Margaux and I return to wrap up True Detective‘s season premiere.
Trevor: Detective Wayne Hays says something kind of hilarious in this episode: “I like to laugh.” On its face, this is a funny line because the world of True Detective is an unrelentingly grim nightmare in which joy has no place. But it makes you think more about the world that Nic Pizzolatto (and returning director Jeremy Saulnier) is building here. It’s grim, yes, but it’s not for that purpose alone. It’s entrancing and, in a weird way, inviting. Son of a bitch is doing it again. How did you like “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye”?
Since I initially watched the premiere episodes back to back, it was good to revisit “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye” by itself because I think it really illuminated the ongoing mysteries I found to be so compelling from “The Great War and Modern Memory”. How Wayne and Amelia eventually got together, and what the hell happened to Julie Purcell. It’s funny you bring up the…lightheartedness isn’t quite the word I’m looking for, but I suppose the lighter side of Wayne. Mostly I’m thinking about his run-in with Amelia at the bar in the 80s, right before the prosecution office fucks up their only lead (those creepy Mennite dolls), even though they’re both seemingly divulging hardest aspects their past, there’s humor in what they reveal, like Amelia is a vegetarian, but as long as she doesn’t tell Wayne she’s “a Democrat”, this budding romance – under the bleakest of circumstances – might stand a chance. It’s nice to take break from the darkness the show generally trades in.
Trevor: I could have watched that scene all night. It was like a beautiful little bottle episode. Mahershala Ali and Carmen Ejogo both play loneliness and isolation so well, without ever giving into the temptation to overact. It’s like the actors know they’re in a noir, but the characters don’t. They feel grounded, and their conversation feels natural. There’s something very matter-of-fact about their flirting – they’re both adults about it, and have done this before – which also makes it deeply sexy. It’s weird to watch True Detective and root for these crazy kids, but it’s just another sign that the show is getting its groove back.
Margaux: Not for nothing, I made a similar comment in my notes that it’s nice to watch a romance happen between two adults; that’s probably because I’m watching The Bachelor where someone’s “job” is “never been kissed.” Anyway, I’m not sure what was the most interesting part of the Julie Purcell case; that there are less than subtle delineation that the Julie found in the 90s and her father, Tom, who may know more than we think. Or that JonBenet Ramsey note they get in the ’80s, telling them (and us) that Julie is alive and to not look. What the producer of the 2015 doc mentions several times in her interview with Wayne that were “events” around Julie and Tom in the ’90s that forced Wayne to retire-slash-quit PD definitely casts ’80s Tom in a very different light.
Trevor: I like the feint that the show pulled off: you thought it was a murder case, and now it’s pivoted to a missing person case. And the heartbreak of the 1980 segments is that we know Julie’s fate will remain unknown for ten long years. The show isn’t ignoring or giving any short shrift to any of its timelines; they all bleed together, due in part to the show’s seamless editing – which of course is of a piece with this season’s fixation on memory, and identity, and how the two can be misleading, how they can make us question our reality.
Margaux: They do it so well that the last shot of the episode, where Wayne finds himself on a deserted street in the middle of the night, I couldn’t tell if that was a dream, memory, or real life. Which, yes, I’m aware is the point. I appreciate how disorienting scenes can be, like, one minute they’re beating the shit out of a pedophile in some abandoned barn in the ’80s, then we’re talking about sex cults that use the same faceless dolls that Julie was given on Halloween in present day, and next thing we know, Amelia’s book is about to come out. You can never get your barring so any time a character reveals new information, you’re like, WHAT.
And in those ten years between Julie disappearing and the case getting overturned, we don’t know what Tom got up to. Lucy and her creepy ass cousin, where could those deadbeats have ended up? I want all the answers and none of them at the same time. Also, how did Amelia die? Seventy isn’t that old. I know reviewing this show should do more than pose a bunch of questions, but too bad, you’re stuck with me!
Trevor: That’s part of the allure of this show. I’m full of questions myself, namely, where is Roland West? If it wasn’t obvious, Stephen Dorff’s performance is really working for me. Hays is a scalpel and West is a hammer, but West can still get rattled by Hays’ graphic threats. It was a smart move to pair a solid character actor like Dorff with a megawatt presence like Ali. Also, “Roland West” is such a great, pulpy noir name, but Dorff carries himself like someone with that name. True Detective is the right kind of portentous this season: straight-faced, but without insisting on its own importance. It’s a lighter touch than we’re used to seeing.
Margaux: Wherever present day, or even ’90s, Roland West is at, he is, according to the old D.A., “doing very well for himself.” I wonder if West went the Marty way of season one Harrelson, going into the private sector, I think that’s the lucrative option for former PD/detectives, get a sweet consulting job with TV show like Cheaters or something. But I do like that even if Hays never felt or heard any overt racism in ’80s Arkansas (for fuck’s sake), that West is not aware of his inherent privilege in being “the white one.” When they get into a spat after the state blows their nominal lead, Hays tells him to get his “tribe” together, and we get the impression that West doesn’t fully understand what Hays means by that and there will always be this fundamental disconnect that shared bonds of war cannot always overcome. They don’t connect on the world sees them, and I have a sense they won’t connect on the conclusion of this case.
Trevor: That talk about race came out of nowhere, but in a good way. Honestly, it seems like the kind of thing that Pizzolatt would stumble over, but I thought it was handled with tact and honesty. I also think that I’m a straight white guy and probably shouldn’t talk about the nuances of racial dialogue, so I’ll pull the ripcord on this right now. But I thought it deepened both characters, and the world of the show. I feel like we’re just skating on the surface here, waiting for the ice to crack, and I kind of can’t wait for that to happen.
Margaux: It would be incredibly stupid and wholly unbelievable for this show to not bring up race, so considering the myriad of ways they could have royally fucked it up, I thought it was the best it could be, and served to underscore the tension between the partners. Not just in how they approach their work; quiet and calculate vs boisterous and forceful, I think it almost goes without saying that Something happened between West and Hays during this case, because when we catch up in the ’90s, it would seem everyone who was touched by this case have gone in very different directions in life.
Trevor: Which is the magic trick that the show is pulling off so deftly: I’m as interested in the case as I am in the lives of the people affected by it. I don’t want to alarm you, but this season is off to a great start. At first, I thought “eight episodes is probably a good thing”; now it’s more like “damn, we only get eight episodes?” Is there anything you want to add, or do you want to talk stars?
Margaux: I think it’s off to a strong start, and that eight episodes is more than enough. I think all the plot devices and cinematic tricks would start to wear thin if they went over eight, at a certain you just gotta solve the fucking thing. If “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye” is only the second episode, I’m excited to see what other demented shit True Detective has in store for the rest of the season.
4/5
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