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S02.E04: Down Will Come


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(edited)

I'm sure someone has mentioned this but even if the protestors were a couple of blocks away someone would have heard the shots. It seems like panic would have set in prior to the explosion. Once the explosion happened, they would have high-tailed it out of there. I mean, Frank and his wife saw the blast from miles away. So, if you were right there next to that building, you probably would not have stuck around for the sightseeing or out of righteous protest.

 

Then, as mentioned above, those people had phones and they could have called the cops.

 

As for the setup, how would that work? The alleged murderer/thief, the 3 Detectives (awesome kids book series, by the way) and Dickie the partner or Ray or Paul were intended to be killed and then a cover up could happen? Wouldn't that just lead to another investigation of what happened? If not internally, state or fed and definitely by the media.

 

As a municipality, I think the show is showing that [the town of Vinci] stands alone. There are no great allies it has elsewhere, in the county or the state capitol. [it is just a loose amalgam of frenemies, to use that term.] So, a set-up seems possible but it seems like it would be tougher to do unless you had surviving detectives to present the case. I'm just guessing but that's the way these things usually work. And, as unfair as it is to compare this season to last:

 

Rust was the sole believer in what happened until he dragged Marty into it and then and only after did the convergence take place on that weirdo's estate/that maze did the cops start to buy into the conspiracy.

 

So, with this show, there needs to be a witness to allow the bad guys to get away with something or to be caught. That's likely to be one, two or all three detectives.

Edited by Hobo.PassingThru
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I have a confession, when the have the scenes in the dive bar with the depressing singer, I fall asleep. When I wake up, I'm in bed with Paul and he doesn't know how he got there or what led up to... oh, it is a mess. Four times now this has happened!!

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I know this is the kind of thing that doesn't bear close examination, but doesn't that require a whole chain of people, including journalists and civilians listening to police scanners, to ignore/fail to act on multiple mass-shooting 911 calls? That's the kind of thing that gets seriously logged.

I know this is a dumb thing to fixate on. Probably a result of a mild true crime obsession

I don't think there was a delay in sending backup. The gunfight went on for maybe what, 20 minutes or so? From what I understand, the most ideal response time you can hope for is 8 minutes. Factor in California traffic, which from what I hear, isn't pretty and it could take the cops up to 20 minutes plus to get there. Plus, the cops don't always come in blazing with sirens at first. Not until they have a handle on the situation so there may have been cops securing the area at first with more backup coming later. I think the timing was pretty plausible. But damn, it made me really feel for cops (and civilians) who find themselves in that type of situation. That's some pretty scary stuff.

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I rewatched this episode to see if I could make any more sense of it.   A thought occurred to me.  Some of the scenes, such as those in that bar with the horrible singer, are lit a sickly green.  Others, primarily the scenes at Bez' father's new age resort are brightly lit with clear golden light.  Are the differences in lighting supposed to be a clue into the mental state of the people in the scene?  The discussions between Bez and her father (despite the new age-iness and aura crud) tend to be generally rational and fairly normal.  The discussions in the bar in the green light are mostly a couple of people staring at each other and apparently implying some things.

 

The one on one scenes between Frank and his wife (Jordan?), particularly when they're talking about having a baby, are pure soap opera in all respects.  The meaningful staring at each other or off into the distance.  The stilted language.  The bad acting.  Honestly, it's like I'm watching The Young and the Restless.  I really, truly do not care about either of them or their inability to conceive.

 

Rewatching also made me realize that this far into the season and the majority of the main characters are still pretty much two dimensional and largely about being damaged people.  Colin Farrell's character is a bit better in that we at least know that he loves his (maybe) son even if he's a horrible father.   The rest are cartoon characters.

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I'm sure someone has mentioned this but even if the protestors were a couple of blocks away someone would have heard the shots. It seems like panic would have set in prior to the explosion. Once the explosion happened, they would have high-tailed it out of there. I mean, Frank and his wife saw the blast from miles away. So, if you were right there next to that building, you probably would not have stuck around for the sightseeing or out of righteous protest.

 

I dunno.  I remember the 9/11 footage.  There were A LOT of people standing around until after the buildings started to fall.  I would think realistically people may have thought it was a gas explosion or something, also given all the buildings they may not have had a great perspective of the direction of the explosion and gun shots (echos, etc.) so they made have been confused as to where to run.  On re-watch the crowd was definitely confused and curious.  The more I watched the end shoot-em-up seen, the more I thought it was actually pretty spot-on.

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Wow, that shoot-out was incredible.  And also literally not credible, but whatever, I enjoyed it and found it exciting.   I liked how it ended with the three protagonists looking at each other and reacting in their various ways, which called back to the end of the first episode when they were all gathered around the dead body.

 

Re Taylor Kitsch's plot, I too find it somewhat cliched.  At first I thought it would be a more timely and fresh story about an ex-soldier dealing with impotence and other PTSD.  That would be trauma enough.  Adding in the gay angle is too much.  On the other hand, I can believe that it's likely more difficult for a military guy to come out of the closet than a guy who isn't part of a macho work environment and culture.  But even though I'm not sold on the closeted-gay subplot, I think Taylor Kitsch is acting the hell out of this character and giving a moving performance.

 

McAdams rocked this episode, as usual.  I've never found Colin Farrell remotely interesting until this show, but now I'm a believer.  Vince Vaughn I have never liked, not even in his popular comedies, and I'm not warming up now.  

 

The plot loses me, but thanks to you guys I'm getting educated!

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know this is the kind of thing that doesn't bear close examination, but doesn't that require a whole chain of people, including journalists and civilians listening to police scanners, to ignore/fail to act on multiple mass-shooting 911 calls? That's the kind of thing that gets seriously logged.

 

I'm not even trying to justify it in real world terms, but I will say I think we're meant to understand that Vinci just doesn't have the *resources to respond* (particularly black and whites/beat cops) all they had was on the scene so the "back up" was coming in from outlying communities, thus the delay.

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But a big operation like this one would have marshaled resources ahead of time and had them positioned nearby. Although those first on the scene were told to go in and not wait, they seemed to think that they were backed up by SWAT, etc. who could come in fast--no 911 calls needed--once the need to preserve the element of surprise had passed. That nobody showed is what convinced me that they'd been set up and betrayed. 

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Who then is Birdface? One of Frank's henchman - Blake, the one with dead cell phone? Rick Springfield? Ani's father? One of the guys on the movie set?

 

I think Birdface is James Frain. 

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I think so to, but that's just because he's James Frain. At least he was the birdface that shot Velcoro, I don't think he was the one who took care of Caspere, I stlll say that was the Mayor's creep son.

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(edited)

 

That got ruined for me in this very episode, and I'll quote this gem: "Those moments, they stare back at you. You don't remember them, they remember you. Turn around, there they are." This would have fit in any monologue from Rust or one of the Yellow King crew, except it would have been less jarring then. Also, it sounds like something Ani's father might say, which is an excellent reason for her not to say it. If the NP wanted this said so, so badly (I can't imagine why; it's awful and sounds really cliched, a mix of Nietzsche and the Gospel of Thomas), he should have had Frank say it.

Yeah, I'm expecting Plato's Cave to make an appearance in episode 6

Edited by WaltersHair
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