REVIEW | ‘True Detective’ resumes initial mysticism in its long-awaited return
The mystic tone of the first season is resumed in this awaited return of “True Detective”. It’s well expressed in the scene where the straw dolls lead the detective through the forest into the cave where lies a body whose rigid hands are joined in the prayer position.
In the plot, two little brothers disappear after a bike ride. The city, full of figures with their own disturbances, starts to live in the case’s function — parents lock their children at home, schools get empty and the most recluses residents turns into targets of speculation.
The photography has dark tones, as most of the filming locations. The soundtrack has bass beats, outstanding and slow, helping with the formation of a mysterious atmosphere.
The attention dedicated to the characters’ construction continues to be one of the best characteristics of the series. In only two hours of content, it’s already known details like the detectives past in war, their hunting habits, who goes or doesn’t to strip clubs and who has trouble sleeping. Personal questions, like diseases or the beginning of a new family, get more profound at the same time that the main plot unrolls.
There is another similarity with the first season, which is the utilization of more than one timeline to tell the story. Here, we have again an investigator giving a deposition to another police team about a case of ten years ago. This time, however, a third line is added, in which the same man, already old and with memory issues, recounts the investigation to a journalist.
The artifice of the various timelines progressing simultaneously is, more and more, sounding like an easy solution to increase tension and curiosity to the story. That’s because presenting the consequences before their causes create, almost inevitably, questions like “but how did they get there?”.
Even if the technique works, it had been used by the series itself in 2014, and also, recently, by “Homecoming”, to mention just two examples. If it hasn’t some rest, can, really soon, become a worn option.
The third part of “True Detective” will have its next chapters released on Sundays, 9 pm, on HBO. They stay available at the same time on the channel’s streaming.
