The new HBO series “True Detective” structures itself around a series of well-known tropes: two macho cops find their different personalities and worldviews clashing and conflicting when they are forced to work together; a woman’s body is found in a murder scene with occult, ritualistic overtones; a detective follows his superior intellect to investigate a potential serial killer. Yet writer Nic Pizzolatto and director Cary Joji Fukunaga use these familiar plot devices as a simple basis on which to build an eerie, dark character study and southern thriller.
The series uses a surprisingly effective story-telling device, as detectives Marty (Woody Harrelson) and Rust (Matthew McConaughey) are questioned separately in the present-day about the particulars of a closed homicide investigation that took place fifteen years in the past. Aged by makeup and hair, the actors respond to their interrogators, providing narration, commentary, excuses, and the key implication that the case we are following is somehow not quite closed. As we listen to Rust and Marty’s different perceptions the investigation – and eventually watch their stories diverge from reality as they lie to the detectives – Pizzolatto establishes a theme of storytelling and subjectivity. As the detectives interrogate liars, drug dealers, and potential murderers, and as Rust establishes himself as a first-class, cold-hearted winner of criminal confessions, the subtle interplay between questioner and story-teller becomes more interesting than the allegedly murderous truth.
Though Pizzolatto excels at intertwining an intriguing plot with complex character development, the dialogue can be clunky and overwrought. Rust, an intellectual with a dark past as an undercover narcotics CI, has a particular penchant for pessimistically philosophical dronings. When Marty often gives his partner the verbal equivalent of an annoyed elbow – Jesus, man, what’s wrong with you? – it comes as a comical moment for anyone who ever wanted to do the same to Dexter, Travis Bickle, Rorschach, or their pop culture brethren. The monologuing can get tiresome, and often it’s to McConaughey’s credit that he can pull off some of Pizzolatto’s most nonsensical lines. With a thousand-yard stare, a drag on a cigarette, and the humble obfuscation of a deep (and recently parodied) southern drawl, McConaughey can skim rhapsodies about “mainlining the truth of the universe†without batting an eye – but the other actors, specifically Michelle Monaghan as the philandering Marty’s beleaguered wife, struggle more noticeably with the unwieldy prose.
Though the writing is sometimes uneven, the direction is consistently excellent. As the detectives drive up and down the bayou, Fukunaga’s cinematography brings the scenery to life with the bleakness of direct sunshine and the suspect rottenness of fertile land, a blend reminiscent of Sally Mann’s photographs of the American south. Fukunaga may have cemented True Detective’s critical reception with two outstanding wordless sequences in Episode 4. First, Marty trails a woman as she leaves a strip club and makes her way through a dystopic rave to a drug dealer contact, the camera moving with dreamlike focus through the flailing, blindly exultant partiers. Then, in an incredibly choreographed six-minute tracking shot, we follow Rust as he flees an undercover drug heist that has spiraled out of control. In one of the best ‘chase scenes’ I’ve seen on television, the camera follows Rust’s desperate yet calculated escape, weaving feverishly in and out of tenement houses and between chaotic groups of drugged, gun-toting dealers.
After the 5th episode marked a peak in the series’ action, episode 6 followed the disintegration of the partners’ relationship in the past, as in the present the interviewers finally pose direct questions about Rust’s involvement in the supposedly closed case. The seventh episode abandons the retrospective story-telling device and places the scene firmly in the present day, setting the scene for the alcoholic, disheveled Rust and the hackneyed, divorced Marty to put aside their conflicted estrangement and reunite for the series 1 finale on Sunday night.
The series creators have confirmed that the season will be self-contained; the series will continue next season with a new cast and storyline. Although I often enjoy watching characters grow over multiple seasons of a show, with a thriller series there’s definitely something comforting in the knowledge that this mystery is the fully realized product of a complete thought process. Though Pizzolatto has promised that there won’t be any serious twists, True Detective fans are certainly hoping for a suitably twisted ending to one of the most fascinating thriller series on television.
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