Due to the nature of this show, it's a hard one to review.
It isn't really season 2 of True Detective at all - it's a new show from some of the same people.
The first season got all the lauding it deserved - it was, some incoherent dialogue aside, stunning. It was complex, but layered, and while some of its elements got lost in the myriad of story, it held itself together with incredible acting, stellar direction and great writing.
Unfortunately, season 2 is just a disaster and failed miserably to live up to the first - new story, new characters, new pretty much everything. I mean we knew this would be the case, but it shows how good the first season was that this one feels so astoundingly poor in comparison.
From Major Chessani's comical loud water swallowing, to the muddy plotting where various different themes are thrown incomprehensibly at you, to the cast's struggles to be believable (Farrell is the best, and he ain't great), this is just a great big mess which is trying desperately to be as good as the first season but comes up short dramatically.
I'd sum this season up by thus: Someone says something, it's barely audible. They say it fast. The response from someone else doesn't even seem to be especially related and again, it's barely audible. This goes on till the end of the scene.
The viewer is left completely bewildered by what is actually meant to be going on.
They've put together layers but instead of blending they put them side by side and hope the viewer can make sense of it.
We can't. Because there's nothing beneath the hood to make sense of anyway.
It isn't really season 2 of True Detective at all - it's a new show from some of the same people.
The first season got all the lauding it deserved - it was, some incoherent dialogue aside, stunning. It was complex, but layered, and while some of its elements got lost in the myriad of story, it held itself together with incredible acting, stellar direction and great writing.
Unfortunately, season 2 is just a disaster and failed miserably to live up to the first - new story, new characters, new pretty much everything. I mean we knew this would be the case, but it shows how good the first season was that this one feels so astoundingly poor in comparison.
From Major Chessani's comical loud water swallowing, to the muddy plotting where various different themes are thrown incomprehensibly at you, to the cast's struggles to be believable (Farrell is the best, and he ain't great), this is just a great big mess which is trying desperately to be as good as the first season but comes up short dramatically.
I'd sum this season up by thus: Someone says something, it's barely audible. They say it fast. The response from someone else doesn't even seem to be especially related and again, it's barely audible. This goes on till the end of the scene.
The viewer is left completely bewildered by what is actually meant to be going on.
They've put together layers but instead of blending they put them side by side and hope the viewer can make sense of it.
We can't. Because there's nothing beneath the hood to make sense of anyway.