One of the best overviews of True Detective.This was my favorite tv series of the last 20 years and you nailed all of its sadness and ultimate redemption in your review.Well done.
Saw it when it first came out; season-1 was certainly one of the best things television has given us. Season-2 was almost as good, forget about season-3 & season-4.
Check-out “Sugar”, now in progress - very interesting, in a different way. Not a lot worth watching, but it’s a shame to miss the really good stuff.
"There is but one choice: to rise to the task of the age.
Very soon, only too soon, your country will stand in need of not just exceptional men but of great men. Find them in your souls. Find them in your hearts. Find them in the depths of your country."
I've only watched the last one with Jodie Foster, set in Alaska. (I've always had a little crush on Foster, at least since "Silence of the Lambs," and pleased with her various unusual choices, like her NYC NPR radio host gal who becomes a gun toting vigilante taking out the city's killers and rapists.) The latest True Detective must be deliberately making references to this first one, since it also has a runic symbol popping up around corpses and crime scenes that makes Foster's character and the other Alaskan cops think some cult is involved. Though this is the first Foster movie I've seen where she climbs up a man and has an (extramarital) affair with him - her characters are usually divorced or widowed - overall this movie is also missing good men, and the women, both law enforcement and vigilantes, have to take on tracking down the predators themselves.
My husband and I were growing uneasy about the TV shows we were ingesting—so much violence!—and decisively changed our habits for this reason: In the confessional, unprompted, the priest told him to stop watching violent TV. My husband hadn’t said anything about; the priest just knew.
So I skipped most of this column since I couldn't be sure where the spoilers might be and I'll likely give the series a go soon so wanted to avoid them.
Instead I have a recommendation: Being Erica. It's a BBC sitcom produced for Canadian consumption (on Hulu, I believe) and mostly set in Toronto though location doesn't matter much. It's the premise that resonates.
Erica is a late twenty something single whose career and love life just haven't fared well. Family is a bit bumpy, too. She attributes her circumstance to a confluence of her own bad choices she now regrets. She is in a funk when she meets a therapist whose "therapy" is the ability to send her back to the moments when she believes she erred to fix them. Clever premise and well executed. Cast is mostly unknowns or little knowns. Worth a watch.
Sounds interesting. I'm in love with the show "Mom," about a recovered alcoholic mom and daughter with messy lives who hold each other accountable to make atonement to those they wronged. (Your part about Erica recognizing her own responsibility reminded me of it.) It makes me almost wish I were an alcoholic so I could go to a church or synagogue built around atonement and responsibility, without the other features.
One of the best overviews of True Detective.This was my favorite tv series of the last 20 years and you nailed all of its sadness and ultimate redemption in your review.Well done.
Saw it when it first came out; season-1 was certainly one of the best things television has given us. Season-2 was almost as good, forget about season-3 & season-4.
Check-out “Sugar”, now in progress - very interesting, in a different way. Not a lot worth watching, but it’s a shame to miss the really good stuff.
Thanks for the review / reminder.
I’ve been watching Sugar and love its film Noir feel.
Just saw on Twitter:
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
@AI_Solzhenitsyn
"There is but one choice: to rise to the task of the age.
Very soon, only too soon, your country will stand in need of not just exceptional men but of great men. Find them in your souls. Find them in your hearts. Find them in the depths of your country."
I've only watched the last one with Jodie Foster, set in Alaska. (I've always had a little crush on Foster, at least since "Silence of the Lambs," and pleased with her various unusual choices, like her NYC NPR radio host gal who becomes a gun toting vigilante taking out the city's killers and rapists.) The latest True Detective must be deliberately making references to this first one, since it also has a runic symbol popping up around corpses and crime scenes that makes Foster's character and the other Alaskan cops think some cult is involved. Though this is the first Foster movie I've seen where she climbs up a man and has an (extramarital) affair with him - her characters are usually divorced or widowed - overall this movie is also missing good men, and the women, both law enforcement and vigilantes, have to take on tracking down the predators themselves.
Not my cup of tea. Too gruesome.
Growing up I remember that my dad would always read True Detective magazine.
My husband and I were growing uneasy about the TV shows we were ingesting—so much violence!—and decisively changed our habits for this reason: In the confessional, unprompted, the priest told him to stop watching violent TV. My husband hadn’t said anything about; the priest just knew.
So I skipped most of this column since I couldn't be sure where the spoilers might be and I'll likely give the series a go soon so wanted to avoid them.
Instead I have a recommendation: Being Erica. It's a BBC sitcom produced for Canadian consumption (on Hulu, I believe) and mostly set in Toronto though location doesn't matter much. It's the premise that resonates.
Erica is a late twenty something single whose career and love life just haven't fared well. Family is a bit bumpy, too. She attributes her circumstance to a confluence of her own bad choices she now regrets. She is in a funk when she meets a therapist whose "therapy" is the ability to send her back to the moments when she believes she erred to fix them. Clever premise and well executed. Cast is mostly unknowns or little knowns. Worth a watch.
Sounds interesting. I'm in love with the show "Mom," about a recovered alcoholic mom and daughter with messy lives who hold each other accountable to make atonement to those they wronged. (Your part about Erica recognizing her own responsibility reminded me of it.) It makes me almost wish I were an alcoholic so I could go to a church or synagogue built around atonement and responsibility, without the other features.
Great article, rewatching series now because of it.