True Television:
In honor of one of the best season of TV I have ever seen coming to an end quite recently, I have decided to break protocol and talk about True Detective, which is an HBO series that I am sure most people on earth must have heard of by now. This episode of Uncut will feature major spoilers for the entire season, so if you have not seen this show yet, please, do not read any further.
About the investigation:
One of the things that I was most worried about going into the season finale of True Detective, was whether or not Cary Fukunaga and Nic Pizzolatto were going to be able to wrap everything up in a way that felt both satisfying and exiting. There has been a ton of different timelines, perspectives, plot points and story/character arcs in play at all times throughout the entire show, and I am pleased to say that even though some of them were not wrapped up very tightly at all, the conclusion of True Detective really hit the nail on the head. I love the fact that Marty and Rust did not end up taking down the entire cult of nutbags in a blazing raid of led, blood and rock music, but that they just barely managed to erase their own debt, and had to accept the fact that there were powers beyond their control at play. This ending felt very un-hollywood to me, and even though I know that it is going to piss a lot of people off, I really enjoyed the conclusion to the 20-year-long investigation.
About Marty:
As to what happened to the characters of Rust and Marty, I feel as if this is where the season finale of True Detective shines the most. After the incident in 2002, both of these men have been lonely, drunken and miserable, and the way in which they end up bonding over the Yellow King investigation was very heartwarming and satisfying to me. After all, this series is not a regular cop drama, but a character study unlike any other character study ever put on screen. The scene in the hospital where Marty is overwhelmed with joy when his family shows up is incredible in my opinion, because not only is he very happy to see them, but he is also painfully aware of what his character flaws have cost him. This is the moment where Marty realizes what he could have had but ultimately ended up distancing himself from, and this emotional breakdown is both heartbreaking and strangely fulfilling. After this scene, his character is surrounded by an incredible sense of peace and calm for the rest of the episode, which tells us that Marty has finally come to terms with what he has done, and has accepted that life moves on. It is a bittersweet ending to a bittersweet character's journey, and I loved it so much.
About Rust:
In terms of Rust's fate, this is where some people have expressed a sense of disappointment with the season finale. After everything that this sorry individual has been put through and after all his talk about death and the meaninglessness of life, it would seem as if the only way for him to find peace would be by dying, and a lot of viewers have speculated that Rust would need to die in order to give the show a meaningful ending. As it turned out though, both of our heroes ended up surviving the descent into hell, albeit with an axe in the chest and a knife in the gut respectively. I personally do not mind that Rust ended up living, especially after his heartbreaking account of how he felt the presence of his deceased daughter during his near-death experience. This final scene was very tough to watch, but the fact that Rust seems to end up leaving the hospital with a new, slightly more positive outlook on life, totally makes up for it in my opinion. He has been such a miserable and dark person throughout the entire show, and even though we do not know exactly how happy and/or depressed he is going to be in the future, that small amount of warmth he felt when he was so close to dying seems to have sparked some kind of fire inside him. Even though he had his stomach ripped open with a knife and was seconds away from dying a horrible death, being stabbed by that child murderer might have been the best thing that ever happened to Rust.
In conclusion:
In the end, I feel as if this first season of HBO's newest smash hit was one of the best experiences I have ever had with a TV show. Watching this series was an entirely new experience to me, because instead of watching the entire season over the cause of a couple of days, I had to wait an entire week between watching each episode, which is something that I have never done with a show before. True Detective also featured quite a few of those unforgettable magical moments that I talked about in my review of The Great Beauty a little while ago, such as the "you should kill yourself if you get the chance"-scene, Marty's reaction to watching the Marie Fontenot tape, Marty Breaking down in the hospital, and of cause the uncut 10-minute scene at the end of episode 4. Even though the show was not as beautifully filmed as Breaking Bad or House of Cards, True Detective might very well be the most well-written show I have ever seen, and it certainly features two of the best characters that have ever been featured in a police investigation story. On a final note, I firmly believe that Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson both deserve some kind of flashy statuette for their performances in this show, and Cary Fukunaga and Nic Pizzolato, the guys who directed and wrote the entire series respectively, do as well. Here is to hoping that season 2 will be just as great.
No comments:
Post a Comment