With how hot it’s been this summer, and now that the weather is below 80 (77 currently lol), I felt the need to start my rewatch of season 1 a bit earlier than normal. Season 1 may be my favorite season of any show in history.
started watching s1 again today weirdly enough. the great stuff is still great but honestly I stand by a lot of it aging poorly
the biggest thing I'm noticing now that I never interrogated as a teen wannabe nihilist watching this originally is how much Pizzo's writing for women absolutely sucks. he's like a grade schooler with their dialogue
I think his writing just sucks in general. I really don’t think season 1 would’ve been as good as it was without Fukunaga to rein everything in. Nic got lucky imo. And yes Fukunaga is obviously a piece of shit so I don’t exactly like giving the dude credit
oh wow didn't know about Fukunaga, that's disappointing leaning more and more towards s3 being my favourite
I do think that Fukunaga's direction played a huge hand in making Season 1 what it was, and also the fact that he directed all of the episodes really seems to me to have gone a long way into making it play / feel like one long narrative, almost like a really long movie. I wouldn't say that Pizzolatto's writing is shit all around, I think he's a decent writer with some strengths and some glaring weaknesses, and the perfect scenario for his writing to shine was a talented director with a strong enough personality to push back on him completely taking control over the production.
Pizzo and Fukunaga, paired with perfect casting, was a prime example of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. I would have to watch again, specifically looking at the female characters, to judge the writing there. I can’t think of anything during several rewatches that aged poorly. I have problems with Pizzo and Fukunaga in the projects they worked on separately after season 1, but that was really the strongest single season of TV I can think of. I’d also like to see Taylor Sheridan write a season of True Detective. His first three films are such high quality and his writing style would mesh well with the show.
I’ve done a rewatch of season 1 recently and totally agree the writing for female characters is really bad. A lot of characters aside from the leads are fairly one dimensional. As fun as Cohle is to follow in the series his brand of philosophy is really juvenile imo, he sounds like me at 15 when I started reading new atheists or thought Camus was just saying life is pointless. But I still also agree that it’s an outstanding season of television largely because of how it is put together and because the way the mystery unfolds is as compelling as anything I’ve seen on tv. Might not crack the top 5 seasons of television overall for me but probably right up there with anything as a mini-series. My biggest gripe before was always the ending, I thought it really fell flat compared to what it was building to. But I appreciated it more on rewatch, just the idea that it was too big for them and even all that time they put into it they could only get so far. I also hope they eventually tie in the bigger culprits if they’re going to continue to do the show.
For a while I think I was overhyping quite just how much Fukunaga brought to the table. I still do think he directed the hell out of that season, but I don't think you can discount the fact that no other director yet on True Detective has had the opportunity to direct all of the episodes in a season the way that he got to. Some serious heavy hitters directed episodes in Seasons 2 & 3, but I don't think anyone did more than a couple, and I really do miss that cohesive feel that Season 1 has.
Have you read the dark philosophy book that much of Cohle’s dialogue was ripped from by chance? Think it’s called The Conspiracy Against the Human Race. I’ve tried a couple times but never make it more than a few pages because…darkness. Haha. Just asking since you seem to know more about that stuff and I’m curious.
Big Season 1 vibes there, and the spiral looks like a direct connection. I’m very interested. A little worried they’re trying too hard to recreate that season but if they pull it off it could be very enjoyable.
I rewatched season 1 in anticipation of season 4 in a few weeks. I felt like the main cult conspiracy plot kind of falls apart and becomes too convoluted the last few episodes. I don't think it matters that much because the season was really about the relationship between the two detectives anyway. Regardless of the plot, it still one of the best pieces of television of the 2010's just for the performances and cinematography alone.