True Detective Season 2 Episode 4: Review

Whoa! This was the bomb (literally). This week’s episode felt a bit of a drag just before they pulled out the big guns. This time we saw a massacre on the road involving many citizens, crooks and police officers alike. As against the nature of the show we saw explosions, guns blazing, bullets flying and many people dying in the face-off. The episode might be reminiscent of last season’s action packed fourth episode. But even with action, that episode had so much more drama, gritty scenes and one absolutely amazing run with a great final shot with the radiant night lights and sirens adding to the thrill. Albeit in this season’s fourth episode, there wasn’t much buildup towards the end, it came as a shock and resulted in a bloodbath with the protagonists narrowly escaping alive though unharmed.

The episode began with Frank Semyon’s avocados. His problems seem to have no end in sight, even after all his efforts he just keeps sinking down and down into the same pit from where he crawled up but with more at stake this time and with higher risk. Frank is throwing pebbles in the lake, much to all the fishes’ exasperation but he almost every time manages to establish a terrifying precedent which ,to some extent, works and restrains people from defying him. Alongwith all this chaos at work, his personal life seems to be on the rocks as well. His wife is not really getting along with him amongst these tensions, not that one can blame her given Frank’s behaviour. The stork is elusive of Frank as well. Till now we only had the idea of Frank’s underpants issues but now as it seems his wife also has women troubles (similar to Adriana La Cerva in Sopranos) and as a result it might be difficult to conceive. On the allegedly good guys side, all our doubts were cleared about the sexual orientation of Paul Woodrugh (like there were any in the first place). He was then mobbed by paparazzi and later met his ex at a dine –in where she declared her pregnancy and he proposed to her. This whole baby thing is really starting to get tiring now. Everyone wants a baby, everyone wished they had their own baby and amidst all the pregnancies and parent child bonds and failed relationships, there is no sign of the man who killed Caspere and chopped of his privates. I mean no one is even bothered except Ani who once in a while when she says “ I want to solve this thing”.  Ani also questioned The Mayor’s daughter who had something to share but opted to keep it under wraps and was overall very vague. Ani is also having troubles at the office due to her past relationships as her ex/subordinate lodged an official complaint against her claiming ‘coercion’. Yeah right, that guy claims his superior officer, a woman as hot as Ani forced him to sleep with her through her work seniority. Plus her past relationship with her partner is also questioned. Well as Ani suspects, from one point of view this all seems like The Mayor’s doing throw mud at her, defame her. Although her conjoined activities with Ray still seem to be alright. Ray at this point seems like the wisest person among his peers (well he does carry medicine for every ailment). Ray and Ani discovered this week the strange connection between the victim, Caspere, and the mayor and Caspere’s therapist. All these people come together in the strange coincidence and are somehow connected to her father’s meditation center. Ray again shared an awkward bonding moment with his son as he gave him his father’s badge to remember him by because as we all witnessed there wasn’t much of a chance that Ray would make it alive after the end’s bust and probably he had an idea too. I say awkward because everytime Ray’s son makes an appearance it feels just plain weird as its clear as day that Ray’s not the biological father and thus it becomes hard to accept that there’s a bond. The kid gives really ambiguous signals of whether he likes Ray or not. Ray’s ex wife and the child represents the lie of Ray’s life. A life which he imagines himself to have led but holds no truth at all. He desperately tries to believe that he’s that father but the truth can shatter his whole world, so he prefers to believe in a lie, maybe that’s the reason he wants to end his life before a situation arises where he needs to accept reality.  

But the real surprise this episode packed was the shootout in the end. Yeah, the setting might be the same as in last season’s episode five when Martin and Rust go to apprehend Reggie Ledoux in his hideout and then stage a gunfight as Martin kills Reggie in a fit of rage. Only this time we get to see a real shootout.

When Ani gets information about the pimp of one of the girls Caspere met, they presume him to be their prime suspect and zero in on his location where they are engaged in a firefight with the crew. There is also an explosion which feels strikingly similar to the Walter White’s famous “This is not meth” aftermath. But the goons had enough firepower to hold off all police personnel and kill all of them except our trio of heroes. Yeah it also resulted in the deaths of some innocent bystanders, so from this point on things should start taking some serious turns due to such massacre in broad daylight.

A still from "Down Will Come"

So, in conclusion, except the shootout in the end this episode felt like a bit of a drag with same issues going on and on. The theme of fatherhood seems to be prevalent in the show at almost all times with different characters perceiving and tackling their own fatherhood issues. Basically, Frank wants a kid, Ray’s not the father of his kid, Ani hates her father and Paul’s about to become a father. So yeah, I guess it is a tad too much. But from this moment on things should start to become seriously twisted and interesting if our trio is taken off the investigation. And among all this chaos, no-one has any idea who they’re looking for and where is the real demon. But as mentioned earlier things should come into focus now.