True Detective on HBO

[Forgetting2]

I should say I'm very much looking forward to the finale. When this show hit's it stride it does so pretty nicely.

[Wombaticus Rex]

ANI:
Can't remember anything? Something I can use?

ELLIOT:
Well, I grouped them as hedonists. And they seemed very close in a secretive way. And they did not stay long. We had no real relationship.

ANI:
You seem pretty friendly here.

ELLIOT:
Well, at the time, everyone was a pilgrim. You understand? Everyone was passing in their separate journeys.

...not all looking for the same thing. Some exploit openness and freedom. It was a shadow of our best intentions. But people came and went. Faces lost. I regret so much of that time.

ANI:
I remembered his face, finally. The man who took me away.

ELLIOT:
You always said you couldn't remember anything.

ANI:
People came and went. But there was a man and I remember his face. And I think I always remembered it.

ELLIOT:
We couldn't sleep. I wandered the forest for four days...

ANI:
Can't see it, those four days, but I remembered his face.

Also, did anyone catch Ani hugging her partner? She had a weapon tucked in her left hand:

[Luther Blissett]

…

Also, did anyone catch Ani hugging her partner? She had a weapon tucked in her left hand:

That's what she was using to unscrew the license plate, but I still think it meant something.

[Luther Blissett]

I'm trying to rewatch the series before tomorrow night. I'll try to really briefly review here.

Episode 1: I definitely can't tell what Antigone and that younger cop were doing in bed. Woodrugh seems worried about the Black Mountain investigation. And the flashback wherein Semyon gives Velcoro the information about his wife's rapist makes it seem like he was setting him up.

I wish I knew more about Dixon. He seems to have been managing.

I had totally forgotten that there was about to be an 8-part investigative report in the paper.

The Santa Muerte stuff in Caspere's home ties it in with multiple mentions of Santa Muerte throughout the season. I also don't understand the figurine of what looks exactly like a real-life woman floating in milk. Dixon tells Velcoro they should let the bosses know and Velcoro asks if he's sure they don't know already.

Woodrugh has the burn scarring that kept reappearing throughout the show. "It's not from the army. It's from before. A long time ago."

Episode 2: Where do the 70,000 Vinci workers live?

Were Caspere's $4000 withdrawals and the blank dates on his calendar suppose to be for the parties?

Antigone mentions five kids grew up in Panticapaeum, two suicides, two in jail. So Athena didn't grow up there, but their biological mother died - so where were Antigone and Athena raised?

In the "my son is a destroyer" monologue, Chessani notes that he was into consciousness expansion.

I think Antigone knows that Woodrugh was gay.

My vote for Raven Man is either Blake or Burris.

[Luther Blissett]

Episode 3: Not many people knew about Velcoro goingrg to look at the house in Hollywood. And with the riot shells "like police use" make me err towards Burris, but I don't know how he would've found out about the prostitute's tip to Semyon. Davis wanted Antigone to think that Velcoro staged getting shot. But Burris ensures that Velcoro couldn't see the shooter.

I couldn't tell what Chessani's daughter was doing when she closed the door on Antigone.

Who could have set the car on fire towards the end of the episode? I don't know who's young and agile enough for that getaway.

[Luther Blissett]

Episode 4: Athena and Antigone's conversation about long-term memory seems to foreshadow Antigone's recovered memories.

What is Theo Chessani's lodge? And in Bezzerides's photo, it's Pitlor on the far right, Mayor Chessani second from left, and probably Bezzerides second from right?

The mine tailings markers, the stakes with the pink tape, is the very first shot of episode one. Velcoro and Bezzerides find them while tracing Caspere's GPS and Chessani's soil readings that Bezzerides saw in his home office. The next shot immediately following is Semyon looking at two coffee stains that remember Caspere's burned out eyes and his water stains on his ceiling.

Dixon looks at Woodrugh pretty oddly in the pawnshop. And it's Dixon's CI that called in Amarillo's position. That whole briefing before the raid is full of strange behavior.

And Dixon wants to wait for them to exit during the raid.

[km artlu]

These are useful recaps Luther; thanks.

Here's a review by Dennis Lehane of Pizzolatto's novel "Galveston".

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/books ... &ref=books

He exactly articulates my own experience with the book. It's a fine piece of work, and reading Lehane's review made me realize that perhaps prose-Pizzolatto is closer to his true nature than is show-runner/TV auteur Pizzolatto.

[Forgetting2]

I like this, but I only watched the first episode again today...

I'll leave most of my observations out, because I don't want to bore anyone...

Credits: Why did they use the shot of the planet traveling across the sun twice? You use a shot twice when it means something, usually....

Ray to the custody lawyer: “I welcome judgment,” cut to a bell above a door, (Reminiscent of Tibetan ceremony? Consecration of the ground?) Next shot Ray passes though a hell reddish doorway. He’s in the underworld, metaphorically and literally.

That woman in milk thingie is damn strange. The shot was surreal, like it was actually a woman floating in a bowl of milk, and then they pull back and the bowl is the size of a cereal bowl... WTF? Why did they pause on that?

Dixon has instructions, burn his shit quick… oopsie… we later learn...

Why the masked 'shh' when Velcoro goes to beat up the reporter. It's reminiscent of Crowley... or is it? ... Why? (Or why have I mistaken it for something

Athena, goddess of love… huh? So this guy doesn’t know who Athena is after naming a daughter that?

Ray and Frank at the bar at the end; I think the pauses and stares are to indicate we’ve entered a nether world, like being back stage before the curtain rises. There is silence, preparation, and then...a sort of Black Lodge.

Lyrics. "This is my least favorite life." (Ray’s had hundreds, we later learn by his black/green aura.)

[Wombaticus Rex]

I don't know how he would've found out about the prostitute's tip to Semyon.

He didn't; he was posted up in the sedan monitoring the house that night. Velcoro chose a bad time to follow up.

Who could have set the car on fire towards the end of the episode? I don't know who's young and agile enough for that getaway.

I think that gets unveiled by episode 7's talk between Woodrugh and his ex, Miguel:

Woodrugh:
The fuck is this?

Glib:
Orders. I gotta take your gun. Don't make a thing of it. You've got eyes all over you.

Woodrugh:
Black Mountain?

Glib:
...not anymore. Aries Security. We re-branded. We just service one client now-- Catalast Group.

Woodrugh:
When you got in touch, what was that?

Glib:
I had orders to check on you. After all that press stuff, make sure you kept confidentiality. This is your situation. I didn't make it. Let's go. They just want to talk.

Who was leasing that sedan for Caspere? Who did the Mexican driver that Velcoro & Bezireddes were interviewing work for?

Catalyst Group. But as we saw in the tunnels, there's quite a few gentlemen working for Aries Security now, so perhaps it could have been any of them.

[RocketMan]

WombatRex, you da True Detective guru!

It's funny how inured one has become to all this shit, you sense it when confronted with something like True Detective. It deals with Real Power in a way that is done very rarely in mainstream entertainment and maybe never before in a tv series, yet it all seems so straightforward and par for the course to me... I've liked season 2 slightly less than the first one, mainly because of the attenuated occult influence, but that's basically an aesthetic objection. And maybe after season 1 laid the heavy psychosphere on me, season 2 never could have been such a gut punch. But I've liked it nonetheless, and re-watching episodes does seem to improve them. As do WombatRex's pointers.

[Luther Blissett]

…

Who was leasing that sedan for Caspere? Who did the Mexican driver that Velcoro & Bezireddes were interviewing work for?

Catalyst Group. But as we saw in the tunnels, there's quite a few gentlemen working for Aries Security now, so perhaps it could have been any of them.

That's what I get for posting my notes in chronological order! I knew Glib worked for Catalast but wasn't paying enough attention.

Episode 5: Pitlor is reading Castaneda and taking notes.

Bezzerides has switched from an ecigarette to regular cigarettes after the shootout.

Davis has really changed her tune on Velcoro. It's explained why and it makes total sense but it's played like a complete 180°.

Everyone is very dismissive of Dixon's abilities.

I realized earlier that the Good People the commune is different and existed in a different place than the Panticapaeum Institute, but I didn't really see that discussed much around the Internet.

[Luther Blissett]

I like this, but I only watched the first episode again today...

I'll leave most of my observations out, because I don't want to bore anyone...

Credits: Why did they use the shot of the planet traveling across the sun twice? You use a shot twice when it means something, usually....

Ray to the custody lawyer: “I welcome judgment,” cut to a bell above a door, (Reminiscent of Tibetan ceremony? Consecration of the ground?) Next shot Ray passes though a hell reddish doorway. He’s in the underworld, metaphorically and literally.

That woman in milk thingie is damn strange. The shot was surreal, like it was actually a woman floating in a bowl of milk, and then they pull back and the bowl is the size of a cereal bowl... WTF? Why did they pause on that?

Dixon has instructions, burn his shit quick… oopsie… we later learn...

Why the masked 'shh' when Velcoro goes to beat up the reporter. It's reminiscent of Crowley... or is it? ... Why? (Or why have I mistaken it for something

Athena, goddess of love… huh? So this guy doesn’t know who Athena is after naming a daughter that?

Ray and Frank at the bar at the end; I think the pauses and stares are to indicate we’ve entered a nether world, like being back stage before the curtain rises. There is silence, preparation, and then...a sort of Black Lodge.

Lyrics. "This is my least favorite life." (Ray’s had hundreds, we later learn by his black/green aura.)

What was Mercury's relationship to Antigone? By scale I have to assume the planet is Mercury, from the viewpoint of earth. I guess it could be Venus though.

Velcoro also asks Dixon if he sees the woman in milk too, as if it's a flashback.

[Forgetting2]

What was Mercury's relationship to Antigone? By scale I have to assume the planet is Mercury, from the viewpoint of earth. I guess it could be Venus though.

Velcoro also asks Dixon if he sees the woman in milk too, as if it's a flashback.

That's a good question. I suppose you'd have to add it's relation to the sun in that astrological equation. Not stuff I'm familiar with enough to guess. I was also thinking that the second of the two shots is tied to Pizzolatto's credit, so the shot seems to me a signature of some sort.

[Hunter]

They are showing them all on HBO right now in the leadup.

[km artlu]

SPOILER ALERT

As expected Wombat, you called it right on Ray's visionary portent of where he would meet his death.