Season two of “True Detective” has been an exercise in patience. Last week was a let down because it completely sidestepped dealing with the emotional state of the participants of the shootout. For a series that has always been just as interested in exploring the inner lives of its characters as it has been in solving a murder, it was a strange choice.
Flashing forward 66 days but having no new information concerning the case may have been the biggest misstep of all. Of course the case would have to be shut down following such massive bloodshed, but the entire affair seems pointless if absolutely nothing was learned. Seeing Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams) going undercover at this point in the season seems like a tale of “too little too late”, and for that reason, “Church In Ruins” finds itself awkwardly placed as the sixth episode in the season. Tipping off the final three hours of the season, this episode has to provide new information about the case, but can’t push too far since there is still a significant amount of story to tell after it fades to black.
Bezzerides doesn’t actually uncover much in her pseudo Eyes Wide Shut experience. What she does find confirms what’s been suspected all along – when acting with impunity, powerful men will be reduced to their basest urges. The scene in the house is disturbing and a lot of that comes down to Miguel Sapochnik‘s direction. There is an other worldly quality and unease to the situation that isn’t just a result of the drugs Bezzerides is given. This really is another world altogether, one the detectives aren’t exactly prepared to handle.
Before really diving into that though, the episode begins moments after the conclusion of the last. Velcoro (Colin Farrell) and Semyon (Vince Vaughn) square off. What has been lost under the frustration of a slow moving season and the praising of the work of Rachel McAdams is the resurgent performance of Colin Farrell. It’s a pretty safe bet going into the scene, both characters will walk away from the confrontation (there weren’t any riot shells around that I noticed) and Frank stops short of admitting he knowingly set Ray up to kill the wrong man.
But coming out of the scene there was an energy to the episode and that comes down to Farrell. Velcoro sold his soul so long ago he barely knows what it was like to have one. There’s a magnetic quality to his cynicism and depression, two qualities that are not typically compulsively watchable. Couple the conversation with Semyon and the phone call he later has with his ex-wife (Abigail Spencer) and anytime Velcoro was on screen this episode, I was fascinated. The biggest problem however, is none of this had to do with the murder of Ben Caspere.
Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch) once again makes the most progress on that front. He continues to follow up on the blue diamonds and takes actual hard evidence from the house where the party is being held at the end of the episode. His is the most precarious situation on the show from the perspective of the audience. We’ve seen he has a complicated history, a complicated family, and a complicated sense of self but because he is the only one outside of Semyon working the case week in and week out, he gets the least amount of time spent on his character. It’s unfortunate he, in essence, gets sacrificed for the sake of moving the case forward, especially considering it’s barely moving forward at this point.
Semyon keeps working his angle on the case still trying to come up with the missing hard drive. After a bit of light torture, he ends up on the phone with the woman he suspects pawned Caspere’s diamonds. The biggest piece of information to come out of all of Semyon’s scenes this week is when the woman describes the man who paid her to pawn the diamonds in the first place. She describes him as a cop even though he wasn’t in uniform. This could point to the late Detective Dixon (W. Earl Brown). However, it seems more likely the Vinci higher ups are more directly involved and that points to Lt. Burris (James Frain). Vinci is at the heart of everything, it only stands to reason the cops would be complicit.
Returning back to the party, Woodrugh does get to contribute the one moment of genuine comedy in “Church in Ruins”. Seeing him run in and tackle one of the guards did elicit a chuckle and seemed oddly out of place considering the moments that surround it. In addition to the contract Paul smuggles out, Bezzerides also finds her missing person. How she and the papers will factor in to the resolution of the case will hopefully be explored next week because right now, each episode gives the illusion of forward momentum without actually offering any new information. We’ll have to wait until the pieces come together to see the final puzzle but I wish by now, we could at least have an idea of what the final picture is supposed to be.
Crazy Theory Corner
In some way, the LA riots will factor into the case and the blue diamonds will be more than a MacGuffin. With only two episodes left, do you have any inkling how this might end?
Next Week
