Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Directors: Jeremy Saulnier, Daniel Sackheim, Nic Pizzolatto, Netflix.
Cast: Mahershala Ali, Carmen Ejogo, Stephen Dorff, Scoot McNairy, Ray Fisher.
It’s slow-moving, but addictive. An American anthology crime-drama television series created by Nic Pizzolatto, the third season of True Detective is better than Season 2.
A retired detective has been tormented for 35 years by a case involving the 1980 disappearance of a 12-year-old boy and his 10-year-old sister in the town of West Finger, Arkansas. With a failing memory, the ageing Wayne Hays (Ali) ruminates on details of his investigation with the producer of a true-crime documentary. Through flashbacks, details about the case are revealed of what happened on that fateful night – and how that one event shaped the lives of so many people.
True Detective is a story of obsession: Hays spends decades investigating the crime that changed his life — the murder of a young boy and the disappearance of the boy’s sister — as the drama slips between three separate time periods in 1980, 1990 and 2015.
The timelines, over eight episodes, distinctly interweave the plot, the investigation, building characters, finding solutions. The story takes place in the Ozarks, as partner detectives investigate a macabre crime. It’s how the generations react from the ongoing ‘fall-out’ dealing with families, including the parents of the lost children.
Two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali plays the lead role of Detective Wayne Hays, an Arkansas State Police detective and a Vietnam War veteran. Stephen Dorff plays his partner detective Roland West, and later a lieutenant in the state police.
Carmen Ejogo is Amelia Reardon, an Arkansas schoolteacher and aspiring writer who marries Wayne Hays.
Scoot McNairy as Tom Purcell is the father of two missing children whose fate is tied to those of Wayne Hays and Roland West for over 10 years. Ray Fisher as Henry Hays, Wayne Hays’ and Amelia Reardon’s son who has become a detective with the Arkansas State Police.
The characters talk about serious things slowly, and the music is continuously tuned to Haunted Southern Gothic Folk. The season marks Pizzolatto’s directorial debut, with the series creator dividing up directing assignments with Jeremy Saulnier and Daniel Sackheim.
Pizzolatto also serves as the showrunner and sole writer of the season, with the exception of the fourth and sixth episode, which he co-wrote with David Milch and Graham Gord.
The Emmy-winning True Detective series creator and executive producer Nic Pizzolatto is a talented writer/producer and his unique creative vision – enacted on screen – is engrossing.
