True Detective is so soaked in atmosphere it drips with it like a sweat-sopped Sunday dress shirt. You don’t see much gore or violence or detective work, because the show isn’t about any of those things. When its lens is satisfied to just explore the cracks and crags of these two leads, to navigate their environment - their physical, moral, existential environments - that’s when it becomes one of the best shows on television.
In fact, when the show starts concerning itself with plot - whodunnit? - that’s when it gets the weakest, ambition sagging into just another run-of-the-mill episode of CSI: Humid Trailer Park. Some on the internet have gone all Carrie Mathison searching for clues to solve the case.īut the case is beside the point.
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Together, they investigate a grisly series of murders, as the show flashes back and forth from 1995 to 2012. And the other detective is a type we haven’t really seen before - a wiry, observant philosopher-king, prone to unspooling arcane and trippy monologues on the nature of life, the universe, everything. One detective - curmudgeonly, hypocritical Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson) - is a type you’ve seen a thousand times before, though perhaps never played with so vividly and unsympathetically. If you haven’t seen True Detective, know that the plot is nothing special: Marty Hart and Rust Cohle are two mismatched detectives investigating a grisly crime. Bask in our storytelling.Īnd sometimes, those main titles, those opening credits, tell you absolutely everything you need to know about the type of show that follows them.īefore you read further, I want you to watch this intro video, even if you’ve seen it before. One great thing about HBO: It has the power to let main titles languish, unfold at luxurious length.