TRUE DETECTIVE 2.4 DOWN WILL COME

“Sometimes your worst self, is your best self.” – Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn)

We are now at the halfway point of the second season of TRUE DETECTIVE. The latest episode was an incredible slow burn of more complex character development, so slow that the episode came to a crawl at certain points, only to brilliantly explode in the final ten minutes to a Michael Mann inspired street shoot out.

Vince Vaughn’s back is to the wall, he’s out of resources and he’s going back, extorting the current owners of his previous businesses, his marriage is falling apart and he is losing trust in the people working for him. Colin Farrell is exiled inside his self loathing, saying goodbye to his son by giving him his father’s badge. Taylor Kitsch relapsed and drunkenly slept with his former “Black Mountain” buddy, and shored that up with more self destruction by getting engaged to his former girlfriend when she told him that she was pregnant. Rachel McAdams’ life is still a mess, and a formal sexual misconduct complaint was charged against her by the simpleton officer she was having sex with as well as her current partner helping fuel the complaint.

We also get a glimmer into what I think is the underlining occult story line of the show. McAdams’ father (David Morse) shows her and Velcoro a picture from the 70’s of him, Vinci’s Mayor’s father and Rick Springfield’s characters all on a beach side. I’m thinking that the sex parties that have been referenced in the last two episodes have something to do with them.

The episode ended like the fourth episode of the first season, a tremendous shoot out. This time, it wasn’t one take like it was in the first season. This time, the camera followed the three leads exchange gunfire with a gunman from a meth lab, as well as chasing an SUV down on foot. The scene was absolutely graphic. Civilians that were protesting outside of a public transportation bus terminal were gunned down; the officers supporting Farrell, McAdams and Kitsch were all gunned down.

What I found more engaging and interesting than the intense shoot out, was after it was over, the camera held on each character, we watched them regroup in the aftermath that left everyone dead but them. Farrell’s hands were shaking, saliva dripped from his mouth. McAdams was crying. And then there was Kitsch. Kitsch was stone cold, no emotion, no remorse and no empathy.

A lot has been built around Kitsch’s character. He’s gay, but more interestingly enough he was involved in “Black Mountain” during the Iraq war. Black Mountain can only be the fictional version of the “defense” contractor Black Water, that had free reign in Iraq, and they killed anyone and everyone. Kitsch’s vulnerability came out in his scene with Farrell earlier in the episode:

“I just don’t know how to be, out there in the world.”

“Look out that window, look at me. No one does.”

Pizzolatto’s writing is unique and he truly has his own voice. The four main characters, much like this episode itself, are all slow burning. Whatever inner torment and turmoil they are dealing, they’re completely lost in who they once thought they were, or better yet who they thought they could have been. As Leonard Cohen’s theme song says, “I live the life that I left behind.”