I watched S4 a couple of months ago. And It was god awful. I loved the backdrop in a dark Alaskan town and the insanely awesome Jodie foster. But the story and the plot points that drive the overarching story are so weak and shallow.

It makes me think how the critics love this season 4. Any thoughts on this?

Is shitting on any moment of decency a part of your job description?

Love this show. S1 rewatch number 14

I’d avoided this sub and reviews in general for fear of spoilers. Started watching this weekend, almost done, and am sticking with it to see what happens — and I’ll give em this, the Alaskan vibes are compelling — but my god, what a disservice this is to the anthology.

The dialogue is wall to wall cliches. It feels like it was written by aliens who just binged a ton of network procedural. I’m no professional critic by any means but my biggest tv pet peeve is exposition as dialogue, and I can’t recall any other shows who’ve been worse offenders.

The trauma the writers put these characters through is forced and trite and over the top. And boy, you have to try hard to outdo seasons 1-3 in that department. There’s no character depth. It’s just trauma porn.

The paranormal aspects are BEYOND embarrassing. Ice zombies?? White eyed ghosts screaming and pointing cryptically?? Where’s the fucking subtlety??

All of which leads me to the acting. Even Jodie was a letdown. Seems like the whole cast either went to the Adam Driver School Of Screaming All Your Lines or went the opposite route and decided to be entirely devoid of affect or personality.

It feels like a brand new NYU grad wanted to make a shitty horror film and was somehow given the keys to TDS4 instead and said fuck it, I’m not even gonna TRY to make this quality!!!! I’m feeling insane. Was this a writers strike casualty or something? How did this happen???

Rust and Ginger go to meet Dewall, and then Marty tails Dewall to the complex out in the bayou, and Rust joins him shortly afterwards.

But what did Rust do with Ginger?

Just something that struck me recently: Jake complained to Marty in e02 (I think??? too lazy to check) about young people putting on make up and what not, and Marty dismissed that as grumbling of a crotchety old man. "Old men die, and the world keeps spinning." Fast forward to e05, Marty is pestering his daughter about her appearnces, clothes, hair. He's turning into Jake without noticing it.

Mayer Chassani. I ask myself who the hell would elect this lunatic to public office… then I look around at who’s in office in the real world and I’m like, actually yeah makes sense.

Cohle wanted to pull one over this guy, except he, the guy infamously full of philosophical mumbo-jumbo, gets out-jumboed by a guy who calls him a devil and calls his soul corrosive, and Cohle has basically no response but to sit there and take it while watching his plan fall apart.

They did bring up rust’s father in season 4 but I don’t see how they could come back, if they could, would you guys like to see it?

I’m ok with the show being led by two women. That’s not the problem. There were so many loopholes and the pacing was just slower than hell. Jodie fosters character is just an unlikable bitch, she great actress but the material was garbage. She’s basically like Rust without the good parts and is somewhat racist. The other female lead was tough, but she really didn’t have any likable traits either other than her loving her sister. I’m kinda shocked that John Hawkes got such little screen time, knowing how famous he is. Although his loser storyline didn’t add much to the show and his character was just a tool. Speaking of Hank, how can a person be smart enough to be a cop yet too stupid to realize they are being catfished and also send some random person money without verification? Pete seems like the only likable character who is a good detective but they made him detective Danvers bitch. I’ve never been so bored yet pissed off at the same time.
Fuck you Issa Lopez, don’t come back for season 5

“FBI Agent Lee Harker is assigned to an unsolved serial killer case that takes an unexpected turn, revealing evidence of the occult.” — hopefully this gives TD vibes, check out the trailer if you haven’t!

Every rewatch I absolutely love this scene. The back and forth scenes between Theriots speech and rust/marty debating about the people in the church is genius!

S2 was like a graphic novel for me, and is now one of my favorite"hidden in the vault" cinema pieces. The story was messy, and i wasn't even convinced until about halfway through; i realized i messed up by expecting an extension of S1.

Geez, prob 10th time I’ve watched and I’m always blown away at the end. So much greatness to behold and so much respect for the storytelling. God bless this mess.

I know why (I don’t), I just want to hear from you. The detective storyline is so fucking dumb at this point spoil the whole ending even though I still have episode six to go. Also are all the complaints just on the detective storyline? Because this seasons interpersonal side is loads better than the horseshit of Season 2 or 3.

How many

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Eternal Recurrence

I love season 1, it's one of my favorite tv shows of all time, I just watched it again for the first time in a couple years, and I once again have the same issue that I did before, which is Marty. Right from the beginning he's a disgusting pig who makes everybody around him suffer, and the narrative is built in a way where you're expecting him to get a redemption, where he learns some lesson, where he grows as a character, and the last episode kind of ends with that vibe, however he never actually does anything to get redemption. He's a terrible person for every episode until the very end where he manages to figure out the connection with the green paint and then saves Rust, but it's purely pragmatic, there's no greater meaning, his character didn't grow or learn, he just happened to be there at the right time to save Rust. We watch his character be a complete asshole for the entire series and it never pays off into anything. Rust has his flaws but he has strong values and he acts right. Marty is just pure garbage until the last 10 minutes of the series. It just doesn't make sense to me when the narrative wants us to feel for him or see him as a good guy. He hasn't done anything to outweigh his terrible behavior.

While I'm not picking up on any supernatural misdirection so far, this is a fantastic modern noir with very stylistic flashbacks to the classic genre films. Feels like a spiritual successor to S!, and Colin Farrell's acting is much more nuanced and interesting than his character in S2 in my opinion.

I didn’t like it. It wasn’t for me. But I just don’t see the reason for the fandom?

My gf and I have been a fan of season 1 (also watched s3 and found it to be decent). I had the misfortune of watching S4 through ep5 (couldn't hold myself to watch finale but I think I know enough gist of it).

I want to show my gf how bad s4 was made to be without wasting her time by getting her to watch the actual show. And I want us to get a good laugh out of it because honestly, with all the plot holes and flat characters and silly political messages, it should make a great funny experience. I've briefly searched on YouTube, but while there are quite a few talking about s4's problems, none I have found to do a good job of really mocking it. Feels like a great missed opportunity here, where some YouTube creators surely should have this idea. So I'm hoping maybe I just missed it and someone in this sub knows a good video for that. ;)

EDIT: Whoa mama, this got a lot of hate. Let me be clear: I love this season, and I think that the characters are multifaceted and compelling. I furthermore think that the women absolutely have agency. In no way am I saying you can't enjoy it. But my way of enjoying media is analyzing it. I love meta, I love thinking about unreliable narrators like Marty and Rust. Personally, I walked out of this season thinking, Damn. Pizzolatto really didn't pull any punches in his criticism of machismo. Maybe I should reflect on that in my life. So this is my fun :)

The Interview format tips us off from minute one, episode one—this is the story of two men, and everything we are about to see is how these men see the world. No more, no less. We are about to see the world with dulled reds and greens because these two men are colorblind. The depiction of women is Marty’s deuteranomaly. Here I go:

Marty isn’t 100% irredeemably rotten, but he has got a genuine pathological need to be in control that is exceedingly common in cops. Like, he’s not obsessive about the case like Rust is, so why is he so adamant against the task force taking it over? It’s not because he doesn’t want it swept under the rug by a corrupt institution; it’s because it’s his now.

He reflects the sort of known principle in criminal psychology that certain personalities (majority of them being men) directly associate Sex with Control, not so much desire. Example being, rapists don’t rape because they’re horny; they want to conquer someone, something.

To him, the women and girls in his life are the same as his lawn—they’re his god-given damn personal property that are under his control to mow and maintain or neglect as he damn well pleases. Especially their sexuality.

Moment they try otherwise, he flies off the handle, steaming, raging. Remember how when Maggie leaves him and he reads the note, his first reaction is to snarl and curl his lip in anger?

And yeah, that includes his daughter. I’m not saying that he’s sexually attracted to his daughter, hell no. I’m also not trying to #girlboss away statutory rape. But when she’s caught sleeping with two guys, his emotional reaction is just the same as when Lisa has a one night stand with someone else. She and her sexuality are HIS property. No one else is allowed to mow his lawn.

And, tbh, that’s why he starts an affair with Beth (girl from the bunny ranch). By his (probably subconscious) thinking, when he gave her money to get out of there, he was really buying her. So why shouldn’t he?

This kind of personality is overwhelmingly attracted to police work, and other positions which provide control with less consequences. So when he busts down Lisa’s door, she can’t say “I’ll call the cops” because he IS the cops. He’s immune to consequence and answers only to himself.

In conclusion, “The world needs bad men” isn’t a deep truth, actually. It’s the way that two bad men who suck in different ways think about the world to dodge the noose. When someone says, “True Detective season 1 is about masculinity”, they’re right—it’s inviting people to unpack this worldview, to recognize it in the people around them and in themselves.