May The Elvis Be With You
Last week's episode of True Detective left us questioning whether the series had accomplished one of the most shocking deaths of recent times with the supposed murder of Detective Velcoro, a character portrayed majestically by everyone's favourite Irish export Colin Farrell, yet such a mystery was immediately resolved in the first few minutes of "Maybe Tomorrow" when we established that the murderous bird-masked assailant had thankfully decided to load his shotgun with rubber bullets, much to the relief of Velcoro himself as well as most viewers I would assume who, like me, see Velcoro as one of the more interesting characters in this years' series. One negative aspect of such a quick resurrection however was that all the fun and games of playing that one scene over and over in the week between the two episodes was quickly overshadowed with such an attempt on one of the leading characters life being brushed over rather instantaneously, a major shame in my opinion. Top marks however for the obvious Lynch/Twin Peaks inspired dream sequence that kicked this week's episode off though. A good, retro, Lynch reference is always going to win me over. Well done.
With Velcoro's swift resurrection, "Maybe Tomorrow" marched swiftly forward in an attempt to speed up the rather rambling plot lines that are starting to materialise, with the editing in this particular episode flying like a steam-train in order to keep us privy to not only dealings within the police force, but out of it, with Frank Semyon finally unleashing his inner evil after seeing one of his henchman being brutally murdered in manner not too dissimilar from that of Ben Caspere (Were his eyes not removed?). Furthermore, the obvious symbolism of sexual incapability between the two leads of the series in both Semyon and Woodrugh ties into the notion of both seemingly being absent from what they desire most, with Semyon reeling from the notion of leaving the criminal enterprise and Woodrugh's obvious defiance from "coming out" as it were. This undercurrent sexual motif has been highly recurrent in this series so far, making me question whether lead writer Nic Pizzolatto is purposely fleshing out characters with such vices in order to have not one, but a whole range of potential suspects for the series' main mystery on both sides of the law.
Weaknesses of the episode followed suit of the series' overall weaknesses so far, with a few more examples of cringe-worthy dialogue, whilst the shallow, caricature-ridden portrayal of Mayor Chessani 's family, including his trophy wife and extremely annoying son was rather laughable in places. Furthermore, what is everyone's problem with E-Cigarettes? I mean come on, there are much worse problems out there. In conclusion therefore, True Detective once again supplied another solid and intriguing slice of gritty, noir-esque mystery, stifled with sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, a winning recipe if ever there was one, if suffering from questionable dialogue and an all-too-quick resolution to the cliffhanger of the previous episode.
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