TV Series Review: True Detective

By.DigitaLoz

What do you get when you mix a tremendous cast, a chilling story filled with death, cults to weird gods, an incredibly grim atmosphere, and HBO? You get something really awesome. True Detective is that and more. This is one of those shows that can be used to make the argument that television is no longer what it was. Television has moved towards a serial nature and this show proves exactly why.

Two state detectives, “Rust” Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and “Marty” Hart (Woody Harrelson) try solving a series of murders and disappearances in Louisiana during the span of roughly 17 years. A murder by itself is not enough to keep people interested in the show. What makes this show captivating is the dialogue between the two lead characters. When you look at them, they couldn’t be more opposite from each other. This fact makes their conversations and philosophizing compelling. The story by itself is enough, but it’s the moments between these characters that make it interesting. 

Now, I would like to make a disclaimer before I continue. This is not an action show. While it has some action scenes, this is drama through and through. It's equally about the journey that Rust and Marty go through (with each other and by themselves) as it is about solving the riddle laid before them.

The creator and writer of the show, Nic Pizzolatto, is relatively unknown in terms of television and film, having only written a couple episodes of the show The Killing before. He has written a couple of books and was born and raised in Louisiana, which is the main reason why the show works so well. Louisiana is the third, most important character, a lot like the gritty streets of New York or Chicago or the rainy back streets of London. The director, Cary Joji Fukunaga, whom I've never heard of or seen his work, has intrigued me enough to find out more about him. His work here is fantastic and along with cinematographer Adam Arkapaw, make the series alive.

The music is great, with a phenomenal mix of classic rock, blues, southern music, and even some hip hop thrown in for good measure. They did a great job in picking a fantastically creepy song for their intro, “Far From Every Road” by The Handsome Family. This song evokes an eeriness similar to what the show strives for essentially. 

Anyone interested in great storytelling, fantastic acting, and doesn’t mind a slow burn, as it were, should be able to enjoy this show. Sure, the fact that it only has 8 episodes might make the end seem a bit rushed, but when looking at the whole package, no one should miss this show.

Series Review: Fargo

By Snow Drift

Fargo (2014) is an American, crime-drama television series inspired by the 1996 film of the same name directed by the Coen brothers. Created and written by Noah Hawley, the show stars actors such as Billy Bob Thornton (Lorne Malvo), Allison Tolman (Deputy Molly Solverson), Colin Hanks (Officer Gus Grimly), and Martin Freeman (Lester Nygaard). The story centers on assassin-for-hire Malvo, who arrives at the town of Bemidji, Minnesota and influences Lester to indulge in violence and malice. When a series of murders happen in a short time, Deputy Solverson puts it upon herself to investigate and find the real culprits of the crimes.

One of the aspects I loved most about this mini-series, along with the original movie, is that the situation is self-contained and low-key, to an extent. While in the movie the murders were exclusively contained within the boundaries of the small towns and its few characters, the TV series lifted its limits a bit to indulge itself in more out-of-town characters, from the FBI to a mafia-like organization in the town of Fargo. However, it is still within certain limits, the mini-series giving the viewer the opportunity to observe the few characters of the show. It is with these limits that each character can be explored to its completion without the show worrying about having to develop dozens of them at a time. The self-containment, furthermore, assists in not over-complicating the plot, which may distract the viewers from what is important.

While multiple TV series and/or films attempt to portray every murder as fantastical, exaggerated, and even surreal, Fargo decides to ignore those tropes and leave each murder as simple and to the point. It is with this technique that the mini-series could guide the viewers’ attention away from the grotesqueness and gore of the murder victim and towards the living characters themselves. The fear and interest is not on how many people have died and the manner in which they did: it is in the worry of what might happen to the rest of the characters. After watching various murder-related stories, one would believe that everything would become a sort of murder-fest or free-for-all. However, Fargo concentrates more on the emotions and mentality of the characters and how these are affected and developed as the series progresses. It is not about Deputy Solverson’s possibility of dying or of uncovering a complex conspiracy: it is about her investigation, her determination, her horror, and her disbelief at what she is witnessing. Along with the other characters, it is not simply about saving or killing or an end-justifies-the-means situation for heroes, villains, and anti-heroes: it is about the concept of inaction; the willingness to not only do what’s right, but to face the horrors of reality, accept their truth, and still be willing to fight against dangerous men. It is also an exploration of how small-town people deal with extreme situations without turning the story too overly dramatic. Although Malvo, Mr. Numbers (Adam Goldberg), and Mr. Wrench (Russell Harvard) give the story an aspect of the extraordinary, they are limited within their own boundaries too: they are highly trained assassins, but are clearly mortal and vulnerable to any attack. It is in fact their personalities that make them unique and not particularly their skill-sets.

Furthermore, the dark comedy of the series helps avoid submerging the series into an extreme level of psychological “grim and gritty.” With the humor, the viewer will not have to always perceive the world as a constant stream of death and lies. It is within this dark reality that people can still laugh and have joy, even if it’s just an attempt to levy their fears. This humor is accompanied by a sense of realism that the story has, seen how many of the characters react to their particular abnormal situations with a sense of confoundment; there is no exaggerated or extreme reaction to what is happening in their lives. Instead, each character attempts to access the situation with what they perceive is rational to them. Instead of screaming and having hysteria, the characters get to go through shock. Additionally, it is in this silent observation of their situation that the audience can see the characters project their inner fear: for with just a few heavy breathings, widening of eyes, mumbling and stumbling in their speech and particular choice of words is enough for the viewer to understand who these individuals are. 

All in all, Fargo is a fascinating series for the type of viewer that enjoys self-contained and low-key crime dramas that concentrates heavily on the character development than on the murder victims and their mode of dying. It is short and to the point, without delving too much in multiple subplots.

(Warning: Fargo contains violence, blood, gore, and sexual scenes.)