True Detective ended its eight-week first season on Sunday night and it seems that a fair number of people aren’t all that happy with how it turned out. There are two major camps on that side, as far as I can suss out. One group doesn’t like it that the top guns got away: the politicians and the well connected. Well, that’s life in a nutshell, pretty much, so it should come as no surprise that the series reflected that. The other group wasn’t keen on Rust’s epiphany. Some aren’t even pleased that he survived at all.
Okay, so maybe the ending was a little Pollyanna-esque. The scales fall from the curmudgeon’s eyes and the universe isn’t as terrible a place as he thought for the past 50 years. I can buy into that, or not. Rust’s been having waking visions all his life, so why should an unconscious one have that much effect on him? Shrug. Because it apparently did, I guess. None of that vitiates my appreciation for the show. It dared us to look in a very dark place and, more importantly, it made us look at people who are looking at a very dark place. We don’t see the video: we see how it makes Rust and Marty and even the shifty cop react. And we get to see Carcosa, the manifestation of a seriously mangled mind. We don’t understand everything that happened to that guy to make him the way he was. At times he seems juvenile, but his James Mason voice was creepy and very much a man’s voice. He’s been left alone for far too long, though. How long would it take to create a twisted, mangled maze like the one he built? Wild stuff. Hoarders would have had a field day with that house, which would never be a contender for Good Housekeeping. There simply aren’t enough air fresheners in the world to make that place tolerable.
If I was disappointed with anything in the finale, it was the fact that apparently Marty can no longer shoot worth a damn. He took several shots at the killer, who was no shrinking violet, and only managed to wing him. That hammer claw to the chest was icky, especially since it didn’t seem to make a sound when it went in. I will say this: Rust’s threat of a random sniper ready to take care of the cop if he went against them was a lot more effective than Walt’s threat against Gretchen and Elliott on Breaking Bad. All in all, it was a worthwhile experience, and I look forward to watching it all again very soon.
There’s only one episode of Banshee left for the second season, and once again we’re gearing up for a big confrontation with Rabbit. The question asked by the second season seems to be: Who is Hood? Or, rather, who is the guy who adopted Hood’s persona? It was challenged in early episodes when the real Hood’s son showed up, and in more recent episodes people have been asking him to his face, “Who are you?” That was answered, in part, in episode 9. The secret’s out: He’s Dayva’s father. There’s an ID he can hang his hat on. I loved the scene between Proctor and his mother.
The interesting thing that’s happening on The Americans this season is that, for the first time since we met this happy little spy family, they are in peril, and they have no idea where the danger is coming from. Who can they trust? They’re becoming paranoid, but with good reason.
That river challenge on The Amazing Race is one of the most brutal I’ve seen in a long time. They had to make their own raft and then navigate through some impressive rapids. It’s a wonder no one was seriously hurt. As is often the case, a taxi was the main culprit in a team being eliminated, but in this case it was because they forgot to tell their driver to wait for them at their remote location.
I was getting ready to pull the plug on The Walking Dead if this episode didn’t impress me. I know that we’re supposed to be getting to know some of these more minor characters better, but they’re like the folks from the tail section on Lost as far as I’m concerned. They entered the story too late for me to want to get to know them. This week was marginally better than last, and there are only three episodes left in the season, so I guess I’ll stick it out to see if they all end up at this magical Terminus, which has a rather fatalistic sound to it rather than an optimistic one.
I’d almost forgotten that The Mentalist existed, only to have it pop back up again this week. Took me a while to remember what all was going on, especially the bit back in Sacramento with the bugged phones. Poor LaRoche. Hope he pulls through. An oddball character, but an interesting one. Maybe they’re trying to tie up any loose ends back in California. Rigsby and Van Pelt are supposed to be off the show, too.
Bates Motel is one seriously creepy show, and it’s all thanks to Vera Farmiga. The ways she can mess up her son are legion. And then she pulls off this Patty Lupone showstopper of a performance at the auditions. Whoa.
