• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

True Detective Season 4 to star Jodie Foster

jason10mm

Gold Member
Watched Ep1 and it was ok. I'm real vague on where this "isolated research station filled with dudes living like monks" is in relation to the town and how the po-po can just go back and forth super easily several times in a day though. Why don't these scientists just live in town and commute? Visually they definitely took a lot of notes from shows like Fortitude on how to make it feel cold and alone. Not a big fan of the boxer lady, but maybe she'll grow on me. Did like how Foster FINALLY took her to school that any "bad police work" about that dead girl from years ago was squarely on her, not Foster or "white people", as she was the cop on the case.

And I'd love to see a scene where the local girl takes her white hubby to task for teaching their kid about Santa Clause and he says "why did I marry a native girl?" over and over, see how that comes across :p

Then again, I got that same line at every family gathering of every latina girl I ever dated so I get it. Making fun of the one white guy in the room is what it is, until they need money anyway :p

Anyway, the mystery at the station I'm in on, but if all this family drama shit, especially the rapist(?) lesbian girl, eats up screen time I'm gonna punch out.
 

kittoo

Cretinously credulous
Good to see you guys saying episode 2 is much better.

Because by God halfway through first episode and I was feeling such a cool premise and setting wasted at the altar of diversity and inclusion and what not (and I am not white or American). Boss women everywhere, men are (almost) all bad people, of course the daughter is gay, racists and so on. And what's up with everyone being ugly. I like to watch good looking people in my shows. Ok not everyone has to be CW pretty but can I get a couple good looking ones?
 
Last edited:
Episode 3 was bad until something happened at the end. At least it did have some really weird and creepy shit.

I'd rate the 3 episodes the following:

1 - D
2 - B
3 - C

Which is bad.
 
Once you accept it’s not going to hold a candle to season one, it’s much more enjoyable. I like the characters and where the plot seems to be heading.

With this and Fargo already this year is off to a great start.
 

Billbofet

Member
I am watching this, and there are certainly cool moments and interesting twists, but it is so utterly depressing. It's not just the 24-night cycle setting, it's every humorless character, everyone hates each other, and everyone is damaged or suffering.
As the show progresses, and they reveal more of the characters' backgrounds, it's even sadder than you'd expect.
It's fine watching week to week, but if I binged this show, I would be miserable just like every one of the characters.

In a setting and town devoid of any happiness, why is it a mystery when someone goes missing or leaves?
 

Kar

Member
Once you accept it’s not going to hold a candle to season one, it’s much more enjoyable. I like the characters and where the plot seems to be heading.

With this and Fargo already this year is off to a great start.
In the world we live in today, you can't recreate season 1 even if you wanted to.
2 straight white males as lead actors? blasphemy, will probably never happen again.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
I am watching this, and there are certainly cool moments and interesting twists, but it is so utterly depressing. It's not just the 24-night cycle setting, it's every humorless character, everyone hates each other, and everyone is damaged or suffering.
As the show progresses, and they reveal more of the characters' backgrounds, it's even sadder than you'd expect.
It's fine watching week to week, but if I binged this show, I would be miserable just like every one of the characters.

In a setting and town devoid of any happiness, why is it a mystery when someone goes missing or leaves?
True that. Had that lady not
followed her ghost hubby and found the pile of corpses
I think they all woulda just shrugged and "oh well" at a station gone completely empty. Turn off the lights and be done with it.
 

NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt

Biggest Trails Stan
In the world we live in today, you can't recreate season 1 even if you wanted to.
2 straight white males as lead actors? blasphemy, will probably never happen again.

And with an attractive female actor showing her tits? Never again lol

They go out of their way to make females in every show and movie as unattractive as possible and sometimes even show full body nudity of fugly women

Anything a straight male finds attractive is immediately deemed problematic
 
Last edited:
I thought the latest epi was the best so far. I’m loving the supernatural angle but I get a feeling they’re going to pull a ‘it wasn’t that but this easy explanation’ thing in the end.
 

Sonik

Member
The cinematographer of this season is a fucking GOD but other than that the show is so. fucking. generic, it's even worse than season 3

What even is the personality of Jodie Foster's character? What are her motivations? Compare this with Mare of Easttown or Sharp Objects and it pales in comparison. The show has all the style but none of the substance.
 
Last edited:

mortal

Banned
In the world we live in today, you can't recreate season 1 even if you wanted to.
2 straight white males as lead actors? blasphemy, will probably never happen again.
I resent this sort of mentality. Like I get what you mean by it, but it's self-defeating more than anything.
Trying to appease idealogues is a losing strategy, and I doubt the fans or even a general audience would feel that about it anyway.
 

Sonik

Member
That was one weak ass episode. Nothing happened.


Here's the kicker, this season is only 6 episodes. We're half way through and it's all a big fat nothing, not even decent character development or analysis and the story doesn't even know what the fuck it wants to be and goes from cheesy X-Files exotic superstition bullshit to serious crime drama all the goddamn time. I will be shocked if this goes anywhere decent
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
Finished ep3, whaaaaaaaat the hell were they thinking? I guess I'll spoil it for anyone reading this but not watching.

so thyey have a 'missing' body, gone they think 48 hours, and the 'solution' is to send a bunch of hunters out ON FOOT just calling his name? It's a fucking ICE SHEET, they could drive around in 30 minutes and cover what 50 guys on foot could do. It's like they REALLY wanted that 'search party' scene, almost always in the woods, just for her glimpse of someone and the fall and flashback. Then there is the old engineer in the hunting cabin. What was the point? They gain no knowledge, Danvers, usually unafraid to bully or intimidate, suddenly becomes all coy ('cause this guy is native?) and Navarro just folds 'cause she doesn't know her mom's pet name for her? All her frustration, intensity, and drive just evaporates in the face of this native guy.

Sadly, even if I cared nothing about the characters, it still fails as a police procedural because it is so sloppy.
 

Mossybrew

Banned
Aright I have to say as of ep 2 I really dig this show. Its weird and I like the characters. They feel natural, I am especially loving Jodie Foster, though I have always had a soft spot for her as she looks remarkably like my ex wife, though of course now 15 yrs older and I appreciate how she looks her age without cosmetic garbage. I absolutely dont find this WOKE as it all feels natural, and so far 2 of 2 eps a woman character has called another a FUCKING BITCH whitch hits my sweet spot, especially in ep 1 where Foster calls out the drunk bitch, who looks and dresses exactly like the drunk chick on our street.
 
Last edited:

Hydroxy

Member
Th
It's the water isn't it. The mine has polluted the water causing people to hallucinate and act weird.
The water made everyone woke. Another trash episode. 2nd episode was good but they ruined the momentum again. Literally nothing happened in this episode.
 

Mooreberg

is sharpening a shovel and digging a ditch
I liked the first two episodes, but episodes 3 & 4 are cratering. The complete lack of focus on the murdered scientists is bizarre. Are we going to get to episode 6 (season finale) before the "corpsicle" thaws out and some manner of toxicology report is delivered?

This reviewing higher than season 1 pretty much illustrated how useless TV critics are.
 

Billbofet

Member
This show peaked at episode 2 for me and just keeps getting worse.
Also scratching my head as to why this is so critically hailed.....
 
Last edited:

The Cockatrice

I'm retarded?
I liked the first two episodes, but episodes 3 & 4 are cratering. The complete lack of focus on the murdered scientists is bizarre. Are we going to get to episode 6 (season finale) before the "corpsicle" thaws out and some manner of toxicology report is delivered?

This reviewing higher than season 1 pretty much illustrated how useless TV critics are.

So I should skip it. Shame, the atmosphere seemed ripe with potential.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
I liked the first two episodes, but episodes 3 & 4 are cratering. The complete lack of focus on the murdered scientists is bizarre. Are we going to get to episode 6 (season finale) before the "corpsicle" thaws out and some manner of toxicology report is delivered?

This reviewing higher than season 1 pretty much illustrated how useless TV critics are.
I feel like there must have been a loooooong scene that was cut where everyone (but Danvers, of course) decided these guys just ran out onto the ice and froze to death on their own. It's the only explanation for how 6-9 people can be killed and no one seems to give a fuck.
 

Mooreberg

is sharpening a shovel and digging a ditch
So I should skip it. Shame, the atmosphere seemed ripe with potential.
There are only two episodes left, so I will finish it. But the past two episodes seem like the padding you would get in a ten episode anthology series, not one that is six episodes.
I feel like there must have been a loooooong scene that was cut where everyone (but Danvers, of course) decided these guys just ran out onto the ice and froze to death on their own. It's the only explanation for how 6-9 people can be killed and no one seems to give a fuck.
Well, the veterinarian believes
they all died from fear induced cardiac arrest before freezing
. There are a lot of interesting directions you could go with that. A townsfolk finding out they knew way ahead of time what problems the mine was causing, but were paid to stay quiet. Someone with particular interest in what they were researching. Particularly gruesome corporate espionage. Revenge on behalf of the two cancer victims mentioned in a single episode (one of whom is the father of a character I won't mention outside of spoiler tags). But,
the woman's tongue and the inverted season one symbol being everywhere, including a tattoo on the Irish scientist, means we are probably in for a goofier explanation.
.

The pace is weird too - four episodes cover six days, which means you are looking at an investigation that likely wraps up in ten days or less, in a place where resources are slow as shit to arrive (probably reasonably accurate for that part of Alaska). Season one spanned 17 years, season three was similar. Season two always seemed like something else Nick Pizzolato (sp?) was working that got turned into "True Detective" despite not fitting the formula. This seems like a similar situation, though this time they working overtime to shoehorn in connections to the first season, to no real benefit.

Also, how would
the Tuttle family be sponsoring anything, let alone a remote research station? Wouldn't they have been sued into the ground with wrongful death lawsuits after the events of the first season?
I hope this season kills the show
Unlikely. The ratings have been in line with, or better than season two and three. Even if the conclusion is as off the rails as I am expecting, they never have to touch this plot again, and can make another anthology, set in another place at another time. Just please go back to the "three time periods" formula. The show is two for two in that format, and as of now, looks to be going zero for two with the strictly linear plot format.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
Well, the veterinarian believes
And that was a load of horseshit. "These guys look just like the frozen caribou I seen" has got to rank amongst the most stupid concepts ever. They should have had junior detective pull up a bunch of photos from other frozen bodies going back 30-40 years and find some that do look similar, and it turns out those guys were ruled fear induced cardiac death after an exhaustive work-up. THEN Danvers could make a intuitive leap that these scientists may have died from a similar cause.

But to have some vet just spit it out whilst everyone nods sagely........no, just no.

There are a lot of weird decisions in this season that make it feel like amateur hour in the writers room. Quite frankly if this didn't have someone of Fosters caliber anchoring it I don't think I would have made it past ep1. I'm kinda still waiting to find out she IS Clarisse Starling and is basically hiding out after the events of Silence of the Lambs (never mind the later books). Get Hopkins to show up for a 3 minute cameo at the end and I'll call it good :p
 

Mooreberg

is sharpening a shovel and digging a ditch
And that was a load of horseshit. "These guys look just like the frozen caribou I seen" has got to rank amongst the most stupid concepts ever. They should have had junior detective pull up a bunch of photos from other frozen bodies going back 30-40 years and find some that do look similar, and it turns out those guys were ruled fear induced cardiac death after an exhaustive work-up. THEN Danvers could make a intuitive leap that these scientists may have died from a similar cause.

But to have some vet just spit it out whilst everyone nods sagely........no, just no.

There are a lot of weird decisions in this season that make it feel like amateur hour in the writers room. Quite frankly if this didn't have someone of Fosters caliber anchoring it I don't think I would have made it past ep1. I'm kinda still waiting to find out she IS Clarisse Starling and is basically hiding out after the events of Silence of the Lambs (never mind the later books). Get Hopkins to show up for a 3 minute cameo at the end and I'll call it good :p
Completely agreed. I figured they used him to tie in the fate of the scientists with the
mass animal suicide at the very beginning of the season.

Unintended gas leaks from the mining operation turning people crazy and having an effect on wildlife would be an interesting central plot. Particularly with stillborn births among a lof the native would be moms, and at least two cases of cancer also being part of the plot. It opens the door to multiple possibilities as to how and why the scientists died the way they did, and why they were found in such peculiar arrangement. But it also requires not ignoring that plot thread for the entire middle third of the season.

There is time to turn things around, but I think we are barreling towards an uninteresting conclusion on that plot thread.
Fargo: Season 5
Agreed. At least until the finale, but that is a separate thread.
 

Valonquar

Member
If you ever wanted\needed to see Jodie Foster having sex with Christopher Eccleston BOY ARE YOU IN FOR A TREAT...
I mean they peaked with Alexandra Daddario in S1 in that regard so oh well.
alexandra daddario GIF
 

Mattdaddy

Gold Member
There's a lot of fair criticism against this show... but I gotta admit overall I'm still really liking it.

I'm usually headhunting for woke trash, I had to stop watching Gen V after like 2 episodes. But for whatever reason this one isn't really pissing me off.

For instance you've got the scene where Navarro starts to go off about "if she was white her murder would have been solved..." but then Jodi Fosters character immediately cuts her off like "stfu, that was your case and you fucked it up, not me."

And then Jodi Fosters basically a pretty miserable failure as a stepmom, I feel like all the characters are pretty evenly catching L's all around regardless. Probably the only "good" character is the younger white kid cop, I like that dude hope they don't kill him off.

And when Navarro is in a rage and she cracks that good ole boy... I was half expecting her to 1v3 those dudes but she just gets her ass whipped lol.

But yeah, there's definitely still some fair critiques against the show, however Im still digging the very creepy mysterious vibe and creepy ass murders and the possible supernatural connection. I think the setting overall is great for a mass murder mystery.

Its not as good as S1 which was absolutely legendary. And doesn't have Alexandra Daddarios epic tittage. But its probably my second favorite True Detective so far.
 
Last edited:

Sonik

Member
Latest episode finally had something going on. Enjoyed it. Next week is the finale though, feels like it's barely gotten anywhere.

Like most shows nowadays it feels like the prologue of a 24 episode season and expect a bunch of shit to happen next but in reality it's ending. Nothing plot, paperthin characters, , all style and no substance. The moron that is running it can't even decide if it's a horror series with cultural elements or a crime drama, the only thing she does well is lecture us about native Alaskans and the evils of corporations or some shit. The funny thing is that hate corporate greed and modern capitalism even more than the average pretentious LA hipster but these morons are always doing it in such a childish, virtue signalling way that it actually annoys the fuck out of me
 
Last edited:
I just read somewhere (don't remember where) that when the father lifts the gun towards Liz his finger isn't on the trigger. He knew he had to die and that's why he also revealed he moved the girl's body. That's a nice touch, though I didn't notice.
 
The gender roles thing doesn’t sit right with me. Like I get Venus Williams is a beast, but her man is presented as basically a woman. I refuse to believe a burly Arctic man would be such a bitch.
 
Last edited:

JBat

Member
Holy shit that was bad... Nothing ended up mattering. All the stakes were manufactured. The characters, setting, and even mystery were waisted. Nothing makes sense. The whole premise of the "conspiracy" is stupid. God damn it. I'm actually angry at how much wasted potential that season had.
 
Top Bottom