Chole seemed to have a lot more method to his madness and because we never got a clear sense of his personal life, the character was more likeable. In this season we have an obsessed detective with excellent instincts but nothing about him is very compelling for me. Second, the story just has too many holes given this commitment to weaving three timeframes. We're introduced to some idea or character and then that idea or character fades for too long. This is a problem with David Simon's work as well (Wire, Treme, and The Deuce) but Simon always has it fixed by the third episode. Finally, that scene on the porch in episode 5 with both detectives being old and West says something to the effect of: we're two retired old men and I'm not about to run off and solve this case basically sums up the problems with the present of the three timeframes. It's one thing to have Hays wrestling with his life given his fading memory but it's another thing (and not a good one in my opinion) to have him trying to solve the case (again). I like the TV interview and the introduction of missed information by the reporter/producer but having him follow those leads is no good for me.

                          By comparison, Sharper Things used a similar play with memory on HBO recently and it was exceptional, gripping, and the plot line made sense. I'm sticking with True Detective because I have nothing else going on besides High Maintenance, but I think True Detective has proven to be a big tease: 6-8 brilliant episodes in Season 1 followed by a mix of excellent, average, and poor choices since.

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                            #14
                            I think the case of the daughter is incidental to what the show is really about. The real story is about getting old and having your memory fail you. This is something that everyone over a certain age can relate to. But it's also about what happens to people when they go off to war and have to inure themselves to atrocities, both that they've committed themselves and those that they have simply witnessed. And it's also about racism and white privilege.

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                              #15
                              To be honest, although I loved season 1, I didn't get as much meaning out of that one as I am with season 3 (I didn't even watch season 2, so I have no idea how it compares).

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                                #16
                                Originally posted by Femme Folle View Post
                                To be honest, although I loved season 1, I didn't get as much meaning out of that one as I am with season 3 (I didn't even watch season 2, so I have no idea how it compares).
                                Season 1 for me was just a very interesting twist on a cop show for most of the season (it came undone in the last 3 and the ending was ridiculous, although I know others have disagreed with me about that). The bringing together of philosophical junkie cop and a hot head cop worked well for me in terms of characters. Plus the show was cinematic in ways that extended the character development. If we're looking for a larger social theme in season 1 (perhaps akin to season 3's consideration of racism), I would say that season 1 foregrounded the various ways that women are brutalized: murdered women, trailer park and truck stop prostitutes (some of whom were underage runaways), wives degraded by husbands, daughters controlled by fathers, and even that stupid "redneck killer" ending showed how a brother or husband (can't remember) brutalized his sister who ignored the murders.

                                Season 3 has certainly had some interesting reflection on race. The two scenes that stand out for me is when Dorff's character (white cop--whose names escapes me as I type this) was driving the father to his house and the father was complaining about having a black officer on the case (N-word used, of course) and Dorff highlighted that Hayes was the best cop on the force. It was a very powerful scene when the dad started crying and apologizing. Then there was the scene when Dorff said if the angry mob was white, he would have shot people for sure, in response to Haye's question about how Dorff reacted to the black residents. That was interesting. So there's a lot of good stuff about race. But, again, for me, the shows just aren't hanging together. All of the parts are there but those parts aren't making a good whole yet. Maybe that will change.

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                                  #17
                                  If I didn't watch season 2, I may never connect all of the dots.

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                                    #18
                                    Originally posted by Femme Folle View Post
                                    If I didn't watch season 2, I may never connect all of the dots.
                                    Season 2 was an outlier. It had nothing to do with season 1 or 3. We saw some stuff early on in season 3 where the circle stuff that came up in season 1 was mentioned again. So, it seems like there might be some content links and then geographical links between 1 and 3. Season 2 was set in LA and was a very different kind of story. It wasn't as bad as people said, but your time will be spent in much better ways if you skip it.

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                                      #19
                                      These episode walkthroughs from Polygon.com are pretty useful at keeping track of what's going on.

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                                        #20
                                        Well, now we have a story. Let's see if they learned from season 1 and this plays out in an interesting fashion.

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                                          #21
                                          Holy shit.

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                                            #22
                                            Only 8 episodes in this series. The second to last airs on Sunday. I'm hoping they can sustain some of the intensity that appeared at the end of 6.

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                                              #23
                                              Another engaging episode. It seems like the mystery has been solved. I guess the question is what are two senior citizens going to do about it. And what happened when Hayes got in the car?

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                                                #24
                                                Mystery solved and the link with season one explained. I have questions, but I think I'll just have to wait until next week to find out.

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                                                  #25
                                                  Obviously at this point in the thread there are going to be a lot of spoilers here so don't keep reading if you're avoiding spoilers.

                                                  The big question will be what happened when Hayes got in the car. The story that has been building is that he has been the guy who was derailed by corruption but perhaps we will find that he was the one who derailed the investigation. I'm curious to know why his daughter took off. And I'm curious why the son, who is a cop now, isn't acting based on the info. he is hearing during the documentary filming. So I think there are still some questions that can be answered in this final episode.

                                                  Per FF's comment about the link to Season 1, that link was a little sloppy in a few ways. First, it seems that we're looking at a situation in Season 3 where a girl was abducted because a crazy lady wanted a daughter. But in Season 1 we had what looked like a conspiracy where rich men were kidnapping, raping, and killing women during ritualistic sacrifices only to find out that some hillbilly was killing women. Total letdown, but also not really a relevant link since the daughter seems to be the only missing girl in Series 3. If there were multiple missing girls then the links would make more sense. Anyway, I'm curious to see how this concludes.

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