True Detectives Season 2 For Dummies

“You can’t act for shit” – Actual words spoken to Vince Vaughn in True Detective, season 2. Poetry in motion. So meta. 

So we finally made it. Like Vince Vaughn limping through the desert bleeding out, the viewers made it to the finish line. And it sounds like the vast vast majority of people are still confused as fuck so I’m going to break down the central story – the Caspere murder – for dummies. At least I will try my best, because like most of you, when I was watching this show I was disinterested and completely indifferent which makes it increasingly difficult to follow a complicated convoluted storyline, thereby making it almost impossible to notice the little things. But I’m a dummy alongside you, so lets begin and we’ll go backwards to make it as easy as possible. Previous episode, Riggins explains that back in 1992 there was a diamond heist that involved Caspere, Chessani, Holloway (Black police chief, in case you didnt know, because I didnt)

During this robbery/cover up, 2 kids were orphaned. Some parents must have been killed in the process. So, all these police officers, officials, and mayor use these diamonds to buy into the high society sex club (I think) and 2 kids were orphaned by the aftermath. Those 2 kids are the murderers. They tracked down Caspere and murdered him for ruining their lives. Thats the big mystery solved. Now, Ray and Ani seemed to crack the case pretty quickly together sitting in their hotel room together discussing everything. You and I didnt know what the fuck was going on because this show sucks and is so confusing nobody can recall or remember or connect any dots, but here’s how they knew it: Rewind to episode 3. The police have determined that the car that Caspere was found dead in was stolen from a movie set. Ray and Ani go to the movie set to investigate. While they are there, they actually meet and talk with the two orphans, who happen to be working on the set – Len, a set photographer, and Erica who is Caspere’s assistant:

Len even speaks about the giant pussy parties. He knew everything:

How did they connect the dots that these two kids where the murderers? 1) The previous episode, McAdams was talking with Vera after rescuing her from the hooker party. She shows her a picture of “the other girl.”

Vera says its “Laura” but after seeing the picture, Ray recognized her as Caspere’s assistant from back at the movie set. So thats obviously fishy if this Laura/Erica chick is Caspere’s assistant and also at the hooker parties. Ray then pretty fucking quickly says that “there was two of them” and that the set photographer “looked like” Erica/Laura

2) He picks up some papers and bingo bango he knows its Lenny Tyler and he knows thats her brother:

They go to a house to investigate (I’m assuming they were able to just find Len’s address? I dunno. He’s a union guy, they looked it up) and thats where they find the Birdman outfit, the non lethal bullets and all the pictures of the police officials Len wanted to take down. So, I guess Len wanted Caspere’s hard drive for evidence of all the fucked up shit thats been going on, Ray was in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up getting shot with the shot gun pellets? Wrong place, wrong time, sucks for Ray.

But anyway, thats it. Thats the big story basically. There were 2 kids who lost their parents and had their lives ruined by a diamond heist in 1992 and came back from revenge. Ray and Ani figured it out in a cabin with some pictures. Some pretty clairvoyant detective work, right? The thought that we would give a fuck about those kids after hearing about them for about 35 seconds amidst the confusing 8.5 hours is laughable, but thats the story. If you’ll remember from season 1, it was kind of similar when the Yellow King turned out to be the bad guy on the lawn mower who McConaughey and Woody interviewed for like 30 seconds. So, I guess you cant really chalk this up to a “Season 1 was so much better than season 2!” moment. Both of the killers were no names, lost in the mix. Although I will say this – Season 1 was interesting enough where all the fan theories where fun to read and when people were putting the puzzle together with pictures like this:

the big reveal that it was the Lawn Mower Man didnt seem as dumb or meaningless. But I suppose McConaughey and Woody finding out that a house used to be painted green and thats why he was the Green Eared Spaghetti Monster is as stupid as Colin Farrel just recognizing the girl and saying “That must be her brother!”

Anyway, I’m getting off topic. Now my “True Detective For Dummies” blog is getting as convoluted as the show. But thats it, there you have it. It was those orphans.

As for the rest of the story, Vince Vaughn was on his way to freedom when the Mexicans stopped him. A few episodes ago they were they gang that Vince Vaughn promised they could run their illegal business through his clubs. After Vince burned all the clubs down, they were pissed off. They took all his money. Then they wanted his suit. Vince had all the diamonds in his suit, so he refused to give it up. He gets stabbed and dies. The end.

McAdams and Vince Vaughn’s terrible fucking wife end up safe in Venezuela. McAdams has Colin Farrel’s baby, although it looks like Vince Vaughn’s wife is taking care if it because she always wanted a kid. Puke. Vomit. Terrible. End Season. End life. This show sucked.

So, rather than just bitch about it, how would I have done things differently:

1) Cut out Tim Riggins entirely. So it turned out that all the cops and the police chief and the people helping cover up the heist and the murders were in the army with Riggins. In his special ops group Black Water. Thats about the only connection to him and the case and what not. He just wasnt that important to the central theme. All the investigating he did could have been done by Ray/Ani. They were the main police duo anyway. Cut him out entirely. This leaves you more time to focus on interesting shit, like McAdams and her father’s cult – which was interesting would fit in nicely with the current sex cult being investigated.

2) Completely ditch ALL of the orphan/parenting/impotence nonsense. This theme was just jammed in this season, square peg round hole. Every fucking time I turned around it was either a limp dick, a discussion about adoption, crying about some random fucking kids losing a parent, or a paternity test, all up in my face. Do. Not. Fucking. Care. About any of it. Dont care about the orphans from the heist. Dont care about Vince Vaughn’s dad not treating him nice. Dont care about them discussing whether to adopt. None of it. It took up like half the fucking season.

3) Definitely dont jam a ridiculous Colin Farrel/Rachel McAdams love story in at the very end. That was terrible. Didnt really effect much but that was as stupid as can be.

You cut out that one character and that stupid theme and theres a lot more time to create a much tighter show. In the end, the Vince Vaughn storyline was pretty much separate from everything, basically. I think. Again, could be missing something just like the rest of you. But he was a gangster doing land deals with Caspere when those orphans murdered him and fucked him over money wise. Really has nothing to do with the main mystery and the sex clubs and the investigation. But if you want to have a side story with a gangster while the cops investigate, thats fine. If you eliminate Riggins and that dumb children story line, there’s a lot more time to explore the stuff that actually WAS interesting. McAdams past and her dad’s cult. The Dad should have gotten WAY more face time, I was infinitely more intrigued by him than most of what I was watching. The Ray/Frank/Rapist story was good as well. Flesh that out a little more how he murdered the wrong dude. Build up Ani going undercover into the sex mansion more. I dunno exactly. But eliminate that lame shit, cut down on about 5,000 eagle eye overhead shots, and theres a lot more time to work with. You’re not jamming 4 character backstories in our faces, and most importantly maybe you’re not asking us to care about people named Stan, Len and Erica/Laura who were all on screen for a total of 25 seconds.

F minus for the season. F minus for the finale. F minus for Nic Pizzollatto. I hope if there’s season 3 there are other writers involved.

PS – Nic P having the women survive in the end after being accused of being anti-feminist is so fucking lame.

PPS – The fat loser ginger rape kid actually ending up being Colin Farrel’s was dumb. I guess we had some recessive genes comin in HOT.