In my review of the first episode of the second season of True Detective I mentioned that the episode had a kind of excessive allusiveness to it, as if writer Nic Pizzolatto and director Justin Lin were trying to clue you in to their awareness of the vast history of California noir. There were references to Chinatown, The Maltese Falcon, the novels of James Ellroy, etc. Now, having taken some time to ruminate on the season as a whole, it is clear that a big part of what made this season so problematic was that this habit never went away. The continual flood of references actually became the fabric of the show, taking the place of an original story.
Now, obviously, the first season of True Detective was referential as well. The Lovecraft and Robert Chambers stuff was right there on the surface. But in the first season it was thematic material that enhanced the central mysteries: who killed Dora Lange, and why? One of the principle differences between seasons one and two was the way such references were integrated into a larger artistic vision. Not to beat a dead horse, but Cary Fukanaga had a strong enough artistic sensibility that he wasn't overwhelmed by references. It is, at the end of the day, a question of artistic confidence that season two lacked.
In the finale, for instance, Ray and Ani are running from the train station after yet another shoot out. The visual vocabulary of the scene is drawn from Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys, and Chris Marker's Le Jetee, and, if one were to find meaning in the allusion, we might say that the visual vocabulary highlights the degree to which all of the actions the characters have taken, up until the finale, have been designed to replicate the very structure they were fighting against. Which, cool. But it would be helpful if the directors, in order to make sense of the script (which ran this season in equal parts incomprehensible and vapidly predictable), one didn't need to pin moments in the action to cultural references whose meaning was already clear in order for the audience to understand. Less time reflecting on the water stains on the ceiling, please, and more time explaining who Stan was and you wouldn't NEED to do that kind of stuff. It could just be frosting on a more substantial cake.
This is a similar kind of problem to the one faced by The Big Bang Theory, the most popular comedy airing on network television. This is a show that, for the better part of a decade, has drawn laughs not out of carefully constructed jokes or situations, but out of the force of sheer recognition. "Schrodinger's Cat," a character might say, "oh, I know what that is, and they are using it to explain the sexual tension in a relationship, how droll" the audience replies. But there is a reason that this show grates on the sensibilities of viewers who are accustomed to better. Recognizing something, and being happy to see it, is easy. Granted it isn't as easy as the material on Two and a Half Men, the show from which Big Bang plucked the crown of TVs most watched comedy, but it is pretty easy nevertheless. But I won't even complain too much about Big Bang. Mass market sitcoms are supposed to be big and dumb. For every Seinfeld or Frasier that really rises above in terms of quality, you get a Friends or a Cheers that are happy to muddle along in the middle.
But True Detective is supposed to be prestige television, and Pizzolatto spends a lot of time from episode to episode hoping that we are entranced by his language, his philosophy, and his artistic daring. When the result of that solipsism is a script that makes no sense, directors are forced to dig deep into the well of visual vocabulary to try to make sense of what they have been given, and with each director only directing two episodes, they were forced to choose big points of reference and go from there, not having the time, space, or power that Fukanaga had to weave an intricate and compelling visual web. The result is more obvious allusions, more awkward shot/reverse shots, and more two shots of what felt like one of the stars and a body double of the character they were supposed to be talking to. There was no common energy. No verve. The final result was a season that felt like it was being watched through Ted Mosby's sensory depravator 5000.
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