S02.E07: Black Maps And Motel Rooms

[Crim]

Why not just kill Ray? He obviously had no problem killing Paul... and no one else appears to be guy shy while maintaining this coverup...So why rubber bullets with Ray?

At that point Ray was still their inside man in the investigation team. Plus, he was supposed to die in the shoot out anyway. So was Paul.

 

ETA: And Ellaria posted about this just before I did.

 

"Why did they shooter have rubber bullets on hand and ready to use?" and "How did the shooter know that Ray was coming to the house?" could still be related now that we know everyone betrayed Frank.

 

I have one random question too: Why was Frank so convinced that everything was happening behind the Mayor's back? If he was wrong, he just tipped his hand, even though he was warning his last loyal man to keep it as quiet as possible that they'd become aware what was going on.

 

Edited August 3, 2015 by Crim

[hendersonrocks]

Another helpful plot summary, through last night's episode. (Thank god for people who do this.)

 

The author includes a note that Blake has (er, had) red hair. I've wondered for a few episodes now if he is a) Chad's dad, b) Jordan's brother, c) all of the above and more.

[teddysmom]

If Blake is Jordan's brother, she didn't seem too upset seeing his bloody dead body. 

[LilaFowler]

I think the rubber bullets thing was simply a ploy to shock the audience and it had nothing to do with character or plot development.

[Consternation]

I figured that the masked man wants people to know that the hard drive is very much still in play.  He left it in view in a house where he was waiting with a shotgun already loaded with riot rounds.  He may not have known it would be Ray that showed up first, or who it would be.  He just wanted someone to see the drive and live to tell about it.

[grannygeek]

What if Blake raped Ray's girlfriend? Pursuing red hair theory, and also that Blake is sadistic, going for Stan's eyes, etc.

[meep.meep]

Did Paul literally say to fiance & mom in the motel:  "Don't answer the door unless it's me. Order room service."  Which is it, Paul?

 

The ultimate culprit in this show's shittiness is the writing: From the largest concerns (we don't understand what's happening and we don't care--nothing's at stake) to the smallest (characters contradicting themselves stupidly in the space of two sentences).  As good as the actors are--and Farrell and McAdams have been very, very good--they can't redeem the spectacular fecal spray that is this show's writing.

 

To me the strangest scenes were Paul's mother and fiance hanging out in the cheap motel room.  Not the kind of place that has any room service either.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

JUSTICE FOR STAN! Well, kind of.

My favorite unintentionally funny moment in this episode was after Ray told Frank what was going on and then Frank told him to leave so that he could go all HULK SMASH and break off the padded arm rest on the table.

I wish Ani and Ray hadn't boned. Can't a man and woman be in a log cabin with a fake fireplace, downing hard alcohol and NOT feel the compulsion to do it?

But who can resist Doing It when there's a fake fireplace? That's a powerful aphrodisiac!

[DEM]

What if Blake raped Ray's girlfriend?

 

Do you mean Ray's ex-wife?

 

To me the strangest scene & funniest moment was when Paul's fiancée Emily had her psychic jolt after Paul died.

Edited August 3, 2015 by DEM

[Crim]

What if Blake raped Ray's girlfriend? Pursuing red hair theory, and also that Blake is sadistic, going for Stan's eyes, etc.

It seems like the show dropped the more interesting plot around Ani's father being connected to so many of the players, Ani remembered her trauma and had The Talk with her father and put him on a bus to Off-Screenville. Paul's family and sexuality drama is likely over. Ray gave up custody and the paternity test won't happen. So yes, personal story lines didn't get a proper resolution, but they also are at a point where they could be done with. We have just one episode left, so I will be really pissed if the show wastes screen time revealing who raped Ray's ex-wife, especially since that guy would be already dead. 

 

Also, Blake going for Stan's eyes was just for pragmatic reasons: to make it look connected to the Caspere murder.

 

ETA:

 

To me the strangest scene & funniest moment was when Paul's fiancée Emily had her psychic jolt after Paul died.

Oh yeah, that was so bad it was hilarious. Worse than the heart's blue balls. Worse than when the rats came.

Edited August 3, 2015 by Crim

[Ellaria]

Another helpful plot summary, through last night's episode. (Thank god for people who do this.)

 

The author includes a note that Blake has (er, had) red hair. I've wondered for a few episodes now if he is a) Chad's dad, b) Jordan's brother, c) all of the above and more.

 

That article had me laughing out loud. It sounds ridiculous when it is summarized in detail.

 

I think that the Chad's paternity will not be addressed. Nor will the solution to the Seymons' fertility issues. I wonder if Jordan is involved in any of the shady, double-crossing nonsense. If not, then some odd choices were made with that character.

[Medicine Crow]

I don't know why I keep watching. Every darn Monday I have to come here to be told what really happened.

Why are the episodes so convoluted and why is everything shot so dark?

It would appear you're not the only one!  I'm usually pretty good a figuring "plots" out, but there's too many people with too many conspiracies.  Gawd!!!  The only people I know for sure are the three cops & Frank, after that I'm guessing who's who in the zoo.

[Matt K]

Also, Blake going for Stan's eyes was just for pragmatic reasons: to make it look connected to the Caspere murder.

Which is funny because I didn't even realize until this episode that Stan's eyes were removed.

 

I think this was probably one of the better episodes this season but that's not saying much.  Huge issues in both the writing (beyond the dialogue) and the direction.   Are we even going to get a resolution on Casper's killer because it seems like without any resources how are they going to track her down?  Plus the "how they figured it out" didn't really make all that much sense.

 

Plus Paul's storyline was a waste.  The show had nothing to really say about him being closeted and seemingly with no resolution what really was the point.  But hey we get a magical James Frain.

 

I'm still waiting for VV's wife to turn on him for maximum cliche value.

[Cardie]

And I have no idea where the non-blue diamonds came from.

 

They belong to the Orthodox Jewish diamond dealer who was showing them to Frank. Frank's to do list includes stealing $12 million in cash and hot-footing it to Venezuela with the missus. It's a bit difficult to get $12 million cash into your carry-on and then convert it to Venezuelan currency without many eyebrows being raised. Frank will launder the money by trading it for diamonds, alas diamonds only worth $7.2 million because the diamond merchant takes a hefty 40% commission. Diamonds are easier to transport and good anywhere.

 

Geeky note: Jews became experts in the diamond trade because some tyrant or other was always saying "Jews! out of here tomorrow" and they learned the value of keeping your net worth in such easily transportable form.

[Hobo.PassingThru]

 

(And thank god for this forum because I would have stopped watching after episode two out of sheer frustration.)

I haven't bothered re-watching any of the episodes beyond the first one. It is a frustrating show. Like others say, I don't recognize most of the names I see in these threads or on the show.

One of the best examples of how screwy the show is: When Frank tells Ray that Stan is gone, or something similar. Then Ray asks, what happened to Stan. Then Frank just looks away and I guess we are left to take it as he didn't want to say what happened and became engrossed in that depressing singer's song.

That epitomizes the show to me.

Oh yeah and:

Russian Israelis. After all the time they spent bringing up the Russians, now the clarification is it is more than that.

---On the Grand Conspiracy: when Ray got shot by Birdman- which was after the Book of the Dead was shown in the first episode-- I began seeing stuff where people were theorizing there was a lot of Egyptian mythology allusions. If there were any after Birdman, I didn't bother to look or to notice.

The sloppiness of the storytelling is just too much to try and sort through extra information to get a sub-text.

[cooksdelight]

Fixed your repeats. The forum has been glitchy this afternoon, it's not just you. :)

[Hobo.PassingThru]

 

Fixed your repeats. The forum has been glitchy this afternoon, it's not just you. :)

 

Thanks. At first I thought it was my browser but then I tried to load another forum page and it took forever. Then when I tried to delete the mistakes I made, I got a "service unavailable" page in my profile. So, your answer makes sense.

[susannot]

That Slate article was hilarious, mostly because it just went on and on endlessly. My favorite part, in reference to Frank's plan to buy the railroad land: Q. "So this plan went off without a hitch?" A: "Please."

[Maysie]

I saw the last 15 minutes live last night and am working to convince myself to watch the entire episode today. I'm not sure why, however. I read the linked recaps; well I read the first linked recap and about half the second linked recap and realized that even the succinct recaps -- which really are excellent, by the way -- get me all bogged down.

 

There is entirely too much going on in this story. I feel like I need to draw an org chart or something to keep track of it. Making something complex doesn't make it good. It doesn't make it interesting. It doesn't make it art. I'm not saying I need "A --------->B" when I read/watch a story, but I sometimes feel that there's an impression that if something has lots of layers and is complex it's considered more "arty" or "highbrow," implying a certain level of intelligence or creativity to get it. I'm not stupid. I can follow multiple plot lines and understand different characters. But this? This is a mess.

 

There is so much going on that it's exhausting to try to keep track of it and I end up not caring at all. Season 1 could have done that, with all the references to the Yellow King, etc. However, it kept the character development relatively simple (especially compared to the dysfunction of all of the characters in this season) and I have come to believe that kind of grounded last season's plot. Somehow, it worked to make a unique, compelling story that had some mystery but at its heart, was easy to follow.

 

This? Blue diamonds. Sex parties. Land deals. Rapes. Infertility. Sexual orientation issues. Corruption. Murder. Pornography. Communes. Rats. What else am I missing?

 

How to keep track of this spiderweb of stuff that may/may not be meaningful? A simple story can be interesting, if the writing and acting are good. In the end, I know on the surface this was supposed to be about Caspere's murder, but truthfully, fuck if I know what the real story was supposed to be.

[Penman61]

I think viewers will overlook/handwave/fanwank a lot of plot inconsistencies if the characters are compelling and the world/mood are intriguing, and this is especially true in film noir.  

 

My own experience is that once I'm engaged with a show's world, I just don't see the flaws as often--and when I do, I minimize them. (It's a little like being in love, I think.)

 

In contrast, when I'm less engaged, as with TD2, (my current interest indicator is if/when I reach for my iPad during viewing), I notice stuff like Paul's stupid, sloppy contradicting instructions to his mother and fiancee, like the way Burris was unbelievably lucky in the door at which he chose to wait for Paul, like both Ani and Ray must stink to high heaven given their various activities over the last 48 hours before they mate, like Frank gets off a number of shots without anyone in the busy casino noticing...well, you get the idea.

 

Just in case any of the cast/crew drift in here, I do think the show is (generally) well shot, the musical score is varied and often apt, and almost all the actors acquit themselves well.  But while bad acting can ruin a great script, great acting cannot salvage execrable writing.

Edited August 3, 2015 by Penman61

[mercurius]

I love the threads for this show so much more than the actual show. I keep thinking I've got a handle on what's going on, since it's sort of simple -- everyone is corrupt. But then someone will say some name like "Burriss" and I realize I have no idea who that is, and then someone else refers to the Israelis who I thought used to be Russians, and then someone else mentions the diamonds that I thought were blue but I don't think are now, and then the slimy mayor who was at the center of everything seems to be actually out of the loop, and nobody seems to know where the harddrive is that started everything (or do they?), and instead of simple I find I need a flow chart. It really shouldn't be this hard.

 

Thanks,guys: reading this thread I now know Burriss = James Frain. Still fuzzy on the rest though.

[Quilt Fairy]

Stan, you miserable, two-timing son of a bitch! If you weren't already dead, I'd kill you myself. Maybe I'll go to the cemetery and desecrate your grave. And I thought you were my friend......

[Guest]

He gives a shit. Obviously he doesn't like that he is gay.

That's true. But you know what would have been nice on this show? Some kind of insight as to why Paul struggled with it other than merely implying he did. My criticism isn't of a person struggling with their sexual identity, my criticism is how this show leaves it up to my imagination to figure out why.

Edited August 3, 2015 by Guest

[Hobo.PassingThru]

You know what could have been done?

 

They could have better established how that Black Mountain thing functioned. The show could have made clear that it was a security firm and still active and only involved with that Catalyst company. They could have had people threatening or haranguing Paul from the outset instead of making his guilt and ambiguity of his preferences an internal problem. It could have been brought to the fore and kept there.

 

(for instance, I think Burress gave Ray grief about the house he lived in, right? Why wasn't he shown interacting with Paul, even silently and being shown as trailing Paul? Ditto with Dixon. One interstitial shot to show Paul's problems ran deeper than some unspoken inner monologue?)

 

It's like with that Dixon detective. So, he was Ray's partner, he was trailing Paul, he either got or just gave a bad tip, but, he was barely on the show. We never saw him trailing people; though he was shown as checking out that building where the shootout happened.

 

Showing these things and emphasizing their importance would have gone a long way to establish the secondary characters and to understand how complex it was. Instead it all comes across as complicated and vague, and, last but not least, forgettable.

 

[and yeah, i guess this is speculation but…]

Edited August 3, 2015 by Hobo.PassingThru

[Cardie]

They did show Dixon taking photos of Paul and his boyfriend although he was hard to recognize with the dark lighting. 

[KungFuBunny]

Only once--I couldn't bear a rewatch. I do read recaps if I'm confused. I'm a retired professor of film and media studies, so this is, as Frank would say, my skillset. (I'm also a devotee of mystery novels and figuring out whodunit.) I have found that I must turn off the lights and really concentrate with TD2 because important stuff whizzes by in mumbled dialogue. It also helps to abandon any preconceptions about logic or verisimilitude. It's easy to get confused about what's going on because one cannot believe ridiculous behaviors could possibly be the truth.

First time posting on this thread.

Do you think it's possible that one of the children from the Blue Diamond robbery is "Frank's wife"?

Frank tells Ray about the secret house owned by Caspere and when Ray shows up Birdman is lying in wait.

Could Birdman...be BirdLady? Or maybe Frank's wife finds out about this secret house and passes it off to her brother.

This could be the reason why Ray is shot with rubber bullets - they can use him further if he's not dead.

[Crim]

But you know what would have been nice on this show? Some kind of insight as to why Paul struggled with it other than merely implying he did.

Exactly. Paul's background story (I can't think of any other way to call the plots that were attached to each main character without any significance whatsoever for the main story) was the least explored of them all and was the most disconnected from the rest, so simply the most pointless addition. At least Ani's father knew those guys and her sister gave her access to the party, and her dumping that guy and her suspension and so on were tied with her actions during the investigation, so some effort was made to integrate her cliched story with the main plot. And part of Ray's story was directly connected to corrupted officials and Frank - which is this season's plot as things stand now. But all Paul's story could have been cut. All of it. It's mind blowing that it was included at all since nothing was done with it; there was no insight, no thematic string running through the entire show, as we speculated here after the first episodes. The show has only 8 episodes, yet spent time on it. I'm...just flabbergasted. In the (almost) end, I stand here and think that... there is nothing behind the curtain. NP threw a lot of stuff at a whiteboard and then went with all that stuck on it, and that is all there is to the convoluted, sprawling maze; at the center, it's a very simple story with no hidden depth, populated by characters who might as well have been run through a Modern Damaged Antihero Random Generator.

Edited August 3, 2015 by Crim

[myname2use4now]

So, can someone help out on this one? (And thank god for this forum because I would have stopped watching after episode two out of sheer frustration.) So, those pictures of Paul with the other guy. This IS 2015, right? His mother wasn't a religious nutcase so...who exactly gives a shit he's gay? And is he actually gay or did he say to his baby momma, "I was on an assignment." So, does that mean be faked being gay? I still don't understand the issue over his sexuality. I think the one guy said he could be compromised because if it? Well, yeah, if it were 1945 maybe.

Laughed out loud that yet another mystery was solved by two detectives staring at a picture for clues. Happened in season one. Happened again last night. NP is a HACK.

I once read (or heard) somewhere on why being outed was so painful. It's because someone else has taken your narrative/story/truth and used it against you. If he had any time left, there's no saying that Paul wouldn't have come to terms with his sexuality and come out on his own terms, but we'll never know. Paul was at first betrayed by someone he trusted and then blackmailed. Not a good situation to be in, regardless of the reason. I don't think it would be any different if Paul was straight, married and someone had blackmailed him about an affair. It's kind of the same thing the way I see it.

 

Edited to add: I think this episode proved to me that Vince Vaughn is the good actor that I thought he was and just burdened with awful dialog (talking to the diamond dealer, my goodness!) and given bad direction. When he was going around burning stuff down, he wasn't saying a word and he did so much better than in any of his speaking scenes.

Edited August 4, 2015 by myname2use4now

[meep.meep]

It seems like the show dropped the more interesting plot around Ani's father being connected to so many of the players, Ani remembered her trauma and had The Talk with her father and put him on a bus to Off-Screenville. 

 

If you name a character Antigone, then there better be more to do with her father than there has been.  Her sister, Athena, has actually been shown to be a little wise.

 

I am starting to think that Pizzolatto bet someone he could write something more convoluted than The Big Sleep.  

[Hobo.PassingThru]

 

They did show Dixon taking photos of Paul and his boyfriend although he was hard to recognize with the dark lighting.

If they only showed him once, they should have showed him tailing him often enough that we saw it was him before he ended up getting killed. How many episodes that would have taken? I don't know, maybe episodes two and three?

 

I hope he was shown spying on him before the fourth episode.

[Cardie]

"I am starting to think that Pizzolatto bet someone he could write something more convoluted than The Big Sleep."

Whereas he thought he was writing the next Chinatown, as the subtitle of the speculation thread speculates. Once revealed, the crime narrative is not that convoluted. A wide-ranging corrupt land swindle faces exposure when the scheme's accountant turns up dead and none of the corrupt players did him in. As they work to close the murder case before their conspiracy comes to light, the investigators they set up as patsies discover everything, including two vengeful siblings out to get justice on the dirty cops who killed their parents and are hip-deep in the corruption.

[Ellaria]

Whereas he thought he was writing the next Chinatown, as the subtitle of the speculation thread speculates. Once revealed, the crime narrative is not that convoluted. A wide-ranging corrupt land swindle faces exposure when the scheme's accountant turns up dead and none of the corrupt players did him in. As they work to close the murder case before their conspiracy comes to light, the investigators they set up as patsies discover everything, including two vengeful siblings out to get justice on the dirty cops who killed their parents and are hip-deep in the corruption.

 

Ahh...had the show been presented in the straightforward manner that you describe, I'm confident that there would be much less confusion. Straightforward doesn't mean boring or lacking in intrigue. It can also maintain the odd, quirky elements that NP seems to adore. He needed to tell the story by subtly pointing the viewer in the right direction. Instead, there are a lot of not particularly memorable characters who may or may not be important (see "Stan") and pretentious dialogue like "blue balls of the heart."

 

And sometimes I'm not quite sure if NP wanted this to be a crime narrative or a character study of four damaged humans.

Edited August 4, 2015 by Ellaria Sand

[yourmomiseasy]

A general point about the seasons, something that really bothers me about the lines Vince Vaughn and Collin Farrell are given.  Beyond the stilted and unrealistic language, Ray's language (style and word choices) often seems southern for some reason.  Vaughn's character drifts over into language that's more appropriate for Tony Soprano than this character.    Both characters are from southern California.  Why on Earth does Velcoro speak like he's from the heart of Dixie (without the accent).  Vaughn's character grew up poor in California and has been trying to climb up the social/economic ladder.  While he is/was involved with crime, there is no good reason for him to use the same sort of words and sentence structure that a New Jersey Mafia man would.  He'd be straightening up his language, not taking tips from old mob movies.    Last season, I was really happy with the language (although Cohle did have some wackadoodle stuff to say on a regular basis).  You could tell that Nic Pizzolatto was from south Louisiana.  He showed the range of accents and ways of speaking.  It's not just one Cajun accent and one New Orleans accent (I used to live in Cajun country) and the did a good job of showing the diversity and putting the right accent on the right person.  Nic Pizzolatto was in his comfort zone.  This year, he's not.  He's getting southern California wrong.

 

Are you sure they are both supposed to be from So Cal?  I assumed that Frank was not because he was locked in a basement as a child and we don't have those.  I've lived in the LA area my entire life and have seen exactly one basement and it wasn't even a real basement, it was just a little dig out for the hot water heater, it didn't even have real walls -- known as a California Basement.  I've got nothing to explain Ray though.  His manner of talking and clothing choices scream that he's from somewhere else, but his dad was LAPD, so I would assume he grew up in So Cal.

 

It's been said by others, but it's really weird that there's an APB out for Ani.   Why would all those famous and powerful people allow the cops (who weren't already there) to be called?   Why not just dispose of the body and deal with Ani directly?  Why potentially expose the whole orgy party and it's participants to scrutiny?   It doesn't make sense.

Given all the muckity-mucks at the party, they could probably put an APB out without calling in any outside cops.  They are probably just using the APB to find and kill her, so it isn't like they'd need to collect evidence and build a solid case.

 

The 11th-hour appearance of orphan children who were witnesses to murder just throws more characters on the "poorly utilized" pile. Laura = Erica = girl in photo. Without reading recaps, do they expect that all viewers will make that leap back to the 2nd or 3rd episodes when Laura/Erica appeared?

 

I don't know that the viewers really have to make a giant leap when the main characters spell it out in detail on screen for them.  I don't remember the girl they are taking about being in any episodes, but I know she was working for Caspere in a city office and met Ani on the movie set because Ray said so.  I also know that Laura is the orphan's name and the girl gave her name as Laura at the sex parties, but used Erica at work from that same conversation and that Ani thinks they might be the same person due to her holding the photographs next to each other and asking Ray what he thinks, during that same conversation.  For all I know, Ani and Ray are totally wrong, but I do know that that's their current theory due to the conversation that was shown on screen.  

 

then someone else mentions the diamonds that I thought were blue but I don't think are now

There are blue diamonds that were stolen in a robbery. We've only seen pictures of them.  In this episode, Frank went to talk to a diamond dealer to set up converting stolen money into regualr non-blue diamonds in order to have something that holds its value and is easily transportable so he can smuggle them with him when he flees.  He is planning on stealing $12M from Oslip (the Russian/Israeli guy that horned in on his action) when Oslip gives the money to the Catalyst group.  The deal between Oslip and the Catalyst group is taking place at night and in cash because it is a shady deal and electronic transfers of that size are how you get caught.

Edited August 4, 2015 by yourmomiseasy

[WaltersHair]

So Rage-Filled Mulder and Titanium Slicing Scully hit the sheets. That's gonna leave a mark in the morning.

 

Paul. I can't even... It's like clubbing a baby seal.

 

Vince Vaughn finally showed some emotion instead of standing there like a cigar store Indian. The wife is in on it.

[benteen]

That guy at the end was right.  If Paul had accepted who he was, he'd still be alive. I was sorry to see him go though. 

 

Frank's character still spouts awful dialogue but I like the way he went about business.

 

Really good episode

[Ellaria]

I don't know that the viewers really have to make a giant leap when the main characters spell it out in detail on screen for them.  I don't remember the girl they are taking about being in any episodes, but I know she was working for Caspere in a city office and met Ani on the movie set because Ray said so.  I also know that Laura is the orphan's name and the girl gave her name as Laura at the sex parties, but used Erica at work from that same conversation and that Ani thinks they might be the same person due to her holding the photographs next to each other and asking Ray what he thinks, during that same conversation.  For all I know, Ani and Ray are totally wrong, but I do know that that's their current theory due to the conversation that was shown on screen.  

 

The orphans were introduced in last week's episode as was the blue diamond robbery. That's a late introduction into the narrative, IMO, especially when we may need to connect the dots back to the assistant from two early episodes. And, more than anything else, the connection was made during an enormous exposition dump.

 

We may have to agree to disagree. That's just not how I like my mysteries to unfold.

[MrWhyt]

That's true. But you know what would have been nice on this show? Some kind of insight as to why Paul struggled with it other than merely implying he did. My criticism isn't of a person struggling with their sexual identity, my criticism is how this show leaves it up to my imagination to figure out why.

Because he was Army, then PMC, then police, all highly "macho" professions where being gay could pose problems. Because homosexuals still face discrimination and hate, Why he is closeted isn't as important to the story as the fact that he is.

 

 

 

 

They could have better established how that Black Mountain thing functioned. The show could have made clear that it was a security firm and still active and only involved with that Catalyst company.

Black Mountain is obviously an analogue to the real world Blackwater. From the investigation of it's actions in Iraq to the renaming of itself in order to disappear from public view.

Edited August 4, 2015 by MrWhyt

[yourmomiseasy]

The orphans were introduced in last week's episode as was the blue diamond robbery. That's a late introduction into the narrative, IMO, especially when we may need to connect the dots back to the assistant from two early episodes. And, more than anything else, the connection was made during an enormous exposition dump.

 

We may have to agree to disagree. That's just not how I like my mysteries to unfold.

I'm in no way saying it is an expertly crafted story, just that no viewer leaps need be made when the 2 leads that aren't dead spell everything out in detail on screen.

[Ellaria]

I'm in no way saying it is an expertly crafted story, just that no viewer leaps need be made when the 2 leads that aren't dead spell everything out in detail on screen.

 

If viewers don't remember who Laura was - as you claimed you don't - there is a huge leap for viewers because suddenly she is central to the mystery that started the show.

 

I don't remember the girl they are taking about being in any episodes...

[Jextella]

Could Ray and/or Paul be involved in some other capacity: 

• phones are bugged - doesn't make sense at this point or the corrupt cops would be on to more stuff
• bad guys are tailing Davis - plausible
• after Ray leaves Frank, he calls Paul and tells him to look up Holloway's records in 1992 and tells him he's meeting Davis. Either Ray or Paul are in on it somehow
• or simple gaffe by director/producer

 

Regarding Frank and Jordan - it was interesting that Jordan hasn't had her period in 3 months (gross and unnecessary reference Nic P).   I can't help but wonder if something is up with Jordan.

 

Lots of redheads to explain still - Jordan, Chad, Blake, etc.

 

At this point, I really don't think I care who the Birdman is.  I am, however, curious about how Frank's and Ray's stories play out - and to a lesser degree Ani's.

 

I really do hope Frank exacts the revenge he wants and makes it out alive. 

[Free]

Exactly. Paul's background story (I can't think of any other way to call the plots that were attached to each main character without any significance whatsoever for the main story) was the least explored of them all and was the most disconnected from the rest, so simply the most pointless addition. At least Ani's father knew those guys and her sister gave her access to the party, and her dumping that guy and her suspension and so on were tied with her actions during the investigation, so some effort was made to integrate her cliched story with the main plot. And part of Ray's story was directly connected to corrupted officials and Frank - which is this season's plot as things stand now. But all Paul's story could have been cut. All of it. It's mind blowing that it was included at all since nothing was done with it; there was no insight, no thematic string running through the entire show, as we speculated here after the first episodes. The show has only 8 episodes, yet spent time on it. I'm...just flabbergasted. In the (almost) end, I stand here and think that... there is nothing behind the curtain. NP threw a lot of stuff at a whiteboard and then went with all that stuck on it, and that is all there is to the convoluted, sprawling maze; at the center, it's a very simple story with no hidden depth, populated by characters who might as well have been run through a Modern Damaged Antihero Random Generator.

 

It does feel like a random generator for the characters, just give them some sort of abusive history, possible parental issues, drinking and/or smoke a lot, serious faces, angst, etc.  Mix and match: add in some cliched marital problems from an ex who has to blatantly screech out what a bad person you are, etc.

 

Paul's character was ultimately a waste of a space and time, given they only have 8 episodes and several storylines, characters, and other subplots going on at once.  Any one of the other characters could've found the body and nothing would change narrative-wise.  Sadly, it's what happends when you try to jam pack so much material into a short amount of time, it affects the pacing and ultimately the show itself.

[yourmomiseasy]

If viewers don't remember who Laura was - as you claimed you don't - there is a huge leap for viewers because suddenly she is central to the mystery that started the show.

Just because I don't remember what she looks like, doesn't mean I couldn't follow what Ray and Ani laid out.  They detailed it piece by piece.  I guess we're going to have to just disagree on what a leap is.

[Nedsdag]

I want to thank Nic Pizzolatto for ending True Detective one week early for me. I barely got through Season 1 and when I found out Taylor Kitsch was cast on the second season, I decided to watch. I sat through seven convoluted, constipated episodes with his character being the most disposable of the main characters and killing him off like that. Well, TK made chicken salad out of a chicken shit written character. 

 

Ninety minutes next week? Also, will James Frain ever play a good character again? I'm surprised he wasn't cast in that Jaguar commercial featuring the British actors being cast as villains. I'm sure JF has played more baddies together than Ben Kingsley, Mark Strong, and Tom Hiddleston combined.

 

R.I.P. Taylor, I mean Paul.

[sjohnson]

I figured that the masked man wants people to know that the hard drive is very much still in play.  He left it in view in a house where he was waiting with a shotgun already loaded with riot rounds.  He may not have known it would be Ray that showed up first, or who it would be.  He just wanted someone to see the drive and live to tell about it.

I really like this a lot in many ways. Except that I can't figure out why he would want someone to know this. Trying blackmail got Tasha killed (who is by the way the person most likely to have set it up.) Also, I can't figure out who he wanted to know the hard drive was still in play. After all the people who tortured Tasha didn't get the hard drive, they already knew the hard drive was "in play." 

 

Crims remarks above that Paul wasn't connected to the main plot is not actually correct. In some ways, Paul had the most intimate connection of all, which is Black Mountain, where he engaged in something that literally left him scarred but earned a cut of $20 000. Unlike Frank Semyon role in lowering land prices, that sort of thing wasn't just business. Further, Paul is connected via his main hangup, Miguel. Catalyst is deep in on the corruption and their security does their dirty work. 

 

I still don't see how Paul can be Birdman, since we saw him tooling around on his motorcycle while Caspere's dead body was being taken around. But now I wonder if Pizzolato has been saving some sensational and Birdman was Miguel. And his insult about how Paul couldn't have been "run" if he'd been honest might not have referred to rather more than luring Paul into a trap by pretend blackmail. It can't really make perfect sense, but that ship sailed, and sank, long ago. But planting the body where Paul could find it as a way to move him into the investigation? If the picnic area was some sort of gay cruising spot...or do such things even exist in the day of phone apps?

[Consternation]

I really like this a lot in many ways. Except that I can't figure out why he would want someone to know this. Trying blackmail got Tasha killed (who is by the way the person most likely to have set it up.) Also, I can't figure out who he wanted to know the hard drive was still in play. After all the people who tortured Tasha didn't get the hard drive, they already knew the hard drive was "in play." 

Blake was still claiming this week that no one knows who killed Caspere.  If not for the rubber bullet stunt, it would be unclear whether the murderer got the drive, or whether Caspere was tortured but did not reveal the drive's location and it may not surface forever.  That might have actually been a more interesting plot, with each of the Catalyst-involved partygoers looking around at their co-conspirators wondering which one of them killed Caspere, whether they got the drive and whether they wanted it to destroy it or use it against one of the other club members.  Some of that is still going on, except that no one really has to wonder who got the drive.  I mean, you know what I mean.  They don't know who it is, but they know it was the person who was waiting in the house who is likely to have executed Caspere, and that person definitely has it.  Unless Ray lied about it, but we know he didn't and all of the characters have been able to see Ray neither murdered nor fled to Venezuela just yet.

 

The value of the drive does seem to be increasing under the changes to the market conditions since it was last seen.  Even underdog Frank could now get some corridor land parcels for it if he had it.

[shapeshifter]

The wife is in on it.

Did you notice the cold look she gave Frank when he said "I love you" right before she replied "I love you?" If she is in on it, I wonder if she thought losing the money would inspire Frank to get out of Dodge so they could start over (which she did suggest in an early episode) but instead it inspired him to go two steps backwards to his crime boss days.

[Cardie]

And sometimes I'm not quite sure if NP wanted this to be a crime narrative or a character study of four damaged humans.

Going for four was the fatal mistake. In S1 Rust had a tragic backstory, while we learned about Marty by seeing his onscreen behavior. We also had the police interviews to naturalize backstory. The crimes seeming obscure and convoluted but gradually coming into focus works fine in noir--but in noir it's always the lone detective with, at best, his sidekick. Ani and Ray assigned by the county and Vinci to investigate would have worked fine. But the massive amount of screen time spent on Frank gets in the way of peeling back the layers; Paul is useful in discovering evidence and shooting people, but his personal story again brought things to a halt. In Chinatown, it was Jake, the missing city official,the mysterious wife and her nefarious father. How they all fit together was far from obvious for most of the film, but we were always focused on interactions that led to gradual clarification. In a way the problem isn't too few hours but too many. When a crime story has to wrap up in two hours or so, temptations to have family dramas for everyone fall by the wayside.



[Jextella]

What if Frank...so keen on justice, etc....goes down and gives his tix to Venezuela to Ray and Ani since they need an exit strategy and may possibly have to leave the country?

Scratch that. Just looked at the promos for the finale...

We could be in for a Frank vs. Ray showdown in the end - with Ray winning.

Check these pictures out from the promos:

http://imgur.com/lp9boxJ

Just speculating....but it appears Frank and Ray are in the same room... Frank is talking about justice. Ray's left arm appears elevated - possibly by the handcuff. I wonder if Ray has been in on all this since the beginning and set Paul - and Frank - up. Ray's wife refers to Ray as a "bad man" constantly. Perhaps that is the case.

Edited August 4, 2015 by Mya Stone

[Hobo.PassingThru]

It is still a confusing way to tell the story.

At some point, maybe around episode 3, I wondered if you could divide each episode into 4 parts, one for each of the main characters so each could have been fleshed properly. So, @15 minutes per character. Eventually, as the story progressed, it would meld into 3 stories, 2 stories and then one. It's a tricky structure but there are diamonds involved. (at least on the flowchart I have in my head)

 

And then the rats came.

 

I can  understand that notion that Marty and Rust brought up about the detective's curse, missing something right in front of them. But, for cinematic storytelling, there [are] ways of emphasizing importance. Even if it is a subtle clue (like the crow image in the freaky doctor's office) it can be seen and not unseen.However, since the show is cycling through characters left and right and any connections are not made earlier, those extra characters seem less significant. [so, showing Dixon trailing Paul more than once, with each time its shown becoming more obvious it is Dixon = a good idea;Conversely, there was a jewelry heist in the middle of riots 20 some-odd years ago? Good to know now. What? Wait? There are survivors, too? Too much.]

 

I was waffling between thinking Black Mountain was a place of a battle in Afghanistan (fictionalized but that's fine) or an allusion to Blackwater (which is one word, by the way). Some fleshing out that it is a company of private security people and that perhaps Paul wasn't in Afghanistan as a soldier but as a private security force would have gone a long way of telling my ears to perk up and wonder who else besides his one-night stand was a part of that group. And, since Black Mountain was only tied to Catalyst, that's info worth noting earlier than this episode. Maybe if they had done some detective work on that the main characters would have told us that earlier than this past episode.

 

If this were a story told in a two hour movie, you can bet the important characters would be emphasized and the cruft would be excised. Early on, I wrote how maybe the constant shots of the highways mean the story is an intentional mess and looks intimidating but that the roads lead to one place. If the point of watching Season 2 is to simulate driving on a screwed up highway system while getting lost: success! I've been asking for directions for 7 episodes now!

 

 

What if Frank...so keen on justice, etc....goes down and gives his tix to Venezuela to Ray and Ani since they need an exit strategy and may possibly have to leave the country?

 

Technically, Ray still works for Frank. So, I do expect Ray to go to him and for Frank to seek out Ray. Help us, Dopey One, you're our only hope!

Edited August 4, 2015 by Hobo.PassingThru

[Quilt Fairy]

But all Paul's story could have been cut. All of it.

I agree. I was thinking about Paul's use in the main story arc and what would happen if his character just disappeared. There're 3 things I can think of off-hand: 1) he found the body, 2) he's the only one of the investigation team currently not wanted for murder and still on the force who can used police databases to look stuff up and 3) he was bad-ass black ops guy who worked for a military contractor turned security firm.

 

So, here's my response: 1) Anyone can find the body. Some random people walking down the beach, a jogger, a couple who pulled off the road to make out. Hell, you could even have a highway patrol officer find the body - AFAIK, finding the body doesn't give you dibs on the investigation. This city/county/state consortium doesn't seem likely. Ani and Ray, one to uncover the corruption, one to keep it covered, that I can buy. 2) Ani's partner Elvis could have been their inside guy, he has in fact been their inside guy a couple of times already. 3) The fact that Black Mountain is on the side of the bad guys is independent of Paul's past association with them. He had no knowledge of their current work that would have affected the investigation. The only place Paul was useful was the Mission Impossible-like operation at the sex house orgy. But that could have been handled (i.e., written) very differently. Ani could have been the one to find the documents. She could have gotten Vera out of the house quietly, met Ray at a pre-determined location (as opposed to one of the Random Doors of Fate) and they could have driven away without a hail of bullets. Hell, she could even have killed the security guard, just in an un-occupied room rather than a 2nd floor  balcony filled by people copulating.

 

I think you could also have cut out everything with Ray's son and the custody battle as well. Keep in that Frank gave him the name of the rapist and that Ray killed him, which made him a dirty cop indebted to Frank.

 

Ani's backstory is the one I find most interesting. I would like to have seen that developed more fully, with a lot more David Morse screen time.