SPOILER FREE SECTION
Just to set the backdrop, True Detective is obviously a flawed product.
The first season set the bar impossibly high.
The second season not only missed that bar but set a new, impossibly low one.
The third season hit somewhere in-between.
The big change for this season is that creator/showrunner/writer/director Nic Pizzolatto was not directly involved.
Instead, Issa Lopez got the call despite not really having any Hollywood work in her filmography.
When the trailer for this first dropped, I wasn’t against it.
Oh and we had Jodi Foster taking her first TV role since 1975.
Basically every piece involved was either an unknown or something I liked.
The first episode sets up basically everything I could have hoped for.
It’s the cold, bleak mystery with cops a la Wind River.
There’s a Dyatlov pass-esque core mystery.
There is the supernatural undertone combined with native spiritual elements.
Everything is looking solid!
After that, everything falls apart.
The two main characters, Danvers and Navarro, are essentially the same and have no dynamic or chemistry.
Last night’s finale wrapped up in about the most disappointing way possible.
They had about 20 loose threads going at once and only wrap up about half of them.
But that is hard to talk about without spoiling so I’ll talk about that in this next section.
DON’T READ IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED YET
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Why did those scientists go out on the ice???
Just give me a compelling reason and I would at least be reasonably happy.
Lets just break down how they tested the suspension of our disbelief.
The first is the sort of “realization” of Tsalal.
Yea that seems like something a corporation would do.
Increase their pollutants by a comical and easily discoverable number because a group of their stooges told them to.
What are the scientist’s digging for, you ask?
Some sort of DNA that help humanity.
How will it help?
Fuck you, thats how.
What key in of DNA?
That’s on a need-to-know basis, buddy.
Any details at all?
How about you jump off a bridge, viewer!
So Annie K’s murder was obviously a big sticking point of this series.
Then we have this group of academic nerds that all instinctually decide to join in on her group murder.
Then all continue with their lives like nothing ever happened.
Then, we get to my favorite part.
“Mop Team 6” as some are calling them.
A group of janitors from the town launched their own investigation into what was going on.
It’s just a bummer, man.
Massive, massive bummer.
And I feel like I didn’t even hit every bizarre part of this episode to be honest.
They even through in a super cringey “time is a flat circle” too.
Even if it was it’s own thing, I think this season is a resounding failure.
Banger start, flop ending.
