As disastrous as David Lynch making Miami Vice or Grand Theft Auto… True Detective shoots itself in the foot, by Jim Shelley 

By Jim Shelley for MailOnline

Published: 05:51 EST, 14 July 2015 | Updated: 02:48 EST, 15 July 2015

‘When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand,’ Raymond Chandler advised any aspiring authors who found the plot of their crime novel was floundering.

The latest episode of ‘True Detective’s second season essentially did just this - finishing with several men firing mostly machine guns through windows and on the street. 

But the effect seemed much the same: not the explosive ending creator/writer Nic Pizzolatto hoped for but a desperate measure.

Mind you even Chandler acknowledged his fallback plot device was ‘pretty silly’ but argued ‘somehow it didn’t seem to matter’, continuing: 

Not hitting the mark: True Detective body count soars as Colin Farrell and Rachel McAdamsengage in fiery gun battle - but Jim Shelley says the ending did not get the required effect 

Not hitting the mark: True Detective body count soars as Colin Farrell and Rachel McAdamsengage in fiery gun battle - but Jim Shelley says the ending did not get the required effect 

‘A writer who is afraid to over-reach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong.’

How much credit/forgiveness Pizzolatto deserves for being silly and over-blown is debatable but ‘Down Will Come’ was definitely both.

Pulp fiction, film noir, and cop shows notoriously rely on clichés as their framework, but the script was leaden, the characterisation nonsensical, and the plot signposted.

A news-reporter explained migrant workers were so exploited they couldn’t even use the buses and had formed a ’Bus Riders Union’ - in stark contrast to the Mayor of Vinci Austin Chessani who lived a life of depraved decadence in Bel Air.

‘My father… He’s a very bad person,’ Chessani’s daughter stressed to Detective Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams), as if we hadn’t got the message, drawing extravagantly on a hookah.

Supporting characters like Betty Chessani, her brother Tony, and mother-in-law Veronica, were all outlandishly eccentric or lurid, as if trying to out-David Lynch each other.

‘My father… He’s a very bad person,’ Chessani’s daughter stressed to Detective Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams), as if we hadn’t got the message, drawing extravagantly on a hookah

‘My father… He’s a very bad person,’ Chessani’s daughter stressed to Detective Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams), as if we hadn’t got the message, drawing extravagantly on a hookah

The lead four characters have become more and more over-wrought, turning the cerebral existentialism that was ‘True Detective 1’s trademark into a heavy-handed angst contest.

Gangster-turned-businessman Frank Semyon was re-establishing his authority - buying ‘coke, crystal, and whatever they call MDMA now.’

He was forever grumbling and grouching about having to go back to being a violent extortionist/club owner/drug-dealer because the murdered Vinci city manager Ben Caspere had ripped him off to the tune of $5million. 

He was struggling to get his wife pregnant, even using IVF. On top of it all, he was so infertile even his avocado trees weren’t producing. Poor guy.

Whether we were meant to feel sorry for him was anyone’s guess. (Don’t even mention the rats.)

Motorbike cop Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch) was equally unlikeable despite a plethora of personal problems.

Acting up: It’s not surprising Vince Vaughn is struggling with the vicissitudes/contradictions of Frank Semyon’s personality

Acting up: It’s not surprising Vince Vaughn is struggling with the vicissitudes/contradictions of Frank Semyon’s personality

He WAS having a baby – despite needing to take Viagra to perform with his hot girlfriend, because of his repressed homosexuality. He had gained a baby but lost a motorbike.

By the way Woodrugh kept breaking into tears, it was pretty clear which one mattered to him most.

We already knew that Detective Ani Bezzerides had a sister performing/doing porn on the internet and a hippy guru father whose approach to parenthood consisted of asking questions like ‘yes but what is porn?’ 

Here she insisted: ‘I’m not a whore ! It’s not like I would do one of those parties…’

‘What parties?’ Detective Bezzerides asked eagerly, even though Vinci’s sinister, kinky parties were popping up in the investigation virtually incessantly.

Detective Ray Velcoro was corrupt, violent, and had a glove compartment full of weed, pills, and Smirnoff, but he was soppy about his son so, hey-ho…. 

We saw Velcoro hiding in the bushes, passing on his own dad’s police badge to Chad telling him it would help him understand ‘where you come from. That’ll mean something to you one day’ Velcoro said.

A more important question was: will Season Two of ‘True Detective’ ? Here are 8 examples why this episode was a disaster:

1. ‘True Detective 2’s deviations from its own formula

The big mystery in this episode did not concern Who Killed Ben Caspere? But why Pizzolatto left out the best elements of the series so far.

There was no sign that anyone (even detective Velcoro) was looking for the Crow Man who had shot Velcoro or any more scenes with the sinister wacko psychiatrist (played by Rick Springfield). 

Exchanges between the most charismatic characters/actors (Velcoro/Bezzerides or Farrell/McAdams) were also at a premium. Instead Vince Vaughn and Taylor Kitsch kept getting in the way.

Tensions: Exchanges between the most charismatic characters/actors (Velcoro/Bezzerides or Farrell/McAdams) were also at a premium. Instead Vince Vaughn and Taylor Kitsch kept getting in the way

Tensions: Exchanges between the most charismatic characters/actors (Velcoro/Bezzerides or Farrell/McAdams) were also at a premium. Instead Vince Vaughn and Taylor Kitsch kept getting in the way

2. The cameos are becoming increasingly eccentric

‘Dr Irving Pitlor? Mmmh, yes that does ring a bell,’ Ani’s father (David Morse) told her, eventually remembering the odd-looking psychiatrist whose named rhymed with Hitler and was connected with both the victim and the suspects in her case.

‘Dr Irving Pitlor…He was around in the early 80s, researching ‘The Dynamics of Communal Living.’

Oh THAT Irving Pitlor...

The murdered Vinci city manager Ben Caspere had attended her father’s seminars and the cult guru happened to have photos of Pitlor and Chessani as kids to hand too.

‘Jesus, that’s some coincidence,’ Ani reflected.Wasn’t it though?

3. Ray Velcoro’s enormous aura

‘Excuse me,’ Eliot Bezzerides turned to Ray Velcoro. ‘You have one of the largest auras I have ever seen - green and black. It’s been taking up this whole room. I had to say something. You must have had hundreds of lives…’

‘I don’t think I can handle another one,’ Farrell drawled, doing well to avoid laughing either at the dialogue or David Morse’s wig.

4. The existentialist rubbish between macho men

‘I don’t even know who the f**k I am,’ whimpered Paul Woodrugh.

‘You’re a survivor. Everything is just dust in your eyes. Blink it away man,’ detective Velcoro told him.

‘I just don’t know how to be out in the world man…’

‘Look out that window, look at me… nobody does.’

If Pizzolatto thinks this stuff is a modern version of ‘The Searchers’, it isn’t.

5. The existentialist rubbish between the feisty women

‘Those moments… They stare back at you,’ Ani Bezzerides reflected to her sister as they talked about their mother. ‘You don’t remember them. They remember you. Turn around, there they are – staring.’

Frankly, this softer side of TV’s toughest cop did her no favours.

‘Those moments… They stare back at you,’ Ani Bezzerides reflected to her sister as they talked about their mother. ‘You don’t remember them. They remember you. Turn around, there they are – staring

‘Those moments… They stare back at you,’ Ani Bezzerides reflected to her sister as they talked about their mother. ‘You don’t remember them. They remember you. Turn around, there they are – staring

6. Vince Vaughn trying to be Matthew McConaughey philosophising about children, ‘black rage’, and the word ‘louche’

It’s not surprising Vince Vaughn is struggling with the vicissitudes/contradictions of Frank Semyon’s personality. 

His occasional forays into philosophy seem groundless. Here he is on adoption: ‘you don’t take on somebody else’s grief. At least with your kid, it’s your sins.’ 

On being a decent extortionist/slum landlord: ‘mow the lawn ! I don’t want any of these kids getting snake bitten.’

On the word ‘louche’ (complaining to his sidekick Blake): ‘You know the word ‘louche’? You’ve got this Roger Moore thing - Johnny Unflappable… Somebody’s pulling me out on the streets and you’re louche?!’

On his plans for Ray Velcoro: ‘Keep your head out of the bottle. Your talent’s going to waste as a cop. The things I’m planning, black rage goes a long way.’

‘A long way to where?’ wondered Ray, not without reason.

‘Sometimes your worse self is your best self,’ Frank told Ray later, sagely.

This was a line that was bad enough without adding: ‘know what I’m saying?’ Frankly Nic no.

On his plans for Ray Velcoro: ‘Keep your head out of the bottle. Your talent’s going to waste as a cop. The things I’m planning, black rage goes a long way'

On his plans for Ray Velcoro: ‘Keep your head out of the bottle. Your talent’s going to waste as a cop. The things I’m planning, black rage goes a long way'

7. Taylor Kitsch’s role as a biker without a bike in a kind of existentialist EastEnders

No wonder CHiPs maverick Paul Woodrugh was always crying. The press were hounding him about the mysterious mission/war crimes he had been involved with in Iraq. 

Someone had stolen his beloved motorbike. And now his ‘girlfriend’ was pregnant – and talking like a teenager in EastEnders.

‘I’m keeping it Paul. I don’t believe in abortion,’ she said.

‘I want you to!’ he insisted with the eagerness of someone pretending he wasn’t secretly gay. ‘And I think we should get married !’ 

We didn’t…

‘I love you. And I didn’t know, I wasn’t sure, until right this minute, hearing this. I love you. This is the best thing that could happen!’

Well maybe not the best thing, although it was ‘True Detective.’

Making a point: Taylor Kitsch’s role as a biker without a bike in a kind of existentialist EastEnders

Making a point: Taylor Kitsch’s role as a biker without a bike in a kind of existentialist EastEnders

8. The closing shoot out was really a damp squib

Perhaps it’s not surprising that after all this guff, Pizzolatto decided to just have a big chase scene and a shoot-out. 

Perhaps he also remembered that the only Emmy that the first series won was for a similar action scene/shot. 

But what made that action sequence so effective was the tension it had arising from the sense of jeopardy facing the heroes.

Here, we had no idea who their opponents in the gunfight were or why they had opened fire with such vehemence. 

The violence as they sprayed their bullets into the police, the picketing workers, and the passengers of a bus the workers couldn’t use was cartoonish: more reminiscent of ‘Grand Theft Auto’ or an updated episode of ‘Miami Vice.’

When the only three people left standing happened to by the show’s three heroic detectives, it was not so much a relief as annoying – a missed opportunity to kill one of them off (Woodrugh).

Dramatically and visually, the shoot out was also so over-the-top it was actually boring.

Ironically the song that followed it, playing over the closing credits – by Lera Lynn – was titled.'

Not impressed: Dramatically and visually, the shoot out was also so over-the-top it was actually boring

Not impressed: Dramatically and visually, the shoot out was also so over-the-top it was actually boring

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