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True Detective Post-Mortem

Well...That was disappointing.

I actually watched the finale of True Detective's finale Monday but it took me awhile to want to sit down and discuss what went wrong with this series.

All the pieces were there if you wanted to see them. The fragments, blueprints, and characters for a truly great LA Noir story. It's like someone showed up in an abandoned lot with all of the finest timber, most exactly carved moldings, beautiful stained windows, all of the best furniture and appliances and then just dumped them in the dirt and walked away.

Nic Pizzolatto had all he needed for a great house and then he forgot to put it together.

I had some hopes for the finale. After all it was expanded to 90 minutes which I thought might allow for some truly epic storytelling. I wanted something like the 'sprawl' of the first season with maybe a bit more into the whole weird costumed cult angle.

What we got was 90 minutes of the same series we've been watching. Action, death, angst, and really bad dialogue all ending up precisely where it was always going to end. The two most tragically compromised characters marching to their inevitable fates. Again, I appreciated the artistry of the finale where it worked even while I kept thinking myself - this is really boring.

I'm going to give season three an episode's worth of time to win me back. Life is too short for eight and a half episodes of this:




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