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In Reply to: How bad is True Detective season 2? posted by tunenut on August 4, 2015 at 20:39:07:
Plot Summary, True Detective Season 2.
Who killed Ben Caspere?! Opening episode. We know that the killer wore a bird mask. (a large Crow/Raven mask.) Ben Caspere was the city manager of Vinci, California. He was a business partner with Frank Seymon (Vince Vaughan). He was a patient of Dr. Irving Pitlor (Rick Springfield). We also know, from visiting his home, that Ben was into some wierd sex.
Frank Seymon had given Ben $5 million, together with a $5 million investment from Russian-Israeli gangster Osip Argonov (Timothy V. Murphy) in order to secure a parcel of land from The Catalyst Group.
The land is thought to have potential for high return because of a planned high-speed rail project scheduled to run through it. To sell to the govt at a higher price. Etc.
Caspere was killed before he could turn his money over to Catalyst. With Caspere's death, Frank is out $5 million and broke. Osip pulls out of the deal with Frank.
Frank had sold his waste management business in order to raise the $5 million to invest in the land parcel. Now broke he muscles into a club he previously had operated by killing the current operator. He literally pulls all of the teeth out of the guy. This is where Frank meets with a Mexican drug Cartel that had been doing business with the previous operator. Now, Frank lets these Cartel members know that they can get lost. (ultimately this proves not to be a smart move)
Blake Churchman. Former right hand man to Frank, but discovered to have been operating behind Frank's back. Blake explains, before he dies at Frank's hands, that Caspere was in cahoots with Osip. Osip was smuggling girls out of Eastern Europe into California (for prostitution) and buying up liens on Frank's two clubs, Vinci Gardens Casino and Lux Infinitum. When Caspere died his shares of Catalyst were reabsorbed by the company and redistributed to Osip and Tony Chessani, the mayor's son.
The Sex Parties. Our protatgonists Ray, Ani and Paul, while investigating the death of Caspere discovered that he was involved in planning and operating regular high-end sex parties for the rich and powerful. At these parties these folks did business and then had sex with drugged women supplied by Osip and his slave prostitute trade. Blake was another of the organizers for these parties. Yet another figure in the sex parties is Dr. Pitlor, the plastic surgeon who did major/minor cosmetic touch-ups to the women imported from Eastern Europe by Osip. Transforming the women into top drawer product. Caspere and Tony Chessani (Mayor's son) had used these parties as a way to acquire blackmail material - photos, video -on all the powerful guests.
Where is all the blackmail material -- On Caspere's missing hard drive, that's where. Episode 2, Ray, on a trip from Frank, checked out Caspere's secret apartment. There he saw a video camera hooked up to a hard drive. Before Frank could react, an individual in a Crow's mask shot him with a shot gun loaded with riot shells. Ray survived because riot shells aren't supposed to be lethal. When Ray woke up, the hard drive was gone.
Next question; who is on that hard drive? Answer; Evidently plenty of rich and powerful folks.
What about the Blue Diamonds.
In photos found by Ani while evicting Vera from her apartment. It turns out that Vera and her sister Dani had been part of Osip's slave prostitute trade. Another prostitue, Tasha had been close with Caspere and also had been trying to blackmail some of the johns from the sex parties. Tasha had sent some damning photographs to Dani showing Caspere associating with women wearing blue diamonds at one of the sex parties. After Caspere's death, a group of blue diamonds had been found in his safe deposit box.
When Ani got the photos of the blue diamonds she went on a search for them. She found that the diamonds had gone missing. It turns out that a number of cops on the Vinci Police Force knew about the diamonds, even before Caspere's death. They knew this because they were the ones who originally stole them in 1992. Two masked men took $2.5 million in blue diamonds from a jewelry store during the LA Riots. We learn in the 7th episode that it was Dixon and Burris who comitted the robbery. Then precinct accountant Ben Caspere and Chief Holloway knew of the robbery and were complicit in the crime.
Detail of the robbery. The jewelry store owners were executed by the robbers (Dixon & Burris). Their two young children, boy and girl, were witness to the slayings but stayed hidden from the robbers. These two children will figure into the plot with the boy (grown up by now) as the one who has been wearing the crow's mask.... And this is how the blue diamonds figure into Caspere's death.
Burris kills officer Paul Woodrough. Because Burris suspects Woodrough has documents stolen from The Catalyst Group that will make complicit all the parties involved in this illegal land grab. (what, insider trading?). But Woodrough doesn't have the documents on him and dies before the corrupt cops can extract any information as to the whereabouts of said docs. It turns out that the stolen documents went to Venzuela with Ani where she gave them to a journalist to use as evidence against those who participated. Presumably, when the story breaks out, justice will be served to those who participated in the scheme.
Characters:
re: Frank. Ultimately he got his just deserts at the hands of the Cartel gangsters. That was Frank's own fault. He really should not have stiffed them like he did in episode 3. Those Cartel guys seem to behave like predators. the only way to deal with them is to be an even bigger predator, or they kill you. Like they killed Frank.
I did take some gratification when Frank offed Osip with several pistol shots point blank. That back-stabbing dirty-dealing slave-trading scumbag Russian gangster had it coming.
At his life's end we see Frank as a minor gangster falling well short of his ambitions in life.
re: Ray. His kid. I had figured for sure the kid could not have been his. It had to be the progeny of his wife's rapist. But in the final episode we see on the results of the dna paternity test that his son was in fact his blood. That kid sure did not look the part. Total opposite.
Ray's demeanor. A hothead. Given to unreasonable fits of anger. And the probable reason for his son's inability to hold his own among his peers at school. In his fits, Ray brow-beats his son into a state of fight/flight.....and the son has no option but to tremble with a profound fear of his father. (There is some truth in this portrayal)
Ray is a killer. When Frank offered him a clue about his former wife's rapist, Frank offed the guy. We saw him do it in episode 1.
Given to heavy drinking. Hard booze. Whiskey. Behaves a bit like a Rummy. He seems incompetent at his work as a detective. He quits the force and goes to work for Frank as ahem, security (read muscle). He seemed more fit for this life than that of a police detective.
After being shot-gunned (with riot shells) in the abdomen by the guy in the bird mask, and he recovers, Ray gets the fear of death in him. He sobers up and starts behaving more rational and normal. I think Farrel portrays this change in character quite well. The subtleties of cleaning up one's act and the effect it makes on day to day life. We see this as we watch Ray play out the rest of the series. He becomes less surly, more competent and reasonable.
It was a given, though that Ray would always have a fatal flaw. His weakness. His son. He just could not leave the country without one last look at his son. If not for that, he'd have made it to Venezuela. But, predictably, he went to the exact spot where his hunters knew he'd go. That led to his demise, and he knew it would before he even went there. Ray was an irrational being. It was this that made him predictable.
re: Ani (Rachel McAcams). Perhaps the most likeable character. The least flawed. A hardened and competent cop. Smart and determined. She survives because she plays it smart.
re: Paul Woodrough (Taylor Kitsch). Flawed and with a weakness. It was his weakness that made him an obvious victim for blackmailers. (A taste for the boys) As it turns out it was the corrupt cops, posing as blackmailers, who lured him into a killing zone where he was ultimately gunned down by the police Lieutenant Burris. The corrupt Burris shot him in the back. Twice.
re: Jordan Seymon. Franks's wife played by Kelley Reilly. Another character that seems without flaw. Loyal to the last to her husband, Frank Seymon. It was clear that she'd have done anything to help out. But Frank kept her safe and out of harms way.
Just a few of the more prominent characters.
All in all, I wasn't that disappointed with this series.
None of this mess I've written is complete but it helps me to digest the series and then move on, hopefully, to something more worthy.
-Steve
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Follow Ups
- True Detective S2 plot summary....(spoilers, naturally) - user510 16:18:44 08/10/15 (2)
- More would be revealed/understood with a 2nd and 3rd viewing. - free.ranger 20:14:32 08/11/15 (1)
- RE: but, but..... - user510 21:21:43 08/11/15 (0)
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