True Detective
“The Western Book of the Dead”
(HBO)
B-
For any fan of True Detective‘s wonderfully murky and enigmatic first season, a feeling of nervy eagerness was difficult to evade last night. What started as a miniseries (it was originally, I swear!) is now a full-blown HBO event, but, of course, now excluding two reasons the first season was so invigorating: Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. There was no more story to tell for those two. Had creator and screenwriter Nic Pizzolatto tried to continue onto a new mystery utilizing the same characters, it would have been, well, unnecessary. True Detective‘s first season was grounded in gritty reality, thus making it impossible to bring those two back for another go-round. Instead, we have a whole new slew of characters played by a different set of A-listers. When the names were revealed earlier in the year people got nervous, and rightfully so. Vince Vaughn? Really? Is this “wedding crasher” really going to be the new Yellow King?
Colin Farrell plays Ray Velcoro, a crooked L.A. detective battling demons in an alcoholic daze, who has a connection to Frank Semyon (Vaughn). Semyon is a seemingly crooked developer who, in an early flashback, “uncovers” Velcoro’s wife’s rapist and hands over the info. Pizzolato makes certain to keep their relationship as ambiguous as possible for now, a slow build that could potentially go on for a painful length of time (and if so, attesting to this season’s desperation to conjure mystery). Give it up to Farrell, though; he was the premiere’s troubled bright spot. (Although the dialogue between Velcoro and a 12-year-old kid, after Velcoro assaults the child’s father with brass knuckles, was the most over-the-top moment.)
Vaughn’s Semyon seemed sedated and just plain sleepy. To this point, his character lacks more intrigue and excitement than any other. (Maybe Vaughn was cast for those insomnia eyes. You know, the ones that allow him to stare at someone as if his soul has been hollowed out by a life of crime and lies.) Semyon is raising money for a straight-shot rail system through California, and director Justin Lin’s aerial shots of the state’s twisty highway system are a subtle nod to his under-the-table wheeling and dealing with investors.
Detective Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams) has that overbearing, I’m-gonna-getcha, bully-cop mentality, culminating in a failed sting intended to bust what was ultimately a totally legal pornography operation (in which her sister was participating, conveniently). She loves to tell those around her what to be and do (like that her sister should go back on meds), but she scoffs at the questioning of her own demons. Ani’s father, meanwhile, has a belief structure that is seemingly at odds with the rest of the cast — a let-it-go, shit-happens-so-move-on mentality that is at least in part responsible for Ani’s contemptuous outlook.
Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch) — a highway patrolman on leave on suspicion of accepting an on-the-job sexual favor — is battling an unknown past and intimacy issues. He’s also an unstable thrill-seeker with a death wish, evidenced by his driving 100 miles per hour at night down a pitch-black California highway. Whereas the others hate the world around them, he hates himself. But his arc is seemingly altered in the episode’s final moments, upon his discovery of the corpse of Vinci City Manager Ben Casper, whose disappearance has been the subject of Ray’s ongoing investigation (at Semyon’s request).
Will this carousel of leads break each other down or corroborate in search of Casper’s killer? Season 2 is predicated on this more traditional cop narrative, yet despite its lack of originality, it’s still done better than most. The dark thrill of Season 1 just isn’t on the same level — at least not yet — so let’s hope the interwoven stories of these characters will propel us into a more compelling form of storytelling.
