So many criticisms and off-the-wall speculations floated around the IMDb message boards immediately following the conclusion of the first episode of the second season of this show.
There were good criticisms - Justin Lin doesn't use film and in no way will he pull off the epic job that Cary Fukunaga did in the first season. Digital photography is cheaper, and in some ways, it certainly looks cheaper. I have no qualms with this line of dissension. I do think that the aesthetic used by Justin Lin (Nigel Bluck, visually) is gritty and well-honed, despite it not being as grand as Cary's vision (pulled off by the sumptuous photography of Adam Arkapaw), thus far. If that is a big enough concern, you're in luck, as in this season, we're getting more directors and DPs, and the Lin/Bluck team only operate on the first two episodes.
Now to the remarkably effusive tripe that paraded itself as criticism - "The writing is bad," seemed to be the general consensus, and I'll bite, in the sense that it's more muddy. We don't have two generally "good" guys taking us through a serial murder case. We have a panoply of characters, all whom generally and genuinely appear to have a seedy side, and a very complex plot. "The plot doesn't make sense," was another common qualm. If you're used to simple movies, totally expecting a Season 1 Redux, or need the straight-forward pampering of an Ernest Hemingway novel, you're not going to like this season, at least so far. Fortunately, for those of us who have read Pizzolatto's "Galveston" or any of a number of other complex novels, where we're not spoon-fed story-arc-pablum, we can handle not knowing for a while. We can also handle loose threads hanging, indefinitely - who knows what happened to the crazy cult from Tuttle Ministries after they caught at least one of the killers? Could this or future seasons answer lingering questions? We're meant to believe the battle for who gets to claim God goes on - anyone paying attention to the near steady level of asinine drivel spewing from the bible belt's buckle shiners knows it goes on, and on. This series seems to deal equally harshly with the New Age movement, and rightfully so.
The writing and dialogue are on par with the first season, although there is no Ruste here. It's a more human side of writing, but it's still tight and engrossing. It's still the best writing on television.
Who is the man we've seen now, twice, who apparently wears a Raven mask and marches around with a shotgun full of Super X shotgun ammo? Who will we ultimately find that we can rally behind in this season's characters, dead or alive?
There were good criticisms - Justin Lin doesn't use film and in no way will he pull off the epic job that Cary Fukunaga did in the first season. Digital photography is cheaper, and in some ways, it certainly looks cheaper. I have no qualms with this line of dissension. I do think that the aesthetic used by Justin Lin (Nigel Bluck, visually) is gritty and well-honed, despite it not being as grand as Cary's vision (pulled off by the sumptuous photography of Adam Arkapaw), thus far. If that is a big enough concern, you're in luck, as in this season, we're getting more directors and DPs, and the Lin/Bluck team only operate on the first two episodes.
Now to the remarkably effusive tripe that paraded itself as criticism - "The writing is bad," seemed to be the general consensus, and I'll bite, in the sense that it's more muddy. We don't have two generally "good" guys taking us through a serial murder case. We have a panoply of characters, all whom generally and genuinely appear to have a seedy side, and a very complex plot. "The plot doesn't make sense," was another common qualm. If you're used to simple movies, totally expecting a Season 1 Redux, or need the straight-forward pampering of an Ernest Hemingway novel, you're not going to like this season, at least so far. Fortunately, for those of us who have read Pizzolatto's "Galveston" or any of a number of other complex novels, where we're not spoon-fed story-arc-pablum, we can handle not knowing for a while. We can also handle loose threads hanging, indefinitely - who knows what happened to the crazy cult from Tuttle Ministries after they caught at least one of the killers? Could this or future seasons answer lingering questions? We're meant to believe the battle for who gets to claim God goes on - anyone paying attention to the near steady level of asinine drivel spewing from the bible belt's buckle shiners knows it goes on, and on. This series seems to deal equally harshly with the New Age movement, and rightfully so.
The writing and dialogue are on par with the first season, although there is no Ruste here. It's a more human side of writing, but it's still tight and engrossing. It's still the best writing on television.
Who is the man we've seen now, twice, who apparently wears a Raven mask and marches around with a shotgun full of Super X shotgun ammo? Who will we ultimately find that we can rally behind in this season's characters, dead or alive?