Walking old ground

Strangely, we've spent more time in front of the TV these days. Crazy, I know. With that in mind, one or both of us have sat down to watch things that came highly recommended within the past few years that we haven't gotten to. And, no, one of those things was not Tiger King. I realize it may be all the rage right now, but I sat through 40 minutes of the first episode to see what the fuss was about and turned it off. It was like an episode of Inside Edition, except longer and dumber (For those of you not old enough to remember Inside Edition, it was where Bill O'Reilly got his start in leading a "news" program, if that gives you any insight.) If I want to watch contemptible people trying to justify their awful or ridiculous behavior, I can watch our idiot president every day. I don't need to see animal cruelty on top of pettiness.

But one of the things we have watched that was worthwhile is Fargo. As a devoted Coen Brothers adherent, I am, of course, a fan of one of their greatest films. There were a couple people on the board constantly recommending the series as one of the best things on TV for a year or two, but we'd just never gotten around to recording it. (Does anyone actually watch TV with commercials, unrecorded, now that sports aren't happening?) Having watched the first season, I'd have to say that they were probably right. It certainly doesn't hurt that season 1 is basically just the film extrapolated to a larger picture. Lester Nygaard's (Martin Freeman) scheme is more impromptu than Jerry Lundegaard's and Molly Solverson (Allison Tolman) isn't pregnant or the chief of police, but the essence of the story remains the same, without a wood chipper, but with far more death and destruction. One of the keys to telling a good story in modern, serialized television is keeping a certain pace. That demands solid writing, directing, and especially editing. I think season 1 achieved that by constantly turning the bizarreness screw, but not turning it so fast that it became farce. Instead, we were regularly re-interested in what was happening with Lester, Molly, Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton), and their cast of supporting characters. No individual storyline rose above another, to where we were occasionally waiting for one scene to end to get back to another, more entrancing character.

There can be no argument that those production qualities were helped along by a stellar cast. Both Freeman and Thornton played characters that were similar to what they've done before, but neither with quite as much edge, in my experience. Thornton does "implacable" quite well, but usually not with as much malice. Similarly, Freeman does "bumbling" really well, but never to the point where he's finally lashed out and shown just how dangerous he can be. But the pinnacle to me was Tolman. She was delightful every time she came on screen and she played her role so subtly that it lent weight to the "reality" of the situation. We've all been in situations where we thought our boss and everyone around them were idiots, but no one (normally) explodes with indignation. Neither did Molly, as she simply swallowed the outrage of being the only competent person in the room and kept trying to do her duty (and a bit more.) I thought sheriff Bill Oswalt (Bob Odenkirk) really highlighted this by being clueless not because he was stupid, but because he was just looking at things from a small-town person perspective and was genuinely shocked at the level of perfidy that was happening in that small town, enacted by people that he'd known for most of his life. Again, that's a genuinely normal reaction in abnormal circumstances and I think that kind of thing made it more digestible to the audience. It was also kind of funny to see Keith Carradine again playing the retired lawman role, similar to what he'd played in Dexter, many years ago.

That, of course, leads right into season 2, which is about the younger Lou Solverson, among others. We're three episodes in and... we've kinda stopped. There are good story elements there and there is, at the very least, an interesting cast (Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons of Breaking Bad fame, Ted Danson.) But, despite keeping that "edge of bizarre but still reality" motif, season 2 seems to lack the charm of the first season and the film, which was an essential element of what made both of them compelling. We'll probably get back to it, at some point, but right now it feels very much like a sophomore slump.

Speaking of sophomore slumps, let's talk about True Detective. We picked up HBO for free for a few days, so I thought I'd look in on the third season. As many of you may remember, I think the first season is one of the best things HBO has ever done, which is a very high bar, while the second season was a faceplant of genuinely epic proportions. Somehow, HBO continued to let Nic Pizzolatto be the showrunner and he did them the service of basically ripping himself off. In short, season 3 is a retread of season 1. It's largely the same premise: missing children, weird dolls, backwoods mysticism, local people covering for their own, etc. The genuinely new elements are twofold: 1. Issues of race in the South (Really?!) are confronted head on. 2. The format of following the investigation through three different time periods (1980, 1990, 2015) is an interesting one that keeps the story moving. Otherwise, more people might have figured out that this was just season 1 set in Arkansas.

The story is entirely based upon the relationship between Wayne "Purple" Hays (Mahershala Ali) and Amelia Reardon (Carmen Ejogo) which, again, is just like season 1. The latter was also centered around the relationship between Marty and Rust. That was the important part; not dead children or perv hoarders living in old fortifications out in the bayou. Same thing here. The dynamics of Wayne and Amelia completely supersede the "buddy cop" situation of Hays and Roland West (Stephen Dorff); thankfully, since the latter isn't much of a "buddy" situation and there isn't anywhere near the magnetism between Ali and Dorff as there was between Harrelson and McConaughey. Considering their importance, it's gratifying to see both Ali and Ejogo completely carry the season; especially Ali, whose emotional reactions and expressions utterly sell scene after scene. I'm a Mahershala Ali fan in the first place (his performance in Moonlight is a must-see), but he was really excellent here. It was also encouraging to see female characters who actively propelled the story forward, like Amelia, rather than being scenery.

All of that said, unlike season 1, having seen it once, I have no compulsion to go back and see season 3 again; largely because we were retreading old ground from the beginning. The LA experiment crashed and burned in season 2, so Pizzolatto headed back to his home territory and... basically told the same story. I mean, I guess that's fine, if that's your schtick. Aaron Sorkin has gotten away with it for most of his career. But there were some really questionable approaches in the wrap-up, too. Like season 2's "entire plot contained in one desk drawer", we basically had an Agatha Christie summation in the final episode of this season. This wasn't about leaving unanswered questions or letting the characters (and the audience!) make their own decisions about what happened. No, this was all wrapped up with a nice bow on top. The End. Happily Ever After. Much of the final episode was like reading the Wikipedia summary of the entire series, which basically could've been "Watch season 1, instead." Also, the final image was strange. Hays being a LRP in Vietnam was an aspect of his character but not a really prominent one, so to close the series with him ducking into the bush again seemed markedly out of place after having summarized your whole story as being about the connections of family (both murder/kidnapping case and on a personal level.) Unless Pizzolatto was just going all Jacob's Ladder on us. The most absurdly funny aspect to this season was watching HBO's Inside the Episode shorts after each one, where Pizzolatto spares no effort to pat himself on the back for "how good this scene was" or "how much I like this part of the story." All creative types have to have some degree of ego. Most are usually more adept at containing it. I think I'm going to go rewatch Chernobyl...