Why So Blu?

True Detective: The Complete Second Season (Blu-ray Review)

They say lightning doesn’t strike twice, but I beg to differ…at least in the world of entertainment.  When we’re talking about Hollywood I can think of many second films in a franchise that are just as good as their predecessors with obvious examples being classics such as The Godfather Part II, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, The Dark Knight, Rocky II and many more.  However, when you’re talking about serial television the list gets narrower for me like 24‘s second season, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena or Game of Thrones, etc.  Television is a tricky arena to succeed because you don’t have two to three hours to wow your audience you have a whole ten plus hours to feed or bore your audience with programming.  An odd commercial break or an uncomfortable cliffhanger can deter some ADD fans.  Have a bad episode or two sandwiched between perfection and who knows how many viewers may have tuned out mid season not giving the latter half any candidacy.  It gets even harder when you’re talking HBO’s True Detective.  That first season was a masterpiece, a work of art.  Did lightning strike twice for HBO in the second season of this anthology series?  Find out down below in my Blu-ray review of True Detective: The Complete Second Season.

Season 

I won’t keep you in suspense like the series tries to do to you.  The short answer to my lightning striking twice question up above is no.  However, don’t blow that one syllable word out of proportion.  While lightning did not strike twice for HBO with the critics and fans alike in the second season of True Detective, that’s not to say there’s not a lot to like about it either.  Look at my score up above.  I just don’t give out 4.5’s to any old thing like a Mexican restaurant gives out free mints to customers in a candy jar on the way out.  No way!  True Detective: The Complete Second Season earns its 4.5-score merits the hard way, through sheer blood, sweat and tears.  I’ll tell you why I feel the way I do down below, but first we have to get all the introductions and main players out of the way.

So yeah, even though the second season of True Detective did not completely live up to the big shoes it had to fill of its predecessor (you can read all about it here), it still was one of the most-talked-about and most-watched shows of the summer (averaging 11 million viewers).  And since the show is an anthology series you better believe the second season featured an all new cast.  This is not some American Horror Story BS where you see actors regurgitated season after season.  However, you would think when you see this returning man’s name all over the place the magic and allure of the first season would be instantly supplanted within season two, but like we said up above lightning doesn’t always strike twice.  That man’s name is the series’ creator and main writer Nic Pizzolatto.  Interestingly enough, a couple episodes are even directed by Justin Lin (the first two).  However, let’s not get off track too much here.  Let’s talk next about the main star power you’ll find here.

The second season stars Colin Farrell as the very troubled detective and father, Ray Velcoro (I love that last name).  His loyalties are torn between serving his corrupt police department and the mobster who basically calls the shots for him.  Other than that, he’s a really swell guy (you’ll see…#TeamVelcoro).  Vince Vaughn portrays Frank Semyon, a criminal trying to legitimatize his business.  He’s in danger of losing everything due to the untimely murder of his business partner.  Kelly Reilly earns her stripes as Jordan Semyon, Frank’s wife, who must not only struggle with her husband’s dangerous choices, but her own as well.  Rachel McAdams plays the tough sheriff detective Ani Bezzerides and Taylor Kitsch stars as Paul Woodrugh, a war veteran and highway patrol motorcycle officer with a messed up past.  What do all these four character have in common?  Quite simply, one way or another by the end of the first episode they all become unwillingly part of the mysterious scandal that rocks season two of our show here.

The second season’s story takes place in the fictional, corrupt city of Vinci, California (supposedly based on Vernon, California) and as we already established up above it follows the interweaving stories of officers from three police departments.  This all gets set into motion within the very first episode when a certain California Highway Patrol officer discovers the body of a corrupt city manager on the side of a highway.  Vinci Police Department detective Raymond Velcoro (Farrell) and Ventura County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigation Division Sergeant Ani Bezzerides (McAdams) are called to assist in the investigation. Meanwhile, Frank Semyon (Vaughn) lost a lot of loot when this city manager is found dead prompting him to start his own dangerous investigation.  Who killed the city manager?  Where’s Frank’s money?  Who has the most to gain out of all this?  Just how far deep does this scandal go?  Ladies and gentlemen, this is what True Detective: The Complete Second Season is all about.

This second season received generally positive reviews, but mixed reviews in the reviewing community.  It definitely did not fill the very big shoes left by its predecessor, but at the same time it never sunk to a ridiculous low either.  In other words, it wasn’t Empire, but it was damn close.  Maybe you can think of it as The Matrix: Reloaded where it tried its hardest to separate itself from that of the first season thus making it feel like it can stand alone and organically different from that of the first season.  The highlights of this season for me were the strong performances of Farrell, Kitsch and even McAdams, the outstanding cinematography this series is known for, and of course some of the action sequences like “The Vinci Massacre,” which we gets its own special feature on disc 3 in this set.

The cons, in my opinion, unlike the first season would be the show’s kind of cliche police situational drama and predictable plot points/twists, but I swear to God I did not see “The Vinci Massacre” happening or that other moment involving my beloved Colin Farrell (if you can’t tell he was my favorite in this season).  I think overall the relationships in this one trump the weaknesses.  Then there’s the subject of funnyman Vince Vaughn that we haven’t even broached yet.  This is a hard one to discuss since you naturally want to root for him because he’s such a likable guy in all his other films, but this isn’t like everything else he has previously done.  For a lot of people, because of the way he’s typecast in comedic roles, they had a hard time taking him seriously.  I honestly did not feel this way at all.  He felt like a bad a$$ the entire season save for one fight scene where I admit to wandering my suspension of disbelief as it relates to him, but I digress as he was actual plausible for my tastes and I look forward to seeing him try something like this again in another project.  

Like the first season, this one’s also a serious character study if you’re one of those who can take Vaughn seriously.  Each of the four main characters are deeply flawed in their own way.  I don’t want to rehash any of the earlier plot points or introductions I made up above other than to say some I found more interesting than others.  I can probably relate to that of Farrell and Vaughn’s characters the most.  Ray (Farrell) just seems tortured and conflicted between what is right and how to live life.  I can definitely relate to that while Frank (Vaughn) is on the verge of losing everything material in life, namely his lifelong empire he worked so hard to achieve.  OMG!  I can definitely relate to that in my past too.  The other two characters have their lifelong issues as well, but what I am trying to point out is that I think you’ll gravitate towards a few of them more than others because of reliability.  Hopefully now you get my #TeamVelcoro jib up above.  He’s just so damn cool and flawed the way he makes horrible misguided mistakes.  He plays his character perfectly too.  It’s hard not to love him.  Haha.  And the sh1t that comes out of his mouth…it’s mind blowing.  I have picked up on so many great one-liners from his character, but I digress.

Last but certainly not least I wanted to briefly talk about the music of True Detective: The Complete Second Season.  T Bone Burnett returned as the show’s composer.  Leonard Cohen’s “Nevermind” is the opening theme song, which is his 2014 album, Popular Problems.  The cool thing about this all besides the song’s catchy groove was that its lyrics change with every episode.  Also featured prominently throughout season two of True Detective is that of Lera Lynn’s music.  The song “The Only Thing Worth Fighting For”, which she composed with Burnett and Rosanne Cash, is the catchy one that hooked you all in when HBO was teasing you with in the trailer before the start of season two.  Lynn ended up collaborating with Burnett on writing several original songs for the series.  And you’re probably wondering why I’m spending so much time talking about the music here, right?  Rest assured I’m roping that all in now.  I say this because to me the music, while haunting and beautiful, becomes almost a parody in itself here, and I’ll tell you why.  Lynn also portrays a bar singer in this season, where she performs all of these songs almost every week.  It’s a cool idea, but in my opinion the novelty wore quickly by the third time around.  However, that’s just my two cents.

We need to move along because we still have the Blu-ray’s vitals to discuss next, but first I wanted to take a very brief moment to list out the episodes as they appear in order across this three-disc Blu-ray season 2 set.  Here’s how things shake out across the three Blu-rays:

“The Western Book of the Dead” (Disc 1) – Written by Nic Pizzolatto, Directed by Justin Lin

“Night Finds You” (Disc 1) – Written by Nic Pizzolatto, Directed by Justin Lin

“Maybe Tomorrow” (Disc 1) – Written by Nic Pizzolatto, Directed by Janus Metz

“Down Will Come” (Disc 2) – Written by Nic Pizzolatto and Scott Lasser, Directed by Jeremy Podeswa

“Other Lives” (Disc 2) – Written by Nic Pizzolatto, Directed by John Crowley

“Church in Ruins” (Disc 2) – Written by Nic Pizzolatto and Scott Lasser, Directed by Miguel Sapochnik

“Black Maps and Motel Rooms“ (Disc 3) – Written by Nic Pizzolatto, Directed by Daniel Attias

“Omega Station” (Disc 3) – Written by Nic Pizzolatto, Directed by John Crowley

Video 

• Encoding: MPEG-4 AVC
• Resolution: 1080p
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Clarity/Detail: The clarity and detail of this Blu-ray presentation is prominent throughout, especially in the closeups.  Every out of place strand of hair and unwanted mole is clearly on display for all to see, including the 5 o’clock shadow stubble on Farrell’s chiseled chin.  In addition, the sets are remarkably struck with realism and keen detail such as the wood grain patterns in panels, rocks in stone surfaces and so on and so on.  However, there are moments where this picture suffers from what I call two-dimensionality where the onscreen grain makes things feel a little flat, but rest assured these moments are few and far between.
• Depth: The onscreen characters, for the most part, all have that three-dimensional pop to them so they give all the rich backgrounds an ultra sense of depth.  However, look no farther than some of the amazing shots of California landscapes (including Vinci’s water tower against the CA backdrop), majestic mountains or even the casino floor visible from the one-way mirror in Frank’s second floor office.
• Black Levels: The black levels were all deep and inky especially in the night scenes where things really pop against the crisp blackness of the night.
• Color Reproduction: The colors are mainly muted matching the grim subject matter, but rest assured when allowed they truly shine with vibrancy such as that rare moment where onscreen subjects wander out into the bright sun.  Although colors never really pop throughout the palette seems quite accurate.
• Flesh Tones: The skin tones all look natural to me.  I have no qualms here.
• Noise/Artifacts: The only thing I would have to nitpick about was kind of already discussed up above.  There is a thin, veneer layer of grain throughout and because of that a few scenes here or there do feel kind of flat when the grain levels are slightly amped.  However, that’s my only observation.  Everything else looks amazing!

Audio 

• Audio Format(s):  English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, French DTS Digital Surround Sound 5.1, Latin Spanish DTS Digital Surround 2.0
• Subtitles: English SDH, French, Latin Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
• Dynamics: The dynamics are what make this show truly spectacular from the haunting quiet moments t0 the in your face explosions that rock your viewing room and mind.  Onscreen environments are organically captured in this HD surround presentation.
• Low Frequency Extension: The LFE not only complements and fills in the holes of the haunting score and ambience, but it also kicks you in the arse in such key moments when say a meth lab blows up on the top floor in an industrial parkway and whatnot.
• Surround Sound Presentation: The surround sound package here is what puts me in the game and completely immerses me in the explosions, gunfire and chaos of the four character’s messed up lives.  The T Bone Burnett score bleeds into and infects the rear channels while the gun fire ricochets past you making you duck down in your viewing seat.  Equally impressive is the industrial ambience that fills and complements the rears.
• Dialogue Reproduction: Spoken dialog is clear, loud and intelligible throughout.  I had no problems understanding what is being said at all.

Extras 

HBO’s True Detective: The Complete Second Season is a 3-disc Blu-ray set.  I have taken the liberty of sharing some unboxing photos with you down below for anyone interested in taking a peek or gander at the lavish cardboard packaging.  Like the past season, HBO graciously provides you with a redeemable code good for True Detective: The Complete Second Season in Digital HD, both in iTunes and UltraViolet formats.  That’s a huge win-win no matter how you slice it.  The extras that we’ll cover below all appear on disc 3 of the set with the exception being one audio commentary found on disc 2.  Each episode is selectable via the Index from the Episodes option off the main disc menu and allows you to Play, Preview or Recap.  I have to admit though, it’s kind of clumsy.  Two episodes as denoted below have a selectable audio commentary accessible via this same path as just described off the main menu.  Let’s take a closer investigative look at everything down below.

• Making “The Vinci Massacre” (HD, 29:28) – Nic and others discuss the 5-day explosive scene they dub “The Vinci Massacre,” which is full of car crashes, bullets, explosions, etc.  I remember the episode when this happened the first time I saw Season 2.  You kind of don’t see it coming the last ten minutes of that particular episode, at least I didn’t (that was their intent too so you experience it with the characters in a heightened way).  As the crew will tell you, this is pretty much like an action movie here in this scene.  We get to see a lot of the behind-the-scenes preparations and rehearsals for this too as well as all the special effects.
• A Look Inside True Detective (HD, 10:16) – The cast chat about the depth of their characters and the overall story either through an interview-like setup or documentary style.  This also offers a behind-the-scenes look at the filming of certain scenes.  The four leads really seem very excited and appreciative of their opportunity they had to work on this show.  I like that.  They also discuss what Vinci is.  Interesting to also learn about the Black Rose and the music T Bone Burnett wrote exclusively for these scenes.
• True Detective‘s California (HD, 3:56) – This one is basically night and daytime aerial shots of the California landscapes where this second season takes place set to the phenomenal, haunting song “Lately” performed by Lera Lynn.  Think of it as a musical landscape video if you would.
• Audio Commentaries (HD, Discs 2 & 3) – There are two audio commentaries tone found in this set, one on disc 2 and the other on the third.  I broke them out as follows below:
  • Episode 4, “Down Will Come,” contains an optional commentary with Nic Pizzolatto, Collin Farrell, Vince Vaughn, Rachel McAdams and Taylor Kitsch.  I honestly wish there were more of these.
  • Episode 8, “The Omega Station,” contains an optional audio commentary with Nic Pizzolatto, Scott Stephens, Colin Farrell and Vince Vaughn.

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Here’s what everything looks like under the wrapper of this 3-disc Blu-ray set.  Enjoy!

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Summary 

So in recap let’s hash this out once more.  Most people will say what a letdown season two was from it’s first outing.  I disagree.  It’s different.  Different is good.  What if it was the more of the same?  Would you have all complained like you did about The Hangover: Part II?  Of course you would have.  Look at me, I’m not the biggest Rachel McAdams fan there is, but I adapt and I learned to really enjoy and appreciate her performance here in these eight episodes.  And that’s just it.  It’s all about what you take in here with you, your preconceptions so to speak.  If you walk into season two planning on hating it then guess what, you’re probably going to hate it.  After all, a hater’s going to hate.  However, if you want a fresh, new police drama with deep character study and flaws to boot, then True Detective: The Complete Second Season is the show for you.  It’s not season one.  That was a masterpiece.  This is season two, completely different from its predecessor in almost every way.  Embrace it for what it’s worth and while you’re at it make sure to root for Farrell’s character.  He’s very conflicted and confused, and he could use your support.  Thanks!

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PRE-ORDER HBO’s True Detective

The Complete Second Season

on Blu-ray and DVD January 5th!

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