Image via Complex Original
Last night, we welcomed darkness back into our lives. The second season of Nic Pizzolatto's noir-styled anthology True Detective premiered, this time minus Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson but plus a handful of other somewhat against-type actors—Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn, Rachel McAdams and Tim Riggins Taylor Kitsch. It turns out what Rust Cohle said in Season One really is true: "Time is a flat circle." Although, to that I'd add, "of grim depictions of masculinity."
Between the first season of True Detective ending in March 2014 to now, there's been a drastic shift in the general perception of the show. The gift of time caused people to become disenchanted by the philosophical musings of the show, and allowed Pizzolatto to do one or two too many interviews, so going into this new season—without McConaughey or auteur director Cary Joji Fukunaga—most of us were cautiously excited. This could be amazing, it could bad, or it could be amazingly bad. Either way though it was likely going to inspire passionate reactions.
The jury's still out on which category Season Two falls into, but the latter is confirmed—True Detective had the Complex staff FEELING stuff. Allow us to elaborate...
Vince Vaughn: Esoteric Gangster
I'll keep it funky: I'm not the biggest Vince Vaughn fan. I rocked with Swingers, but outside of that, I've never been on some “enthused to see a new Vince Vaughn flick” shit. I always assume his role as the loud dude living with his moms in Mr. & Mrs. Smith is how he approaches most of his roles. When I heard that he'd be playing a mob boss in Season 2 of True Detective? Yeah, I can't front like I was excited… and then I dove into the first episode. There's something about the way Matthew McConaughey could deliver those esoteric balls of Nic Piz writing that, in the mouth of Vince Vaughn, come out awkward. In the same scene where he says you shouldn't do anything out of hunger, including eating, he drops a gem on his associate, about how the city of Vinci is a “place is built on a codependency of interests.” Being a Jersey-bred The Sopranos stan, I could see Tony Soprano saying that… as a way to look more intelligent than his thug persona. Vince carries himself as a mob guy who's been trying to “go straight,” but adding that mysterious tinge to his lines doesn't make him look like a philosophical gangster. It just looks like he's trying too hard.–khal
The Man in the Leather Jacket Starts Writing
Winter 2014: Nic Pizzolatto leans back in his office chair pensively, the leather of his jacket sticking awkwardly to the leather of the chair. He stares at the laptop sitting atop the hardwood desk he found on the side of the road outside of Acadia Parish in Louisiana. The desk was barely standing, terribly worn, but Nic felt it served as an apt symbol for his struggle through writing the first season of True Detective, and him rescuing the desk from that dusty swamp could in turn symbolize how he himself weathered the storm to become, in his mind at least, the hottest writer in America. Those were happier times, but now Nic had to follow up on his breakout success with more of what the people wanted—something gritty, something haunting, something real. The words weren't coming like they had in the past, a fact made painfully clear by the blinking cursor on the blank Word doc Nic had open on his laptop. Leaning forward, a crunching sound bursting forth from the separation of leather jacket and chair, Nic begins to brainstorm…
Thinking of Character Names
“What am I going to name these female characters!?” Nic yelled out loud. “How can I ascribe an entire character to them solely through their name? Name them after herbs in my artisan spice rack? No—that's too gauche. You know what? I'll name them after famous characters from Greek literature and mythology! Talk about loading a character with meaning!” After hunting down an encyclopedia of Greek mythology, Nic opened to a random page near the front of the large tome. He closed his eyes, raised his hand and, as if he was playing Ouija, let the force of gravity (to him, “destiny”) land his pointed finger onto a spot near the top left corner of the page. “Antigone! Subject of a famous Greek tragedy in which yada, yada, yada—it's perfect. I can call her Ani too.” Pleased with the fortune this encyclopedia page bestowed on him, Nic continued to scan it until—“Athena! Sounds on-brand enough to me.” And with that, Nic felt assured that he had put the appropriate amount of thought into his female characters.
Interior Decorating City Manager Ben Caspere's Home
Writing up the setting of kidnapped City Manager Ben Caspere's home, which Ray Velcoro and his partner were to investigate, was more like completing a check list. A naked Asian figurine floating tits-up in a bowl of milk in the foyer? Check. Dildo paperweights? Check. Other miscellaneous dildos? Check. The sexy version of Guernica? Check. Sex, mystery and astute characterization? Check, check, and check.
Thinking of Ray Velcoro Threats
Long before he landed on a setting or a plot for the season, Nic knew that he wanted the first episode to pop—and he knew that Ray Velcoro, the spiritual brother to Rust Cohle, would be the one to make that happen. His idea? Make Ray say something horrible and graphic to a 12-year-old—after beating the shit out of the 12-year-old's father. Drunk on whiskey, Nic slumped into his office chair and began typing, unsure of what would come out. “I'm going to cut open your family pet and feed it to your sister.” Unsatisfied, he held down delete key until the line disappeared. Stop being such a pussy, Nic, he thought to himself. “I'll rip your lungs out and shove them up your ass until you can breathe again.” He hit delete again. “I'll scalp your mother and father and use their hair as a mustache.” TRY HARDER, Nic told himself, though he was intrigued by the idea of threatening the pre-teen with bodily harm to his parents. He polished off the bottle of whiskey, lit a cigarette, and with it still hanging from his lip, began typing once more: “I’ll come back and butt fuck your father with your mother’s headless corpse on this goddamn lawn.” This time, he did not hit delete.—Andrew Gruttadaro
DISCLAIMER: MY THOUGHTS ON TRUE DETECTIVE SEASON 2 ARE SOMEWHAT INCOMPLETE BECAUSE I KEPT FALLING ASLEEP I'M SORRY
So, I'm not sure what actually happened in the True Detective premiere because I dozed off a bunch and used up two of the meager 10 viewings that HBO VIP graciously provided for the staff. I feel like my coworkers are low-key mad at me because some of them didn't even get to watch it in advance (I'M SO SORRY) and I am basically a worthless human being. But maybe True Detective SHOULD HAVE BEEN MORE EXCITING?? Maybe then I would have stayed awake?*
First of all, can we stop with these sad, nihilistic white men, Nic Pizzolatto? I want the next season to be about a gang of teen girl detectives. I want Amandla Stenberg to be in it. Also Kiernan Shipka. I realize none of this is on-brand for the HBO series; I'm just taking this opportunity to list off my hopes and dreams.
Speaking of sad white men, though, wow am I disturbed at how hot Taylor Kitsch is. HIS ABS ARE SO FIRE THAT THEY ARE LITERALLY BURNED. Ladies love scars, they say, and it's true, WE DO.
Vince Vaughn, on the other hand, is looking not too cute. There's a darkness within him. He says a lot of nonsensical things like, “Sometimes your worst self is your best self” and it's like excuse me sir??? What do you mean by that???
But anyway here are some things I picked up while ebbing in and out of various R.E.M. stages:
That opening sequence is awful. I hate it.
Colin Farrell threatens to butt-fuck dads???? WHY.
Rachel McAdams is so over-the-top in her “Okay we fucked, now get out of my house, I like casual sex 'cause I'm basically a man and have no feelings” shtick.
Wait, what if my girl Rachel McAdams is washed? :-(
I always get Nic Pizzolatto confused with Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi. I just wanted to share that.
**Was just informed that there was a Taylor Kitsch butt scene and now I'm mad at myself.**—Kristen Yoonsoo Kim
Forget It, Ray
You all have it twisted. You think the endgame here is about topping last year's debut, Lone Star Matt McConz, the seven-minute tracking scene, time being a flat circle, etc. But your boy Nicky P's all, “You can bullshit with rap if you want.” You're thinking about Season One. He's thinking bout them [e]M[mmys]. I'm not as easily fooled…your man Piz is clearly out here crafting the great, modern-day Chinatown adaptation. Those exterior shots, that score…I was halfway expecting Colin Farrell's fantastically named Ray Velcoro to catch a nose injury to make the cypher complete. (It's only the premiere. There's still time.)
Of course, the actual murder is the least interesting part of that vastly interesting cinematic treasure, so maybe that's why Yung Piz followed a season full of Carcosian Yellow Kings and the like with the most boring dead body meant to propel a season's worth of plot that I have ever seen. Dude's literally sitting on a bench alone. You won't find that kind of supernatural dramatic flair this year. But didn't we deserve a bigger payoff after an episode's worth of exposition from our quartet of new, Bad Men (and women! He listens!) [Aside: no sarcasm, I am indeed very intrigued by Kelly Reilly's gangster's moll]. I can forgive the heavy-handed backstory downloads if future episodes pull a Taylor Kitsch and fall back on the throttle. What an optimist—one who expects Colin Farrell to score the Emmy nom he deserves for brass knuckling bemused dads—like myself hopes is that this premiere was essentially an overwrought introduction to these four fuck-ups, so that we have all the (somewhat un)necessary info to inform their behavior when they inevitably collide. I mean, at this point the show is clearly leaning right into its reputation with near self-parody. See: “Astronauts don't even go to the moon.”—Frazier Tharpe
True Detective's Dialogue Blew My Feeble Female Brain Away
Nic Pizzolatto, creator of True Detective, has become something of a show-running rock star. The massive success of the first season of the show has created supremely high stakes for last night’s premiering second season. But, let’s be real, if you are a fan of Pizzolatto who Vanity Fair has dubbed an “uncompromising auteur,” a man with an “aura of a bear” who looks like he’s “stepped out of a novel by Steinbeck,” you’ll make excuses for loving the new season of the show.
I have taken it upon myself to painstakingly round up the best quotes from the first episode even though I, a woman, don’t have the aura of a bear, barely understand Goodfellas and at best would be a dead girl on TD2 who Colin Farrell maybe mentions fucking once (or I’d be Rachel McAdams cosplaying as a dude).
Nic’s clearly the voice of a generation.
- “I welcome judgment.”
- “Everybody gets touched.”
- “The highway—it suits me.”
- “I’m not comfortable imposing my will on anyone and I haven’t been since 1978.”
- “I used to want to be an astronaut. But astronauts don’t even go to the moon anymore.”
- “I’ll come back and butt fuck your father with your mother’s headless corpse on this goddamn lawn.”
- “A good woman mitigates our base tendencies.”
—Kerensa Cadenas
“Shit in Them?”
In high school, there was a gym class with one of those kids who was fundamentally out of step with his classmates. It was cool to bring your change of clothes in a plastic grocery bag, it telegraphed a strong whatever, man personal brand, but this kid always brought his gym clothes in a proper gym bag, like someone’s dad. Bad things were visited upon this kid, and long story short, one of the most reckless kids in the high school ducked into the locker room while everyone was outside on the track, and he took a dump in the hated kid’s gym bag. Unzipped it. Shit in it. That’s a true story, and that’s how I know that Nic Pizzolatto is a true writer, because the character that he breathed life into via the vessel of Colin Farrell's mustache, that character immediately knew that his fat maybe-son had likely had his new kicks shat in. That’s real. And True Detective is always real. We’re just the lucky chumps waiting with our bags open for Nic to shit in them.—Ross Scarano