True Detective Recap: Episode Two Ends With A Bang

This is a recap of the second episode of True Detective‘s second season. Spoiler alert. 

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Wait, did that just happen? Did the most captivating character on True Detective just get iced? I swear Pizzolatto, that gun better have been full of rock salt, because Ray does not have a direwolf.

But maybe we should take a step back and look at what’s happening in Simile Central this week: everything is paper mache, your dad probably hates you and even if you try to better your sick impulses, you’ll just end up getting your junk blown off with a shotgun anyway. Bad luck, tiger! This. Is. VINCI!

This week True Detective’s four humourless sad sack stare monsters protagonists are grappling with the concept of home. But this ain’t no Family Ties; home in True Detective isn’t a place of comfort; it’s a place of incarceration and secrets. Ray is trying to hold onto a family that wasn’t his to begin with, and Ani is trying to forget the hippy commune she grew up in — a place so gnarly that she was the only kid who didn’t end up in jail or killing herself. “You had to look after yourself, huh?” asks Ray, mentally making a note of how many knives Ani keeps on her person at all times. Intense Paul’s mum is a chain-smoking, carpel tunnel-suffering lady who doesn’t like to be called ‘Mom’, really likes stroking her son’s muscles in an uncomfortable manner, and begs him to sleep over continually. Ah, cool. Let’s just leave that one for now.

Like the residents of Vinci being forced to move as sweat shops were built up around them, your home can be taken away from you at any time. Frank has it all – for now – but he can’t shake the idea that he’ll have nothing to leave to his imaginary children. Frank still feels like that little kid locked in his dad’s basement for five days, biding his time while the food supplies dwindle and the rat comes out.

Home is always threatening because if it’s bad, it’s a place that you try to escape your whole life. If it’s good, you’re always looking for water stains that threaten to ruin what you’ve built.

LOL, so heavy right? Well, it could be worse: you could have had your eyes burned out and penis blown off at point blank range! What a way to go. Except in fact, that wasn’t the way that Caspere the City Manager actually died – he died of a heart attack AFTER all those injuries. Sweet Jesus. Sure puts Paul’s anguished-blowjob-face in a whole new context.

Frank is pretty disgusted by this, but only in that he realises that Caspere stooged Frank out of five million dollars. Frank spends the rest of the episode desperately trying to track down Caspere’s killer himself, spouting his special brand of film noir speak in the bedroom (“It’s like I’m not real, like I’m only dreaming.”), in the mayor’s office (“Your son’s face was so coke-dusted, he looked like a fucking clown.”), with business associates (“You can’t round off a zero.”), and in the Depressing Man Impotence Bar with Ray (“You used to be a hard man.”). His employees must not know what the fuck he’s talking about half of the time. That’s probably why Caspere didn’t put through the real estate deal: he was too busy trying to unpack your fucking paper mache metaphors to understand what you meant. Frank makes a The Rockford Files reference for Christ’s sake! IT’S 2015 FRANK, CHOOSE LITERALLY ANY OTHER DETECTIVE SHOW ON TV RIGHT NOW.

Frank’s desperation at finding Caspere’s killer/his money has him swing from blind “Am I diminished?” panic, to using his old gangster tricks to scare off people who threaten his plans. “I never really knew what to do with it,” Frank says of his fortune as if it’s already gone, while the shots of his mid-century modern home show that yeah, he knew exactly what to do with it.

Looks like his career as a legitimate businessman is over and he’ll have to go back to a life of ‘FUCK YOU’ grills and prostitutes gyrating in light-up underwear. His wife will have to get use to only seeing nice furniture on The Design Files like the rest of us. Welcome to the real world, asshole.

Like Vinci’s local government, Frank has been living the American Dream at the expense of exploited, displaced workers, their sprawl unfettered and their shady dealings hidden behind wafting toxic pollution (shout out to Mayor ‘I have a portrait with George W. Bush, because that’s the kind of guy I am’ Chessani and his day buzz). Caspere’s death has given outside law enforcement a chance to come in and see what’s going on behind the smog, which means that several state and federal departments are fighting over the body like it’s the last In-And-Out burger in L.A.

If you found this confusing, that is because True Detective is purposely confusing. It’s not you, it’s them, don’t worry, we’re fine.

I like true detective but it's a show that you really have to pay attention to and I'm not very good at that

— baby ox (@cswsamber) June 29, 2015

Am I the only one that has literally no idea what is going on in True Detective right now

— Dylan Panzarella (@dylanpanzarella) June 29, 2015

Paul, Ani and Ray are each given different objectives: do the groundwork and you won’t be suspended; keep an eye on this guy because he seems real sketchy; hey Ray, keep being sketchy. Paul the Plank stares at papers, tells a homophobic anecdote, seethes. Paul’s sexuality is something that has been touched on a few times in the last two episodes: he needs Viagra to fool around with his girlfriend, may or may not have accepted a blow job from a civilian but is also horrified by the accusation, has that weird mum thing, and stares at a male prostitute from the window of his hotel room. Whatever, I think he’s much more appealing when he’s playing a troubled football player (depending on what actually happened in “the desert”, that is).

Then again, everyone in Vinci likes their sex a bit clandestine. Oh, boy do they! We discover that Caspere has a hidden Hollywood sex den, complete with a live web cam. Ani is seemingly disgusted by her sister becoming a sex worker, but is totally cool with looking at pretty graphic, ah, multi-person porn. Hey Ani, get it girl, you do what you gotta do — but why are you so critical of other people’s sexuality? There was definitely judgment in the room when you heard that Caspere had gonorrhea. Let him live, man! I mean…

Anyway, Ani and Ray visit Caspere’s pleasure palace one more time (“That guy really thought about fucking a lot.”) before seeing his creepy shrink at a fancy ‘health’ retreat that also specialises in cosmetic surgery, because L.A. Dr. Pitlor said that Caspere was “sexually obsessed” but not aggressive; he just really dug prostitutes and felt mega ashamed about it. “Well, looks like an open and shut case to me!” says Ray, praying he can go to Depresso Bar before sunset.

Oh, but by the way? The shrink is played by RICK SPRINGFIELD.

If last week’s premiere didn’t have enough Matthew/Woody crackle and pop for ya, Ray and Ani’s car banter is sure making up for it.  There’s something about pathetic, downtrodden Ray and chilly, disturbed Ani that seems to work very nicely together. Ray is all, “Hey what’s with the knives?” and Ani makes this face :/ and keeps driving, despite the weight of the 1700 rings she has on her fingers at any given time, even when she’s in a bathrobe. Ani explains that it’s her way of equalising physical strength between the sexes and Ray says, “I support feminism, mostly by having body image issues”. Ani says :/

Someone leaked the script for episode 2 of True Detective. This is real pic.twitter.com/hpoLiF3wkU

— Sage Boggs (@sageboggs) June 22, 2015

Only Ani can make Ray seem like a pretty casual dude. When Ray says that “sometimes a good beating promotes personal growth”, you know that Ani is of the same school of thought; she’s not tight with anyone either. However, their banter did lead to one of my most hated exchanges in the history of the planet:

Ani: “I don’t distinguish between good and bad habits.”

Ray: “I like to get wet from a number of bad habits.”

Sinead: “BLEUGGGGHHH BLEUGH BLEUGH BLEUGGGGGGGG”

Ray skillfully avoids telling Ani that he’s compromised with a literal “Anyways, g’night!”, because in reality that’s not the biggest issue on his mind. When we finally meet Ray’s ex-wife, it’s more an excuse to show the gamut of Ray’s despair and rage than to show her off as a character, which is a bummer. He doesn’t get why his relationship with his son can’t be fixed with some Lego and more letter writing sessions (literally, WHAT YEAR IS THIS? Has Pizzolatto just been in a bomb shelter somewhere watching The Maltese Falcon over and over and writing depressing prose? Get your son an iPad!). He swings from despair to threatening hell fires in a single breath.

Maybe it’s because the other characters are only slightly more than cardboard cut-outs at this point, but Ray is already the most — well, not sympathetic, but the character you’re most invested in. He is so pathetic that even the way Ani smokes an e-cig is impressive to him. That’s because nothing is effortless for Ray. Children mock him when he tries to warn them about playing in toxic waste. The only reason he’s bothering with the charade of investigating Caspere’s death is because he owes a debt to a gangster who loves theatrical roadside beatings.

So… is Ray dead? I can’t see how he’s not – two shots, one in the stomach – but True Detective is known to keep characters alive who should probably not be. He did tell Pretty Waitress #1 that the only way he was going to get a vacation was if he “croaked”. But… nah, can’t be.

If the shots were meant to kill, why did his assailant keep wearing that raven mask as a disguise? The one we saw in the passenger’s seat of Caspere’s last long drive on the California highway? Perhaps Ray didn’t heed the Mayor’s warning of “no surprises” — or was this a Psycho (or Scream, depending on your DOB) move designed to unsettle us? Surely that would be a good idea in three episodes time rather than now, just as we’re building up interest in a character’s fate. What’s the significance of Guerneville? WHAT HAS THIS GOT TO DO WITH JESSIE’S GIRL?

I guess we’ll find out next week. But one thing is for sure: Birdman is the new Yellow King.

 

Most confusing line of the episode: “Maybe it’s too close to smoking a robot’s dick.”

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True Detective airs on Foxtel’s Showcase every Monday at 3.30pm (express from the US), before being re-broadcast at 7.30pm.

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Sinead Stubbins is a writer from Melbourne who’s been published in Yen, frankie, Smith Journal and Elle. She tweets from @sineadstubbins