belated February 2024 Patreon round-up: EXCLUSIVE - True Detective: Night Country viewing diary (second part) + TWIN PEAKS Character Series advance

Although I offered a couple standalone sci-fi episodes last fall, True Detective: Night Country is my first (but probably not my last) patron-exclusive TV season viewing diary. It's also my first episodic write-up since 2022 (my Mad Men coverage concluded two years ago as of Thursday), and my first coverage of a brand new series since 2019 (when I wrapped the Veronica Mars revival). This also allowed me to have complete coverage of the whole True Detective run after discussing the beloved first season a year after it aired and the more controversial second and third seasons in real time, offering responses in the weeks between episodes just as I did with this (also controversial) fourth season. Set in Alaska, starring Jodie Foster and Kali Reis, and involving the mysteries surrounding a vanished group of scientists and a murdered indigenous activist, Night Country is a visual delight, cultivating a rich atmosphere from its nocturnal, wintry setting. This is my favorite element of the season although I (eventually) encountered more difficulties with the plot and particularly the finale - which is frankly a True Detective tradition at this point. Whether or not you're reading this as a patron who can access my full reviews, I'd love to hear your own thoughts on Night Country. Apparently the new showrunner Issa López has been signed for another season and I'm very curious to see where the show goes next.

The second half of the series was covered for $5/month patrons in February and is linked below (for a round-up of all Night Country entries, including January's, see this cross-post). This month I also solicited requests, conducted a poll, and then narrowed the selection down to a run-off for the film I'll cover in March's $5/month tier podcast. And, a bit late for reasons that (as I explain in its intro) won't happen again, I finally cracked the top twenty Twin Peaks characters with an advance entry accessible to all patrons. This makes eleven entries on Patreon since I paused the public series at #30 last year; as I won't be resuming that public presentation until at least the fall, this is a great time to join. For $1/month (or up), you can take a dive deep into the world of Twin Peaks through the eyes of its townspeople or the occasional visitor.

What are the February rewards?

January 2024 Patreon round-up: EXCLUSIVE - Films in Focus podcast #1: The Red Shoes, True Detective: Night Country viewing diary (first part) & 2023 American Generations Reflections + TWIN PEAKS Character Series advance

January 2024 was the busiest month on my Patreon in five years - maybe ever. Not only did I offer the usual Twin Peaks character study for all patrons, kick off a new film podcast, and initiate a new reward system involving patron selections (including ten different polls or updates), I also offered bonus features for the $5/month tier: an ongoing viewing diary for the series True Detective: Night Country (the fourth season of the show whose every episode I covered in the past) and an essay reflecting on the past year in culture and politics through a generational lens. The crown jewel, however, was a podcast on Michael Powell's and Emeric Pressburger's Technicolor ballet masterpiece The Red Shoes - a film I'd never covered and barely if ever even mentioned in my previous work. Suggested by longtime patron Laurence Figgis, the popular pick cleared two rounds of voting including a run-off against Punch Drunk Love, with which it was tied after the first round. Watching this movie for the first time in decades, I was struck by the complexities of the art vs. romance, passion vs. comfort menage a trois trapping rising ballerina Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) between composer/lover Julian Craster (Marius Goring) and impresario/mentor Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook)...

What are the January rewards?

Now on Patreon: True Detective: Night Country viewing diary through February 25

Although pieces of it will be shared in the January and February round-ups (and the larger True Detective directory will be updated as each part is written, as will this post), I wanted to create a separate public announcement for a bonus feature on my $5/month tier. In addition to this month's official reward - currently being decided between Punch Drunk Love and The Red Shoes in this poll (ends tomorrow at noon) - every week I am going to publish a response to the new episodes of True Detective: Night Country, the fourth season of the HBO show I've covered extensively in the past. This time, the series stars Jodie Foster and Kali Reis, is written and directed by Issa Lopez rather than the show's creator Nic Pizzolatto, and follows a couple investigations in a remote corner of Alaska where the sun disappears for months at a time in the winter. My format will be slightly different than those older entries, adopting the summary/response approach I used for Mad Men and other viewing diaries, and I'm hoping these reviews will be relatively short although I did not succeed in that effort when discussing last week's premiere. Here is that entry, published yesterday, with more to come following tonight's Part 2 and Parts 3 - 6 in the coming weeks.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

True Detective viewing diary

Unlike most of my viewing diaries, in which I catch up with shows after they've ended, I followed much of True Detective while it aired. I reviewed the first season in early 2015 - a year after it launched a media sensation. For subsequent seasons, I discussed episodes within days or even hours of their premieres. The first two seasons' viewing diaries were introduced here and here (and the fourth here).

True Detective season 3 episode 8 - "Now Am Found"

This True Detective viewing diary is being written while the new series airs. As such, future readers need not worry: there are no spoilers for upcoming episodes.

This season of True Detective ends not so much with a bang or a whimper as with a sigh, and an ambiguous one at that: a sigh of resignation, satisfaction, trepidation, or bemused awe? This is a finale determined to resolve the central mystery with due diligence, so diligent that it needs an extra fifteen minutes to allow itself the necessary breathing room for more heartfelt matters (including some that still incorporate the big mystery). But the episode unravels its secrets in a measured, muted manner, a stylistic decision both deflating and appropriate; if the first season's somewhat simplified conclusion felt like a betrayal of the grand conspiracizing that had come before, this one has more of an "of course" logic at work. That isn't to say it's entirely successful even within its own parameters; while the third season was careful not to let our expectations get out of hand, this eighth episode is by far the least dramatic and most perfunctory of any installment. The finale's strongest moments arrive when it allows itself to prioritize what has always been Pizzolatto's primary concern: the relationships between the characters.

True Detective season 3 episode 7 - "The Final Country"

This True Detective viewing diary is being written while the new series airs. As such, future readers need not worry: there are no spoilers for upcoming episodes.

The third season of True Detective started strong, with a bold conceptual frame, a hypnotic style, and a comfortably familiar milieu and mystery plot - reassuring us that the series was returning to the strengths of season one and not venturing into over-ambitious season two territory. From there we might have expected a solid eight episodes, putting us on firm ground again with a series and creator we'd grown worried about. And indeed, this story has avoided some of the more grandiose tendencies of the last one, and even ducked some of the first season's flamboyance even as it offers winks and nudges toward a grand unifying theory: an idea which becomes explicit - and appears to be abruptly dismissed - in episode 7 (I've not yet read this article, but am already nodding along with the headline). Eliza displays Rust's and Marty's pictures on her laptop and eagerly puts forward the idea that the Purcell children were kidnapped by a massive pedophile ring related directly to the Tuttle/Yellow King operation busted up by our original protagonists; Wayne of course is having none of it (he even seems a little disappointed/disgusted with how off-track the interviewer is) but less because it's too big and more because it doesn't seem rooted enough in the reality he knows. Surprisingly, the third season is both much more grounded than any previous iteration of the series, and potentially more accomplished as well. There's a strong argument to be made that this is developing into the best-written season of the show - it's certainly the most mature.

True Detective season 3 episode 6 - "Hunters in the Dark"

This True Detective viewing diary is being written while the new series airs. As such, future readers need not worry: there are no spoilers for upcoming episodes.

"You walked away," the aged Roland reminds (or informs?) his long-estranged buddy near the end of the previous episode. Was he being literal? In "Hunters in the Dark," we see Wayne and Roland bicker on a 1990 ride home and the angry Wayne grabs the wheel, storms out of the car, and marches down the road in a cloud of dust as his partner drives away. The incident seems like an explosive but nonetheless temporary rupture in their professional relationship (triggered by Roland's insistence that they stop working for the day, although obviously facilitated by other factors), but what if the two would not speak again for twenty-five years? Considering what happens at the end of episode 6, it's not hard to imagine that the investigation comes to an abrupt end and while we don't see the detectives kill anyone (as some cryptic dialogue suggested they might have) maybe what they were really referring to was their treatment of Tom, driving him over the edge. Then again, there's the question of state cop-turned-Hoyt security man Harris James (Scott Shepherd). Why did he disappear in 1990 if not because a suspicious Wayne and Roland cracked down in private? We'll probably find out soon.

True Detective season 3 episode 5 - "If You Have Ghosts"

This True Detective viewing diary is being written while the new series airs. As such, future readers need not worry: there are no spoilers for upcoming episodes.

As with previous episode fives, "If You Have Ghosts" places us in an "after" position on the central case. We now know what happened to the original investigation - crime scene evidence (planted, as it's later revealed) linked Brett Woodard to the missing kids and so, conveniently, he was posthumously convicted of their murder. The drama of the middle period is in full swing too, having established the basic scenario against which the partners will be torn apart and a family may be separated. In the almost-present, we're shifting from a reflective look back toward a full-on investigation; Wayne reunites with his partner and makes a crucial realization, that Lucy herself wrote the ransom note (he connects the dots after finally reading his wife's book). So far, so familiar as True Detective story structures go. There are some neat quirks to the storytelling: this season's 1990 scenes combine aspects of both the middle and late periods from season one, and, closer to season two, the older characters re-unite to pursue a non-professional investigation at the end of this episode, rather than waiting for the sixth. And of course, we now have a significantly expanded time span to work with (three and a half decades vs. half that time in the original season). Despite these and other small variations, Nic Pizzolatto prefers a certain loose formula and it works quite well here, lending the episode a good deal of its dramatic satisfaction. However, the episode's more profound impact stems from something new.

True Detective season 3 episode 4 - "The Hour and the Day"

This True Detective viewing diary is being written while the new series airs. As such, future readers need not worry: there are no spoilers for upcoming episodes. Incidentally, I'm going to switch to a first-name basis for the detectives to match other characters; it just flows better.

Mahershala Ali continues to flourish as the undoubted protagonist of True Detective. For whatever reason, his makeup/performance as the elderly Wayne feels slightly less convincing this round but he is still a strong presence in the younger sequences, an iteration of the Pizzolatto detective persona that feels fully lived-in rather than superimposed on the actor. And after an unassuming debut, Stephen Dorff is emerging as a fascinating character in his own right, sturdy in both eras in very different ways. After the last episode hinted at the outcome of his friendship with Tom in the 1990 timeline, the roots are excavated in "The Hour and the Days"' 1980 scenes; Roland discovers the grieving alcoholic father at his absolute lowest and something in him pities the man. Both actors are excellent, and both characters are quite compelling. However, I think my favorite so far, for both acting and writing (and the way the two element complement one another), is Carmen Ejogo as Amelia. In the wrong hands, the part could miss the mark but Ejogo crafts a convincing portrait of curiosity, confidence, and confusion - do I get an A for alliteration, Ms. Reardon?

True Detective season 3 episode 3 - "The Big Never"

This True Detective viewing diary is being written while the new series airs. As such, future readers need not worry: there are no spoilers for upcoming episodes.

From the chaotic details established in the premiere, a story is beginning to coalesce in the detectives' minds. While the big picture remains foggy, at least one thing now seems clear: the Purcell children had a "secret friend," likely an adult, with whom they were meeting and communicating. They didn't just lie to their father about meeting a classmate on this particular day - the children hadn't hung out together for months before the disappearance. This dawning realization, stretching from a conversation between Hays and West early in the episode to the discovery of a photo album (with a first communion snapshot echoing Will's death pose), lends the 1980 sequence one of its primary throughlines. Another important element reveals itself when Hays stumbles across the probable crime scene in the woods (a stash of toys and a bloody rock suggest a meeting and a murder - or accident?), and then he proceeds to a dirt road where a not-entirely-trustworthy farmer (Mike Hickman) lives. The man claims he's already been visited by police and mentions an interracial couple who used to show up nearby in a brown car, but not on the same days he'd spot the children wandering by.

True Detective season 3 episodes 1 & 2 - "The Great War and Modern Memory" & "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye"

This True Detective viewing diary is being written while the new series airs. As such, future readers need not worry: there are no spoilers for upcoming episodes.

If "The Great War and Modern Memory" - the first half of True Detective's return to HBO after a three and half year hiatus - is at pains to establish one virtue above all others, that virtue is maturity. Having made a splash as the intense wunderkind behind the first True Detective in the winter of 2014, series writer/creator Nic Pizzolatto flamed out spectacularly with a rushed second season the following summer. Abandoning most of the qualities that made the first season so popular, Pizzolatto's ambitious sophomore slump received a widespread backlash targeting not just the messiness of the storytelling but the hubris of Pizzolatto himself, whose offscreen interviews and on-set domineering rubbed many critics the wrong way. Just shy of forty when the show ended, his rising star looked more like a shooting one, which had burned out much more quickly than expected. HBO dragged its feet commissioning a third season and Pizzolatto disappeared from the public eye. There were hints that perhaps HBO would seek another project from him and then, little by little, word got out that True Detective was slowly and surely assembling a third season after all. Now, in a surprisingly different cultural moment, that third season arrives with a confident but relatively muted rollout, as if to announce that the newly middle-aged showrunner has been humbled without losing his identity. That's the background. But what do we see onscreen?

True Detective: thoughts on seasons 1 & 2

There are spoilers for both seasons of True Detective, which I just covered in a viewing diary.

When I finished reviewing season 1 of True Detective a few months ago, I realized that beneath the confident virtuosity of the show's presentation was a fundamental confusion about what it really wanted to achieve. Was it an eerie, atmospheric exploration of occult iconography and themes? Or did it use esoteric elements as window dressing for a fairly straightforward procedural tale? Were the main characters deeply flawed antiheroes in the vein of The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, or Mad Men? Or were their blunders and blemishes, once again, window dressing to gussy up standard hero-cops for the gritty modern era? Despite being clearly organized around the perspectives of the two detectives, did the narrative strive to recognize and honor the points of view of supporting characters (most notably Marty Hart's wife and oldest daughter), and even minor characters in the eclectic ensembles, like the young prostitute or the alcoholic preacher? Or were they too window-dressing, added to suggest the aura of a sprawling saga with numerous voices without actually putting in the hard work of sustaining such ambition? Was the ominous statewide conspiracy integral to the story, its larger object despite being anchored in a particular case? Or was it... well, you get the picture. Did True Detective have true gravitas or, to paraphrase a famous dismissal of Twin Peaks, did it have nothing at all in its gritty little head except the desire to impress?

True Detective season 2 episode 8 - "Omega Station"

This True Detective viewing diary is being written while the new series airs. As such, future readers need not worry: there are no spoilers for upcoming episodes.

The first season of True Detective used the hook of its plot to lure viewers into what was essentially a character study. The finale - despite many loose ends - essentially maintained this facade, hinging its climax around the discovery and confrontation with the killer whose gruesome crime opened the series. We lingered with the characters after this climax passed, allowing the season to close on their personal rather than professional resolutions but Pizzolatto maintained a balance between resolving the mystery and emphasizing the narrative arc of the heroes. The second season of True Detective, whose plot has been far more byzantine, tips this balance emphatically toward the characters: rather than lead us further into the intrigue, they essentially become its focal point. This is achieved by dumping answers early in the episode but also by the general, diffuse nature of the conspiracy so that it eventually seems less important for itself than for the threat it provides to our three remaining protagonists. The result is a satisfying, fast-paced, and fairly engrossing ninety minutes - flawed to be sure, but correct in its priorities.

True Detective season 2 episode 7 - "Black Maps and Motel Rooms"

This True Detective viewing diary is being written while the new series airs. As such, future readers need not worry: there are no spoilers for upcoming episodes.

Once again, my True Detective coverage has been bumped up to a Monday; this week's random post (my latest video) will go up on Thursday instead. The season 2 finale will probably go up on Tuesday next week.

"Black Maps and Motel Rooms" is certainly the most straightforward True Detective episode title in two seasons, suggesting that the show has burnt through its reservoirs of cagey artfulness and is ready to settle for straightforward procedural description. Well, so am I. I'm thankful for last week's episode but as expected it was a glimpse of season 2's potential greatness, not a sign that this greatness would be consistently realized. How could it be, when this glimpse arrived nearly 3/4 of the way into the season? Episode 7 continues the plot-heavy trend of the post-shootout episodes; similarly to episode 7 of the first season, it sidelines character development in favor of escalating the investigation and leading us to the doorstep of the killer. Although this time we are not provided with a definitive answer, most signs point toward Caspere's secretary, who was probably the orphaned girl from the jewelery heist in '92. In several significant ways, however, this penultimate episode differs from season 1's.

True Detective season 2 episode 6 - "Church in Ruins"

This True Detective viewing diary is being written while the new series airs. As such, future readers need not worry: there are no spoilers for upcoming episodes.

Finally! It's impossible to ask a single episode to do the heavy lifting for an entire season but "Church in Ruins" comes way closer than I could have expected after five disappointing entries of True Detective. You want Velcoro's paternal pathos to actually land, so that you can genuinely empathize with both his and his son's (and his ex-wife's) discomfort? Check. Looking for the various strands of the mystery to come together in ways that don't just involve characters discussing their connections onscreen (if we're even lucky enough to get that)? Got it. Tired of Rachel McAdams simmering in the background, giving her all but mostly wasted in a "gotta give 'em a female cop, but damned if we know what to do with her?" role? Well damn, she not only gets a piece of the action (after being sadly sidelined in the heat of episode 4) and really well-handled, disturbing character development (a flashback to childhood molestation, presumably on her father's compound, which is convincingly intermingled with her involvement with the party). Ani Bezzerides also features as the dramatic centerpiece of the show's final twenty minutes, in a fashion that has so far been reserved only for the other characters. And Chekhov's knives are not wasted.

True Detective season 2 episode 5 - "Other Lives"

This True Detective viewing diary is being written while the new series airs. As such, future readers need not worry: there are no spoilers for upcoming episodes.

This episode left me confused, but with a better sense of how this season is going to shake out for better and, sadly, for worse. A few minutes in, I had really perked up. As expected from last week's preview, the shootout represents a huge turning point in the story. Finally, I thought, we're moving! No more endless repetition of True Detective's two basic templates: a) the detectives question someone who reveals that (surprise) Caspere was a pervert, b) Semyon shakes down an old ally in passive-aggressive fashion. Sure enough, the case has officially been closed (with last week's dead pimp unsurprisingly pinned as the culprit), the characters variously resigned, traded, or demoted from their jobs, and Semyon even gets a nice role reversal when two creepy goons show up at his casino to threaten him (he manages to chase them away, but we're left with the distinct impression that they have the upper hand). With everything unsettled and uncertain, we've nowhere to go but up. Again, Pizzolatto is echoing the structure of last season, as he did in the previous episode. Unfortunately, if True Detective is beginning to move, it is also tripping over itself. There are quite a lot of stumbles in this episode, a few big ones due to the writing, and many small ones due to the direction.

True Detective season 2 episode 4 - "Down Will Come"

This True Detective viewing diary is being written while the new series airs. As such, future readers need not worry: there are no spoilers for upcoming episodes.

I thought this episode would decide True Detective's season two potential for me, determining whether or not I should have any expectations beyond standard cop procedural. After all, nearly halfway through the series nothing really big had happened so far - except for Ray Velcoro getting shot, which proved to be little more than a red herring tease. If episode four didn't introduce some juicy new material, or offer a mindblowing twist, I felt it would be time to accept that we're not going to get anything on par with season one. Instead, I am just as uncertain as ever. The season still hasn't convinced me it has something more compelling up its sleeve than the conventional small-city corruption noir plot, and the characters remain potential - perhaps they are all just too reserved compared to Cohle and Hart. Nonetheless, for reasons both subtle (breathing room for character moments) and obvious (that catastrophic shootout in the last ten minutes), I'm not ready to dismiss the season's potential. I've already glimpsed some negative headlines, but for me this was probably the best episode so far - not to say it was great.

True Detective season 2 episode 3 - "Maybe Tomorrow"

This True Detective viewing diary is being written while the new series airs. As such, future readers need not worry: there are no spoilers for upcoming episodes.

There is a certain mordant self-awareness to this episode's title, though it would be better called "Maybe Next Week." After the anticipation-charged debut of episode 1 and the memorable close of episode 2, episode 3 feels very much like a placeholder. In this it resembles "Who Goes There" from season one, with a crucial difference. That chapter of the investigation embraced its episodic function by telling a standalone story in the midst of its ongoing saga (in that case, Rust Cohle's infiltration of a biker gang, culminating in a memorable heist). I was frustrated by this decision at the time, wishing that the show would continue to focus on the big picture. But in retrospect, that approach is preferable to merely treading water, as "Maybe Tomorrow" does. The last line of the episode is that very title, as if the characters themselves know they haven't made much progress in learning who killed Ben Caspere - or, more importantly, hinting at why we should care.

True Detective season 2 episode 2 - "Night Finds You"

This True Detective viewing diary is being written while the new series airs. As such, future readers need not worry: there are no spoilers for upcoming episodes.

With its mission clear and basic exposition out of the way, this second episode is a more satisfying experience than the first. It also makes the premiere look sharper in retrospect. Now that we're able to see the characters interacting (which not only provides dramatic momentum, but allows them to come out of their shells), the laborious set-up of the previous hour feels more justified. Even minor moments, like Woodrugh interacting with Velcoro's partner, are revealing and intriguing. Bezzerides and Velcoro have the most notable pairing, sharing many of the investigative duties throughout the episode. When Velcoro compares her e-cig to "sucking a robot's dick" she doesn't actually come out and tell him to shut up, but you can see it in her eyes; it seems like maybe they will be the closest thing to a Cohle/Hart pairing this season. Well, at least it seems that way until the ending...but more on that in a moment.

True Detective season 2 episode 1 - "The Western Book of the Dead" (episode 2 appears tomorrow)

This True Detective viewing diary is being written while the new series airs. As such, future readers need not worry: there are no spoilers for upcoming episodes.

True Detective's second season finds itself in a unique position. On the one hand, it has nothing to do with season one: different characters, different location, with the freedom to engage in an entirely different visual style and mode of storytelling. Even the director of season one, Cary Jo Fukunaga, is gone, to be replaced by a series of other directors (unlike that memorable first season, one filmmaker will not be overseeing the entire narrative). This could almost be seen as writer Nic Pizzolatto's "follow-up project" to the acclaimed miniseries that aired a year and a half ago on HBO. On the other hand, the title alone brings certain expectations with it, and if the new season abandons too many of True Detective's touchstones - the ongoing central mystery spread over eight episodes, the dual cop protagonists, the hints of corruption, conspiracy, and occultism haunting the show's psychosphere - many viewers will be disappointed. Is True Detective simply Pizzolatto's canny method to package his separate stories for a built-in audience? Or will there be a singular sensibility, style, and even story structure linking these disparate seasons?