The following is a review of “Maybe Tomorrow” from the second season of True Detective, beware of spoilers.
The third episode of the second season of True Detective revealed what happened to Velcoro after last week’s cliffhanger. Meanwhile, we learn a lot more about Paul Woodrugh – and Frank Semyon is shakened to the core after more of his people drop to the floor.
Velcoro survived! And I’m really glad he did. He is by far the best character in this season of True Detective – perhaps the only character that holds a candle to the first season characters we miss. I absolutely loved the opening scene featuring an amateur performance of “The Rose” – it was perfectly weird.
This episode also solidified the fact that the partnership between Colin Farrell’s Ray Velcoro and Rachel McAdams’ Antigone Bezzerides is the best detective partnership this season. They may be on opposite sides when it comes to who they deal with, and who they pick clues up for, but they’re the best characters and have good chemistry.
Now we get to Paul Woodrugh – a character I’ve been unsure of. And while Kitsch still hasn’t won me over just yet, his character got a lot more interesting this week. Woodrugh has been acting strangely homophobic since the seaso opener, and last week I started thinking that he might be a closeted homosexual – perhaps that was why he didn’t want to talk about his service.
When an old buddy of Woodrugh’s mentions what sounds like a war romance between the two, everything becomes clear – and we’ve got the big reveal of the episode (turns out it wasn’t just Velcoro’s episode). This definitely makes the character more interesting, there can be no doubt about that.
I thought other critics were too hard on Nic Pizzolatto’s writing and Vince Vaughn’s acting in “Night Finds You”. He was fine again in this episode, wherein Semyon’s men seem to be dropping like flies. He lost Caspere, and now another guy – someone’s not happy with the kingpin of True Detective.
As I mentioned last week, this was Danish director Janus Metz’s first go at a show like this. He’s very talented, and for what it’s worth, I thought he did a fine job. His episode doesn’t stand out compared to the first season, but that’s more due to the writing, which so far hasn’t been as good as last season. But definitely a fine job by Metz, and I thought his episode was much better than Justin Lin’s opening two episodes of season two.
I’ll be the first to admit that this show is still finding its feet in the second season. Too many main characters, not the same quality in writing nor acting as last season – those are two problems that make it hard to look at the first season as the same show. But I’m sticking with the show for the rest of the season, I owe the first season that much.
B+
I’m Jeffrey Rex
I'm Jeffrey Rex 