‘Omega Station.’
True Detective Seeason 2 comes to an end, while I’m happy overall about this season many people weren’t. In this review I’ll talk about the main talking points of the final episode, then look at this season’s response online before giving you my view on the series as a whole.
He who killed Caspere: I think it was episode 5 we were first introduced to the brother & sister that survived the heist that connects all the main players in the Caspere murder. I especially remember watching the scene where their story is explained with my friend, we both found it tedious but I forced myself to listen as I knew by that part of the season all information was important information. I reminded him that nothing is for show, every conversation in series 2 has had a direct effect later on. Nevertheless, the reveal was really quite disappointing. In terms of the episode it seems unimportant too, we had moved on from Caspere and the case had blown itself out of proportion.
It’s not always a happy ending: Ray and Frank met their demise, in fact all the main male cast members in the series died and all the women survived. There’s something to be said about that as Pizolatto (writer, showrunner) has always treated his female characters like garbage, always relating them back to sex in some way. While I thought the episode was good anyway, the deaths of the characters mentioned above were handled so beautifully and artistically, it made me feel as if True Detective was a weird Refn type indie film. Frank’s death was my favourite due to the alluring way in which it was shot, as well as that defining heart wrenching moment when he realises he’s already dead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxpKC8bdnsw
Ray’s entire last moments are revealed at the start of episode 3 by his father after we ‘think’ he’s dead. What seemed like random cool sounding chit chat was actually massive spoilers, I think writing like this is smart, as an audience watching the scene we know Ray is going to die, but we can’t remember that we know it. And this very idea sums up all of Season 2.*
Audience/Critic Response: Season 2 has been brutally criticised, I could understand why before but now I feel like it’s a bunch of people still hopelessly infatuated with Season One being too ignorant to let go of Rust Cohle and the creepiness of religious cult serial killers. ‘Omega Station’s score on Rotten Tomatoes was 29%, which I thought was completely uncalled for, it’s not a perfect episode but it’s definitely not ‘rotten’. Despite announcing itself as an anthology series at the end of Season One, many fans think they know the identity of the show more than Nic Pizolatto himself.
My Review: *Information is exposed to us in dull moments most of the time, that same information becomes very important later on in future episodes. What we think we’re learning for the first time was told to us before, Pizolatto is trusting us to be as attentive as possible. Which is why it fell down with so many viewers.
The main problem is True Detective has way too much information floating in the air, this is a result of having too many characters. So much information becomes really difficult to absorb, if not absorbed you really won’t have any idea what’s going on.
Apart from this True Dectective’s only problem is being arrogant in the first couple of episodes, throwing out stupid nonsense lines to keep it’s ‘edginess’ from the first season. On it’s own season 2 is actually very good, it’s not season 1 but it was never supposed to be? It keeps it’s focus on the lives of the detectives and what they’re willing to do to fight for justice, while this doesn’t always end well it definitely provides entertainment.
Rating: 7.9/10
Words by Levi Eddie Aluede