Watched the first season of True Detective on MAX because I started watching season 4 since there really isn’t anything streaming that interests me at the moment and I enjoy a good drama that transcends it’s genre and boy did True Detective season one transcend with stellar performances by Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. The subtly in the way it handles the storyline and brings its leads to profound experiences that change their flawed personalities in substantial and realistic ways impressed me. The sprinkled supernatural subtext was interesting in that True Detective at its core is about broken men aligned against evil. Whether or not the inspirations from gothic literature and strange tales are literal is what gives the show resonance and elevates it above any kind of dime store crime fiction mimicry. It is poetic and lyrical and it is one of the best HBO original dramas I have ever seen. A true novel for television written by a novelist who from what I understand originally intended the story to be a book, but ultimately got both figuratively because while True Detective is a crime drama miniseries that truly stands alone from anything else I’ve seen on television in a long time, it feels like I’ve read a book in the same way that Michael Mann’s epic crime drama Heat also felt like I was reading a crime novel, even though it was a feature film and while the comparison between Heat andTrue Detective ends there because otherwise they are nothing alike. They just share a quality that helps make the story feel as though it is across different media even if it is only on one. I have heard that the second and third seasons of this anthology series are not nearly as good as the first and I have to admit that it makes me hesitant to watch them because if they are not as good as this, then what would be the point of setting myself up for disappointment. The fourth season looks promising and so I may give the other two seasons in between a shot since, there’s nothing else that interests me at the moment that’s on both streaming and/or broadcast television. If you haven’t seen True Detective and I know this program is already 10 years old, I’m not saying that you’re going to like it because when I first started watching it, it had my head spinning. However, overall I am very happy for the experience of watching it and if you’re a fan of this type of work, it is definitely worth considering. Just make sure that if you have children, particularly young children that you do not let them watch the show as this is definitely intended for adults only, and while children might be in some cases more or less exposed to things they shouldn’t be at younger ages because of the nature of media in the 21st-century, the reality is that there’s a reason why you should put your kids to bed early if they’re below a certain age and this is one of them. The first season of True Detective, as well as its second and third seasons and new episodes as they are released of the fourth season can be streamed if you subscribe to Max.
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