AFTER a seemingly slow start, the second season of True Detective is picking up in its second episode, "Night Finds You."
With all of the investigators finally together and working alongside each other, there's now a sense of direction for the season that wasn't quite present in the first episode. Add to this how the episode ended with a bang, and it looks like the pace of the season's story is finally going to pick up.
That's not to say that there aren't any problems, anymore.
First off, the episode begins with a monologue by Frank Semyon. With his character having a pretty rough introduction in the past episode, the opening monologue offers a much-needed look into the character's story. It would have been great, except that the lines were incredibly difficult to hear.
It's not a case of Vince Vaughn slurring his words or speaking too softly though, but more on the production side of things.
Vince Vaughn speaks clearly and yet it seems like the volume on his voice is turned down so low that it takes quite a bit of effort to catch what he's saying. And in a show like True Detective, you need to hear every single word. Even Rustin Cohle from the first season was easily understandable despite the thick accent.
However, that was the only part wherein the sounds was troublesome, so I'm hoping that there won't be any more incidents like that in the future.
But while Vaughn's deadpan delivery in that scene worked for that context, his performance overall is still pretty poor. For a man who has lost all his money on the rail project, Semyon's quest to set things straight feels empty and flat. While it would seem that a man of his position would have connections and know just what to do, Vaughn's performance is selling the character short with a lack of focus or intensity, making him seem frustrated and grasping for control instead of driven.
I think it's safe to say that the writing for this season is great. The characters are all complex, both faced with the case in front of them and their own personal demons constantly sneaking up behind them. The acting, however, needs to catch up with the demands the characters ask of them.
Aside from Vaughn, Taylor Kitsch's Paul Woodrugh is also pretty deadpan in his delivery and facial expressions so far. Then again, he's probably the one with the least screen time so far out of the four leads, so there's not too much for him to work with yet.
However, his stoic demeanor did add something to the scene when he visited his mother, making it look like an uncomfortable return to a possibly traumatizing life at home. It's not quite clear yet how his military backstory figures in his character, but hopefully he'll get more time to shine in the upcoming episodes and things will be explained.On the flipside, Rachel McAdams is looking promising as Ani Bezzerides.
Despite being the only woman among the leads, she's taken charge of the investigation and looks dead set on solving it no matter what. Of all the characters, she seems the one most likely to make a breakthrough in the case later on as she finds inconsistencies in the investigation or continues to study it. We also got another look at what seems to be the side of her which she keeps hidden from the rest of the world, and we're once again left to wonder what exactly the man was talking about last episode when he and Ani were coming out of the bedroom.
But her most interesting segments on the show so far have come in the scenes she shares with this arguably this season's best performer yet, Colin Farrell. Farrell's Ray Velcoro once again shone in a scene about his family life, just like in the first episode. I was amazed by the show of both rage and restraint that he displayed in that scene where he was speaking to his wife. I'm sensing that Ray knows that he's pretty messed up himself, and is trying to do something positive in his life by raising his son but is frustrated as he's failing to do that as well. As an investigator, however, he's had some interesting scenes with Bezzerides.
The scenes between Velcoro and Bezzerides in the car are reminiscent of Marty and Rust's car scenes in the first season. The exchanges between the two feel like they're feeding off each other and their chemistry between the characters is great. If their scenes together are an indicator of things to come,
then it seems that the Velcoro-Bezzerides partnership is going to be the highlight of the season. Also, their conversation seems to have given us a clue that there's yet again going to be a web of conspiracy this season, as Ray told Ani that he feels like, "this isn't supposed to work."
With that and the shot of adrenaline that was the episode's ending, I'm nothing short of curious now as to how deep and how far the web has gone.
We've only got six episodes to go and episode two has given us a much-needed change of pace what with all the characters and subplots we're dealing with this season. Hopefully the rest of the season plays out just the same.