- Danger
- Jan 4, 2004
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all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'
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yes...ha ha ha....yes!
I'm in the crowd that wants maximum weirdness cranked up in my True Detective (Pizzaman robbed us of the occult history of the LA transportation system and that was everyone's loss), so I was willing to overlook a lot to get that good cosmic gumbo of existential horror, hardboiled true detectiving, and sinister conspiracy.
There was in fact a lot to overlook, but I'm still game.
- I massively appreciate the inciting incident being such a big outlandish swing that even a "rational", grounded explanation is going to have be completely off-the-wall. Hit me with the wackiness, please.
- CGI caribou aside, the first ten minutes feel off in every way. The rest of the episode follows the series' usual habit of closely keeping to the detectives' perspective and only giving glimpses outside it, to build up the paranoia, claustrophobia and unreliability of their experience. Too much is immediately and objectively revealed at the scientists' camp (and too much of it, like the shadow-girl running across the corridor, feels generic).
- The plotting around the scientists' disappearance in general feels mangled. Shouldn't everyone be urgently organising a search party rather than calmly and methodically going through old case files at this point?
- Dissecting The Thing by looking at an all-male group of scientists on the outskirts of a town dominated by female authority figures (and maybe a sullen male resentment underlying it?) feels very promising indeed. Interesting to see where that goes.
- Line by line, the writing just isn't as good as it should be, which is particularly odd when there's so much talent available to back Lopez up. (Barry Jenkins was a producer on this?!) S1's hardboiled alternate reality where everyone speaks in ominous portents, philosophical exchanges, pessimistic ramblings and "gently caress you"s would work perfectly for this environment, but for whatever reason we get jokes about Kelis and Spongebob instead. The exchange with Annie's husband - "We're all alone. God, too." - felt like the only scene that really hit the right note for me.
- For all the excitement about Foster, Navarro gets by far the most interesting moments of characterisation in this episode; her scene with the bartender was good and memorable. Hope there's more to Danvers than dead kids and unruly living kids.
- "Oh, hey, what you drawing there?" followed by the kid's ludicrously scary sketch being held up to camera got a huge and presumably unintended belly laugh from me. On the other hand, I liked the ghostly interpretive dance and the howls from the drunk woman in the cell. Both of those moments felt funny and eerie in the best Twin Peaks way.
How much of that is explained by this originally being some other completely novel script treatment they shoehorned into the True Detective brand?
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Jan 15, 2024 23:39
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May 9, 2024 21:06
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- Danger
- Jan 4, 2004
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all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'
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Some, not all. I think the True Detective brand has always been a 'you know it when you see it' oddity based largely on the first season - after all the showrunner himself clearly wanted to get away from the supernatural elements in S2, figured the key ingredients were complicated conspiracies, hardboiled adult themes and stagey dialogue, was understandably mocked for the resulting season, and audiences have never been able to agree since then on exactly how much uncanniness there should ideally be.
It's also a show that's had previous success mingling human drama with genre pulp, which can make it hard to unpick what feels suitable and what doesn't What's the difference between the horror cliche of a kid blankly composing scary drawings, the horror cliche of a shivering man with his back to the audience who turns abruptly, and the horror cliches of Errol's Texas Chainsaw Massacre house from Season 1? Buildup and atmospherics, mostly.
But even bearing in mind that the treatment was an original concept to begin with, it does feel remarkable that nobody in production stopped to say, 'Wait, this show's first episodes usually have the detective examining the eerie aftermath of something terrible that happened completely offscreen, as opposed to a spooky stinger that shows the victims directly being terrorised, isn't there a reason for that?'
To me that smacks of insecurity rather than laziness in adapting the script, though.
Season 2 rules actually
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Jan 16, 2024 18:22
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- Danger
- Jan 4, 2004
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all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'
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I didn't dislike Season 2 because people were saying it's bad. I didn't know they were. I disliked it because I thought it was meh and not just compared to the first season. I could watch it again if I somehow needed to for some obscure reason, but I doubt I'd see its brilliance a second time around.
This is a good take from another former goon
https://x.com/ghoststoriesend/status/1746962748716544016?s=46
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Jan 16, 2024 23:12
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- Danger
- Jan 4, 2004
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all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'
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My partner and I were cautiously optimistic until we reached the interpretive dance wendigo that pointed to the bodies. I was honestly kinda hoping for "Wind River" but with additional spooks; this seems like it's going to have some trite way to hand wave away some of the mystery that they presented, but there's still plenty of time to be proven wrong.
What? That was literally the best part.
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Jan 16, 2024 23:13
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- Danger
- Jan 4, 2004
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all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'
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If this was Twin Peaks, it would've been the best part.
A lot of pre-existing expectations are playing into the overall response right now.
But man, we're not in the hands of David Lynch right now. We're in season 4 of a formerly respected and then disgraced and then kinda redeemed serial led by many different people. There's nothing to trust.
So in isolation, the corpse dance was cool I agree, but in context - we'll see.
How was it disgraced lol?
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Jan 17, 2024 00:03
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- Danger
- Jan 4, 2004
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all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'
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Is this True Detective canon or is it a what if/legends story? No there’s no real distinction but my enjoyment is hinged upon it
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Jan 17, 2024 00:27
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- Danger
- Jan 4, 2004
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all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'
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“World building” had absolutely ruined fiction
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Jan 17, 2024 01:03
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- Danger
- Jan 4, 2004
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all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'
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S2 is really good though.
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Jan 17, 2024 02:15
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- Danger
- Jan 4, 2004
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all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'
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I don’t know that there’s anything at stake in the distinction, but when Cohle sees that thing in the ritual pit, it seemed to me like a version of the spiral symbol, and not like a hallucination inspired by the spiral, but like something that could have inspired the spiral in its more complex version of the same basic shape. Then at the end Cohle interprets it as a galaxy, which it clearly isn’t. That seems ambiguous enough to wonder about.
For me, though, the show’s interesting because it’s cosmic horror basically without anything otherworldly—it’s just sublime terror at the insignificance of humanity and the indifference of the universe to human action in a purely naturalistic way. Those final shots of all the show’s locations at the end are terrifying to me not because they suggest the perspective of some malicious presence but because they show us the indifference of the universe to the events of the series.
Also I hate that dumb guys have fallen in love with Cohle’s pessimism, as the show is very careful to show him as being about as pathetic and wrong about things as Hart. That exchange with the “let’s make the car a place for silent contemplation, ok?” is about showing what a weirdo Cohle is and how he’s embarrassed about how he can’t function or be normal for five minutes. He only works as part of a duo.
Not sure I get this take on "the insignificance of humanity". The show depicted humanity as incredibly significant. An elite pedophile ring is something that has historically material basis and consequences even if unseen.
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Jan 17, 2024 19:58
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- Danger
- Jan 4, 2004
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all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'
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I always figured Pizzolato was going for more of a David Mamet thing, honestly.
I can see Mamet. Narratively it's like Inslaw/Cabazon/Danny Casalaro Octopus poo poo filtered by way of Ellroy.
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Jan 18, 2024 16:21
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- Danger
- Jan 4, 2004
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all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'
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Honestly I liked her and Foster just fine and if anything will keep watching for them. Also appreciated the Lynchian poo poo.
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Jan 18, 2024 16:51
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- Danger
- Jan 4, 2004
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all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'
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Season 2 is good as hell.
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Jan 18, 2024 23:55
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- Danger
- Jan 4, 2004
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all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'
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Also I somehow thought it was Vince that was in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. And having looked that up...
What the flying capital F happened to Val Kilmer? He looks like he got age-advancement surgery done by the the world's top expert doing their most impressive work yet. It's not just catching up to look his age from looking young. Man flew past that point and aged 45 years in less than 20.
I mean the man had pretty brutal throat cancer. I don’t even think he can speak any more.
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Jan 19, 2024 15:00
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- Danger
- Jan 4, 2004
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all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'
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Speaking of music I did just immediately think of watching leftovers when Jim James played last episode. The unthank song was also another one hbo has used before
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Jan 22, 2024 05:12
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- Danger
- Jan 4, 2004
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all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'
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Man that Jodie Foster allusion with the Beatles is absolutely brutal. I was laughing in utter shock.
Mark David Chapman killed John Lennon in an attempt to impress her.
You’re thinking of John Hinkley.
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Jan 23, 2024 20:56
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- Danger
- Jan 4, 2004
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all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'
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You’re thinking of John Hinkley.
She did say this though
https://x.com/hollywoodobsrvr/status/1465821779579092999?s=46
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Jan 23, 2024 21:03
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- Danger
- Jan 4, 2004
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all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'
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"shared universe" or "canon" is absolutely the worst thing to ever happen to fiction
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Jan 25, 2024 18:01
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- Danger
- Jan 4, 2004
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all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'
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Show is OK, Jody Foster is good, ice horror is always good, being so explicit with the spirals and stuff is whatever but Season 1 is so great that I'll take it.
My main complaint is the opening song which is incredibly god loving awful and out of place. Wtf.
I remember people saying this about season 2 of The Leftovers before I watched it so I no longer give it purchase
Danger fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Jan 29, 2024
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Jan 29, 2024 21:11
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- Danger
- Jan 4, 2004
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all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'
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Also I'm sorry but Jodie Foster as horny racist cop is also so good.
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Jan 29, 2024 22:10
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- Danger
- Jan 4, 2004
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all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'
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The greatest season of television to ever air
Yes strong agree. I was specifically meaning the opening song.
Also one of my favorite tviv threads to revisit as it goes from there and impatient cynicism to rapt awe.
Danger fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Jan 29, 2024
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Jan 29, 2024 23:13
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Jan 15, 2024 23:39
