Matt Smith reviews the season finale of True Detective…
True Detective is a prime example that, even with our methods of watching a TV show changing, that stories don’t have to necessarily change. It also exemplifies the way TV can be about telling shorter, self-contained stories. And while this could’ve been handled well enough in a movie, True Detective is made that much more powerful and exciting by the way it’s a slower TV series that is essentially a movie with a runtime of just under eight hours.
In this final part of the series, Rust and Marty are nipping at the heels of their prime suspect. Back together after so many years driven apart by their own issues and prior events, can the pair of them use their skills to finally track down one of the men behind it all?
It’s fitting for a show that is so slow that it’s also extremely concentrated and tight. Each movement and cut in an episode seems deliberate, and True Detective may be receiving critical platitudes just because it’s a show that rewards those that pay attention. Much more enjoyment can be gleaned from it if an eye’s kept on it and every detail is kept under close scrutiny. It’s a method that ensures those who’re watching will gossip about what could happen, and means teasing can be kept to a minimum.
In the same way it’s never over the top, meaning it can be disconcerting in subtler ways. True Detective never gives away too much, so every little glimpse of something can be looked at. It’s one of many TV shows and movies that eschew audience baiting while at the same time tempting audiences in with elements that are guaranteed to catch the eye.
And once this show catches the eye, it won’t let you go. Especially in this tense, nail biting finale, the lovingly composed shots and heart pounding sense that this is the end in at least one way for these characters means you can’t look away. Just like the moments that led before, it’s also fitting that there are more questions to ask even once the final scene is over. Another season seems set up, but Rust and Marty figuring again seems impossible. With McConaughey and Harrelson both reportedly not returning, it’ll be a tough job if a second season does happen.
But what can be said about this final episode of the first season that hasn’t already been said? Phenomenal acting from everyone involved (with an especially creepy turn with an overriding sense of power from Glenn Fleshler as nominal villain Errol). Storytelling so well balanced and paced it kept hold of you until the end. A feeling of pure darkness taking hold in this world with horrible characters that in the end is slowly becoming brighter, to the point where you don’t notice until the main characters point it out. True Detective is and will remain a fantastic series of enduring quality, self contained and confident enough in its quality that it never put a step wrong. Here’s to Rust and Marty, for providing eight hours of brilliance.
Matt Smith – follow me on Twitter.
Originally published April 15, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
