— Alan
My friend spacemonkey sent me that yesterday. I love it so much.
-xtien
“That’s not even a thing.”
That guy’s got McConaughey’s voice down.
So I just got around to watching this. I binged it in a couple of nights, and wow, so amazing. McConaghey was incredible but Woody was easily his equal; tons and tons of subtlety and nuance in both performances. So many great lines. The case was great, and shot/directed in such a way to really bring out the vibe they were looking for; It should be said again that the case was the canvas onto which to paint the portraits of these two men. Towards the end I have a couple of nitpicks: “green ears” (which was a great opportunity for Marty but there had to be a better way of getting it) and the depths of certain wounds in Carcosa (hatchet sank into the sterum? most of the knife in McConaghey’s almost waif-thin frame?). The Alt-Cthulhu version someone gave above is great, even though it almost certainly was non-supernatural. I think a hint of that wouldn’t have ruined the series; any more and as someone I have read said, it becomes an exquisite X-Files episode, which it really would have been great, too but this way is better, I think. Aubrey’s “abuse”/involvement I think, as also mentioned previously, was due to “daddy issues”/Marty’s inattention.
Music and soundtrack were amazing throughout. I thought the accents were mostly great/good. The whole show felt amazingly authentic in its place; I grew up/spent a lot of time in SE Texas/SW Louisiana and nothing ever really pulled me out. The “Beaumont” biker bar is a real bar in Jefferson County, although not exactly Beaumont; everything else it seems was filmed in and around New Orleans but easily bought as Erath, Abbeville, Lake Charles, etc.
Always good to see Michael Potts and Clarke Peters with parts.
I don’t know that I have read this anywhere but Rust and Marty’s relationship felt very Holmes/Watson to me, albeit not a perfect alignment. The brilliant, driven, eccentric “brains”, unable to connect to people combined with a much more grounded “everyman”. While I guess it holds true that there are similarities to other buddy cop dramas, that is what really bubbled up for me, particularly given the disparity in their skillsets.
I really liked the end; it felt that both of the transformations were earned. It was such a fantastic journey.
A few new details about Season 2: set in California, but not LA. Three leads this time. And the plot revolves around the "secret occult history of the United States transportation system.” I dunno what that means, but it’s…interesting?
They had me at “occult”.
They had me at “transportation system”.
They had me about halfway through the first episode of season one.
I kind of feel like this one is going to pull from The Crying of Lot 49. Will Trystero be that season’s yellow king?
I’d really like to see season 1 but we don’t get HBO. If I understand the following correctly, we could add HBO and then get HBO Go and watch the episodes on a mobile device? I could see them all in a month and then cancel HBO.
“With HBO GO, get instant, unlimited access to every episode of every season of your favorite HBO shows and hit movies - anytime, anywhere. It’s all FREE with your HBO subscription!”
Does the above mean what I think it means? All the episodes of True Detective, Game of Thrones, and so on, are there for me to watch whenever I want? Will Roku allow me to stream them to my TV from my iPad? Or would I need Apple TV or Chromecast?
Yes, if you subscribe to HBO you’d have access to the entire library during that time. You could get through all of those shows for the price of a single month subscription if you are dedicated.
HBO Go works on a number of devices - Roku will let you stream HBO Go directly to your TV (no iPad or Chromecast needed). Also, the game consoles will all let you do the same thing as well.
As well as any internet-connected PC. HBO Go is lovely…wish it was available to non-cable subscribers…I’ve been tempted many times to drop cable and go internet-only, but I then I’d have to piggyback on someone else’s HBO.
I always thought this could turn into a great basis for a show or a TD season, though maybe too similar to season one. It sure can take on the air of being creepy and weird though.
— Alan
Which is pretty much exactly why they don’t offer HBO Go to non-cable subscribers. Premium channel content is one of the few things keeping people subscribed to cable and they know it. Cable would go into a horrible death spiral if this were to happen. (And, I’d argue that’s not in consumer’s best interests – Prices would go through the roof and, if broadcast finally died, we’d lose all of the amazing programming we’ve been seeing of late from AMC, FX, etc. That said, it seems inevitable and the horrible nickle and diming we’re currently experiencing at the hands of the cable companies is their last grasp efforts to milk profits out of a dying medium.)
I do hope season 3 features a group of teenagers and a dog traveling around the country in a van solving crimes.
If you do choose to temporarily subscribe to HBO Go to watch this, please please please also watch The Wire. You won’t regret it, and you can binge the show in 3 weeks if you want.
The Wire is also now on Amazon Prime if you have a subscription.
And I get that. I’m all about supporting good content. I just hate the tripe and ridiculous prices that go along with being a “cable subscriber.” I subscribe to Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Hulu Plus. I subscribe to HBO. Hell, I’d PAY for stuff the networks have been doing. I hate having to pay for the 726 channels I don’t care about to the tune of $80/month. There’s just gotta be a better way to do this. (And I think Netflix is figuring that out.)
Ah! Thanks for the tip! I was just trying to figure out from where I could stream the whole show. My week is cut our for me now.
I am thinking of purchasing the True Detective series but would it really matter if I bought it in SD vs HD (to save a few bucks)?