The funniest thing about this is that Jake probably waited on hold for 30 minutes just to get that zinger in and the payoff was totally worth it. Any time you have a chance to say “penis” on live TV, you’ve gotta shoot your shot. Almost wish he would’ve went a little more obscene, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.
If laughing when one of our sports hosts in Cleveland gets called a “penis head” on live TV is wrong then I never want to be right in my lifetime.
Well…it’s finally over. If you’re reading this you probably a) watched the entire second season of True Detective and b) are alive, so unlike the penised protagonists in the show itself, you made it through eight episodes and lived to tell the tale. Omega Station wrapped up the labyrinth that was season 2’s plot in nice, neat, blood-soaked body bag. Ray’s dad’s prophecy came true, Frank quite literally bit the dust and Ani had probably the worst outcome of them all: a lifetime on the run with Jordan Semyon (The two women surviving in the end was a big old fug you from Nic P to the haters who knocked him for not having any powerful female characters in season 1.)
If you’ve read our recaps all season you know that, for the most part, I’ve enjoyed it. It seems to be the hip stance these days to hate on Pizzolatto and where he took his follow-up effort but I tried to stay the course, sift through the black hole that is r/TrueDetective and enjoy one of the most talked-about shows on television. And I truly did. For a while. But for whatever reason, the finale just didn’t do it for me. After going back through it in order to write this recap, sure, there’s definitely some things I missed that I can appreciate about our main characters fates. And that’s true for most episodes of True Detective, both seasons. That’s part of the fun (for me at least) of watching this show. 75% is watching it live and noticing things on your own but the other quarter of enjoyment comes from reading Reddit and Twitter and seeing things other people have picked up on and noticed. But this season seemed more like a 50/50 split, maybe even more than that in favor of needing aides in order to follow the plot. And that’s not even talking about adding enjoyment to the show, that’s so I knew what the hell was going on. A TV show shouldn’t operate like that.
In terms of strictly the finale though, I don’t really know what Nic could have done to make me feel differently. I think it’s just about as good a finale as you could hope for in a show as convoluted as TD was this season. If they do a third season, at least they know one thing for sure: four main characters is too many. That might work in a more watered-down show, or where the four characters share many of the same subplots. But TD obviously doesn’t fit either of those criteria. You just can’t follow four people from completely separate backgrounds with different motivations in eight episodes and create the same connection with them for viewers like we had with Rust and Marty when you write with the depth that Pizzy does. Sure, when Ray got blown to bits and Frank looked back to see his own lifeless body in the desert, those moments had some shock value. Most main character deaths on most TV shows do no matter what the circumstance. But can you imagine if Errol had thrown that axe at Marty and hit him right between the eyes? Or if he set Rust down after lifting him in the air BY A KNIFE and proceeded to stab his body like a pincushion? That shit would have stuck with me for days. Because I cared about those two characters. I didn’t get close to that level with any of the four this season. And it’s not their fault. I thought Farrell was absolutely incredible, Vaughn did the best with what he had, McAdams and Kitsch both held their own. The show just tried to do too much with too many in not enough time.
Conclusions/Points
Birdman was, in fact, the photographer from the movie set.
Leonard Osterman is his name. His sister was Caspere’s assistant, also sex partygoer, Laura Osterman. Lenny was put in a group home and abused after the diamond heist that killed his parents. Laura was put in foster care then left to become a hooker. That’s how she met Tascha who told her about the parties, where she eventually met and recognized Caspere. Funny thing is, they’re not really brother and sister. The reason Burris and co. killed the Osterman parents is because Caspere was having an affair with the woman, whom he had a kid with and apparently she had one in the oven when she was murdered. That kid was Laura. Laura also went on to sleep with Caspere. So that’s…yep.
The baby at the end of the episode was Ray and Ani’s. Also turns out that Ray is Chad’s biological father.
(/u/Bedlampuhedrom)
The reporter Ani gives all her evidence to is the same reporter that was writing the expose on Vinci that Ray beat the hell out of earlier this season.
(/u/Bunyippouch)
The main characters were all done in by themselves. Frank wanted to keep the diamonds in the pocket of his suit, Ray wanted to see his son one last time, Paul wouldn’t come out of the closet. “We get the world we deserve.”
Dixon blew through the money he got from the heist in 92 so he was trying to get his hands on the blue diamons/blackmail his way into more money. The shootout was a setup to kill Dixon, Holloway confirmed to Ray at the train station.
That dream sequence Ray had after he got shot, with his dad in the bar? Yeah that came true. Word for word.
(/u/analmango (hahahahahaahahahahahahah))
I thought it was dumb how Ray and Ani were both trying to get revenge for Paul (“He deserved better.”) when they didn’t really know him or seem to care that much about him at any point in the season. Although I guess I understand the irony in that nobody really “knew” him.
The almighty hard drive with all the evidence on it was actually not a threat to anyone. It had a security measure that caused it to erase itself when Leonard tried to access it. So when that drop off was staged at the train station, Leonard and Ray really had no leverage at all.
Austin Chessani and Pitlor were both probably killed by Tony Chessani, who we saw being inaugurated as the new mayor of Vinci.
(/u/BunyipPouch)
Far left is his sister who he was certainly in cahoots with, behind her are the two Mexicans that killed Frank, and obviously all the way to the right is Burris. This was his plan all along (Holloway says something about “not the Chessani I work for” to Ray in the station).
There was an unidentified man at the unveiling of the rail way:
(/u/Khanate)
Not sure who it was but there’s speculation it could be the Chessani grandfather, meaning he was the one pulling the strings the whole time and that’s who Holloway was referring to in his quote in the previous bullet. Or it’s Gregg Popovich.
ANYWAYS, if you’re still here, thanks for reading. I had fun writing these things, hope you enjoyed consuming em’. I did like this season, just not so much the finale. If Season 1 was a 10/10, I’d have to give this one a solid 8. I’ll still get excited hearing that electric Leonard Cohen bass line for a while.
Texas forever! Unless you get freakin shot. Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t forget to clear your corners Tim. So…Texas until you get shot in the back. God damnit.
I felt incredibly overwhelmed by BMAMR. The season as a whole has been pretty back-loaded in terms of a) each episode basically being 50 minutes of embellished dialogue followed by a cliffhanger and b) most of the pertinent info we’ve learned has come in the last couple weeks, but last night felt like when you’re taking a test and realize you have fifteen minutes left to answer 75 questions. Don’t get me wrong, I was still glued to the TV for the duration, but exchanges like our three heroes had in the motel before Paul met his match (who played Paul…..Raines in “24”. Nic P FTW) felt like a not-so-nuanced attempt at hyper-speed plot development. How’s that for a sentence.
Questions/Tidbits:
What a Tim Riggins-like performance Taylor Kitsch put on this season though. Nothing fancy or over the top, just good quality acting. Fullback dive, on one on one. I think that scene in his mom’s trailer where he realizes she took his money was the only time you even heard him raise his voice. Compare that to the emotion shown at various points by the other three. A very well executed contrast. The circumstances surrounding his death were pretty tragic if you give it some thought, something that doubled as a little Pizzolatto social commentary. All Paul needed to do was to be honest about who he was. Had he come out to people, those photos wouldn’t have meant anything which means Holloway and co. wouldn’t have had anything to hold over his head to force a meeting. Granted he most likely would have been killed anyway considering how close he was to blowing the investigation open but we’ll never know. And I can’t tell if he showed up to an obvious set up, knowing he was probably not making it out alive, for himself or for his family. Death was really the only way out of the fake life he was living since clearly telling the truth wasn’t an option. But it also would make things a lot easier for his fiance and child if he freed them from his existential burdens by dying. Maybe he did it for a little bit of both reasons. But he sure sounded like he knew what he was getting himself into during that last phone call with Ray.
This damned jewelry heist is hands down the most confusing thing in any TV show I’ve ever watched. My best attempt:
1992 – LA Riots – Burris, Teague were cops in LA, Casper (think I’ve been spelling it Caspere this entire time, my B) was involved (accountant maybe?)
The three amigos knocked off a jewelry store located in Holloway’s district, stole those rare ass diamonds, made it look like a looter except executed the owners of the store (The Ostermanns)
The diamonds were then used (but not given to apparently, since Casper had them in his deposit box) as a buy-in with Mayor Chessani so all four of them would work cushy jobs in the city and be a part of the chain of corruption going on there
Two children from the photo are Laura and Leonard Ostermann, witnessed their parents murder while hiding in a display case
Towards the end of the episode, Vera, Ani’s missing chick, revealed that Casper’s assistant Erica’s real name is Laura. The overwhelming Reddit theory is that she is the Ostermann daughter and the photographer from the movie set, seen talking to her briefly when Ray and Ani paid a visit, is the son and possibly Birdman.
(/u/Ditcka)
Vera knew who Laura was from the parties, she was even in one of the photos that the dead hooker friend Tascha was using to try and blackmail party attendees. So this theory definitely makes sense. Casper gets overly cocky and brags about or shows the diamonds to a hooker, Laura sees or hears about it, changes her appearance to get the job as Casper’s assistant where she has access to all his personal information, her brother kills him as revenge for their parents’ murders. I do have a few questions.
They made it painfully clear that the rounds used by Birdman to shoot Ray were nonlethal, rounds that “cops use”. They said that line multiple times I think. Why would Leonard have access to police issued rounds? (Burris is another popular Birdman pick, and this part would back that up)
The kids in the ’92 photo look a lotttttttt like Chessani’s kids.
(/u/thriftydame)
Regardless of who the kids in the photo are, why did Teague never ascend any higher than detective while the other three involved in the diamond heist became probably the most powerful men in the city? Whatever the reason behind this is most likely why they deemed him expendable by sending him to and maybe even killing him on purpose during the shootout with the Mexicans.
Vince Vaughn said bye to all his h8ers this week. He finally got a couple awesome one-liners (“Look me in the eyes. I want to see your lights go out”) and was chillingly good during Blake’s last hurrah.
Something about that scene made me a little uneasy about his wife though. Wouldn’t that be icing on his cake of betrayal.
His grocery list of weapons includes two of almost everything. Looks like him and Nails are gearing up for a big one next week.
Bottlegate 