TV – True Detective Season 2, Episode 3

Steve Taylor-Bryant hides in Vinci and watches the goings on in Maybe Tomorrow...

The world’s worst Elvis impersonator sings in the club whilst Ray has a bizarre conversation with an officer, his father, about running through trees before waking up in his own piss, still on the floor where the Raven mask man had shot him. Turns out it was riot pellets like the police use so he is okay enough to be told off by his partner Ani when she arrives at the scene. Frank’s troubles are affecting him more than he thought they would and, whilst trying to conceive a baby, he starts an argument with his wife, Jordan. Ani and Paul start to investigate the prostitute angle that is arising in the murder case and seem to hit it off better than Ani did with Ray. Ray meanwhile talks to Frank about Caspere and Frank starts to feel enraged but still tells Ray about the property deal and the money involved. Ani and Paul visit with Veronica at Mayor Chessani’s house which resembles a frat house at this point. Ani explores the house and finds Tony, the Mayor’s son, who seems to like partying on someone else’s dime but doesn’t really know anything about the Caspere case. Ray visits with his Doctor and finds out that his lifestyle is not great and he is bordering on death, with the Doctor even asking Ray if he wants to live. Frank is out and about, all mean and threatening, extorting money from a contractor who thought his payments had stopped. Ani and Paul find company documents, money and diamonds in Caspere’s safety deposit box and report it to their superiors who seem more interested in her opinions of Ray. They want to leverage Ray and bring him down using Ani, meanwhile Ray is with the Mayor who is very angry that Ani had gone to his house and questioned his wife. Ray’s superiors want Ray to give Ani a suspect to keep her away from the Mayor’s business. Ani has to deal with her boyfriend, who is not happy at being dumped in front of the squad. Ray tells his dad about the bizarre dream and finds his dad angry having thrown away his police badge so gives him some marijuana and they talk about Ray’s son, and what his dad thinks about Ray’s superiors and when policing was better. Frank is having more issues with his Russian business partners who seem to be walking away from their deal, leaving Frank’s empire falling apart around him.

Paul is at the speedway talking to his friend about his problems and whether his friend has a job or not when they start to reminisce about their time as soldiers. His friend misses combat and is struggling with normal life and doesn’t want to forget something that happened between them whilst they were serving, possibly a sexual event. Ray returns to work and they visit a film company who it turns out owned the car Caspere was driven around in. Ray talks to a set photographer who knows Caspere and the photographer tells him about a party the director went to with him so they question the director who doesn’t really remember anything, but the city has sent an employee down to investigate Caspere’s tax records so something shady might be going on. Frank’s colleague, who had been missing during the meeting with the Russians, returns to the office to a very angry Frank but reports that Frank’s friend Stan has been killed. Frank becomes even more irate and thirsty for revenge. Paul is working the streets showing Caspere’s photograph to the working girls, and thinks he sees an angel on the hill, before he finds a male prostitute that recognises him from a club but says that they won’t let Paul in as he looks too much like a cop. Ani is round at Ray’s when his ex-wife turns up and warns him that the State Police have been asking her about Ray’s past and whether he is corrupt, she also wants her custody forms signed due to the fact he is being investigated. Paul goes to the club with his new male friend when he literally bumps into Frank Semyon before finding someone that will talk about seeing Caspere at the bar. Frank is out the back of the club with the guys who run it looking for Caspere’s girls but the guys aren’t interested and know Frank is losing his authority, so Frank beats up the biggest of them to re-exert his authority and pulls out his gold teeth with some pliers. Ani and Ray go to interview an old member of the film company when they find the car they were looking for but someone sets fire to it before fleeing. After saving Ani from getting run over, Ray asks what State have on him but she swears she doesn’t know.

The shooting of Colin Farrell at the end of last week’s episode could have been a masterstroke, leaving me on tenterhooks for an entire week but an over eager television announcer mentioned he was fine and back to normal in a voice over done during the closing credits when my mouth was still agog. That meant I went into this week’s episode a little flat, devoid of the pent up enthusiasm I would have had if I’d spent the week trying to work out if Nic Pizzolatto had killed off one of the main cast this early. Sorry Mr Pizzolatto, I apologise on behalf of British television announcers everywhere for your episode having to work even harder to impress due to the spoilers that were given. So did the episode match up? Was it still good? Well sort of. Had we not known that Farrell lives then that opening scene would have had a real Twin Peaks feel to it and have been really enjoyable, as it was due to the spoiler it just came across as weird which was a shame. As for the rest of the episode it was another solid week of character building with all of the main four getting equal amounts of screen time allowing Taylor Kitsch to take some plaudits for his portrayal of a mentally damaged Paul. In just about every scene he came across as tortured and looked so uncomfortable in his own skin. With Paul being the one most uneasy about sex at the moment the scenes of him in the club talking to prostitutes had more believability about it, and Kitsch is coming across very dark which I am really enjoying.

Vince Vaughan actually does some thuggery this week, not just using his threatening eyes, and convinces yet again as the bad guy struggling with his business, and Rachel McAdams impresses as the potty mouthed Ani. It is Farrell though that gets performance of the week as he tries to balance his corrupt ways with a possible better life, and the scene with his father was really touching in a very weird drink ‘n drugs way.

Another director this week and it was tough to see if the darkness and neon from the first two episodes was to be matched as most of the episode was played out in daylight but the final chase scene through fire and a homeless camp had a very nice cinematic quality to it and I loved the lighting in the nightclub scenes which left everything looking dark and dirty yet bright at the same time which was a nice trick and suited the characters in those scenes. I thoroughly enjoyed this week’s episode and Pizzolatto is writing as well as he did in season 1 which is encouraging for the next few episodes as we are going to have to stop character building and let the story flow more very soon.

Images - HBO