Flat circles and fiery coders

‘True Detective’ and ‘Halt and Catch Fire’ return for second seasons

“True Detective” and “Halt and Catch Fire” both debuted last year, on HBO and AMC, respectively. The former arrived with modest fanfare and muted expectations but evolved into a full-blown cultural phenomenon by the end of its eight-episode run. The latter was paraded by its network as the ambitious heir apparent to “Mad Men” but received middling reactions from audiences and critics. 

In their second seasons, “Fire” is knocking it out of the park while “Detective” is struggling and so far failing to live up to the astronomical expectations it set for itself last year.

True Detective

The first season of “True Detective” was a perfect alchemy of casting, direction and writing. Director Cary Fukunaga, writer/showrunner Nic Pizzolatto and actors Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson elevated what could have been a run-of-the-mill potboiler to a brooding, high-toned tale of broken men rooting out evil against the foreboding backdrop of the Louisiana bayou. Pizzolatto’s writing was at times self-consciously literary, and his penchant for Easter egg references (e.g. “The King in Yellow”) teased viewers with the promise of a deeper supernatural component that never materialized. But Fukunaga’s assured, meticulous direction kept a firm hold on the writing’s tone, and McConaughey and Harrelson sold some of the more writerly dialogue with staggering conviction. The magic of the show was in the way its sometimes-imperfect elements came together to form a more perfect whole. 

Now we have season 2, which after only two episodes is clearly inferior to the original, if not completely terrible when taken on its own terms. 

Pizzolatto said from the beginning that he conceived the show as an anthology, with each season telling a stand-alone story with a different cast and setting. Thus, we’re forced to reset and leave our baggage of expectations at the door. This time, we’ve moved from the swampy, southern gothic milieu of coastal Louisiana to the concrete neon-noir landscape of industrial L.A. We have four protagonists instead of two—Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams and Taylor Kitsch as the titular detectives and Vince Vaughn as a principled gangster. Most crucially, multiple journeyman directors have replaced the singular vision of Fukunaga. 

Episode one, cryptically titled “The Western Book of the Dead,” devotes the majority of its runtime to ponderous, clumsy character introductions. Ray Velcoro (Farrell) is a drunk, burned-out detective in the small suburb of Vinci, California who serves two corrupt masters: his superiors at city hall, and criminal businessman Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn), whom we meet as he’s attempting to close on a lucrative deal to build a high-speed rail. Antigone Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams) is a hardened, workaholic detective for Ventura County who carries some distinctly Angelino daddy issues. Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch) is an emotionally scarred war veteran who now works as a motorcycle cop for California Highway Patrol. 

This first episode acts mostly as a primer for the myriad ways in which these characters are scarred and broken, until the thrilling final minutes when the mystery is fully introduced.

The main problem with the series so far lies at the feet of director Justin Lin—a hardhat hack best known for a couple of “Fast and Furious” sequels—who directed the first two episodes and is trying very, very hard (without much success) to live up to Fukunaga’s legacy. His staging is mostly flat and rhythm-less; isolated moments of stylistic flair—menacing shots of L.A.’s refineries and spider-web highways, a musical number by Lera Lynn in the world’s saddest bar—feel labored and self-conscious. More damaging, though, is Lin’s handling of the actors, who do their best to ape the profundity and gravitas of McConaughey and Harrelson but end up flirting with self-parody. Pizzolatto’s writing desperately needs a director as intuitive and confident as Fukunaga; in the hands of Lin, much of the dialogue (especially Vaughn’s existential pondering) is stiff, broad and grandiose. 

But there’s hope yet. As the mystery is teased out, the show gets better. A sudden apparent death at the end of episode two suggests that the series may find its rhythm still and unfurl into something darkly magical—especially with Lin no longer in the driver’s seat. At this point, there’s little hope of “True Detective 2” reaching the heights of season one, but it might turn out to be a perfectly respectable sophomore slump. 

Halt and Catch Fire

Season two of “Halt and Catch Fire” improves greatly on its debut run. The period drama about early ‘80s startup culture in the silicon prairie of Dallas started with uncomfortable echoes of “Mad Men” but slowly grew into itself as the series unfolded. It was stylish, consistently well written and acted, and seemed to know its very specific, jargon-heavy world inside and out. 

Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace) was on first glance a less sympathetic, less charismatic Don Draper facsimile—a blustery salesman with a sleek mannequin’s face given to near-constant speechifying. But MacMillan was reckless, prone to screw-ups in his grifter scheming and more transparently full of shit than Draper ever was. His uneasy alliance with browbeaten, Wozniak-like engineer Gordon Clark (Scoot McNairy) and brash, erratic coder Cameron Howe (Mackenzie Davis) as they attempted to build a PC that could compete with IBM made for compelling, if not exceptional, drama. 

In the second season, we jump ahead to 1985, nearly two years after Cardiff Electric has imploded, along with the trio’s PC. MacMillan, who went out with a fiery bang at the end of last season, is living in Austin and engaged to an old college friend. As he recounts his past at a dinner party, he seems humble and contrite, a far cry from the con artist we’ve come to know. 

In Dallas, Gordon—jobless but flush with cash from Cardiff’s sale—spends much of his time doing coke and playing video games while his wife, Donna (Kerry Bishé), works tirelessly to help Cameron run Mutiny, an online gaming startup. 

The relationship between Cameron and Donna has grown into something more dynamic and emotionally grounded than last season’s clusterfuck of dysfunctional personalities. Writer/Creators Christopher Cantwell and Christopher C. Rogers have smartly transplanted most of the action from the drab offices of Cardiff to the rowdy home base of Mutiny—a house converted into a playpen, teeming with energy and empty pizza boxes, for a dozen young coders working to keep the company in business and bandwidth. The jittery post-punk soundtrack—so out of place at points last season—now feels appropriate, even poignant, against the youthful chaos of the Mutiny house. 

The recalibrations have made for a much better show this time around. If season three improves that much more, AMC might finally have the artistic equal to “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men” they’ve so desperately sought. 

For more stories like this, read Joshua's take on season 7.1 of "Mad Men"  and his reviews of the first seasons of "True Detective"  and "Silicon Valley."