true detective what did ani ask her boyfriend to do
True Detective's second season is ii things: depressing and confusing.
If it were a video game, its difficulty would be gear up to difficult. Or extra-hard. Or double-extra-super-pro-n0-n00bz-allowed-hardcore-xtreme.
Its morose density isn't necessarily bad thing. It's just challenging, emotionally and cognitively. I was reminded of that on Lord's day, when I watched the second episode and realized that I was woefully underprepared. And then I went back to the season opener. And at present I'chiliad taking you with me.
True Detective'due south second flavor premiere demands your attention and concentration to a far greater extent than fifty-fifty the philosophically heavy kickoff flavor. This year, the anthology serial is blazing a dissimilar path than its predecessor.
The show'southward creator and author, Nic Pizzolatto, eased viewers into the mysterious world of True Detective's outset season with a mystery on top of which the lives of exactly two principal characters layered, deeper with every episode. Pizzolatto is still at the helm, but he's taking a different approach.
He isn't easing anybody into anything. He's throwing viewers into the deep terminate and forcing u.s. to sink or swim on our own as nosotros flail to learn virtually 4 main characters.
It'due south a lot to blot, in other words.
And then before it'due south too late — earlier we all get too deep and too confused — were going to take a step back, examine each of the characters and recap the first episode in exquisite detail. There's no other way to keep information technology all straight.
Principal CHARACTERS
We have to meet and understand the characters before we can understand anything else nigh this show. Here'due south a brief overview of each.
Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell)
A drunk, a begetter and a detective in the Vinci, California Police force Department. He's out of control. More a decade ago, his married woman was beaten and raped. Nine months later, she had a child. Ray'south son looks about as much like him as Ron Howard looks like Charles Barkley. As far as law enforcement is concerned, the rapist was never officially caught. Simply Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn) constitute out who it was, told Ray, and they took intendance of him. Ray has been entwined with Frank e'er since.
Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn)
A career criminal who looks like a businessman, his focus is on securing investors for a high-speed track project set to begin construction side by side year. He's securing funds in partnership with Ben Caspere, the Vinci, California city planner. He has an function at the Vinci Gardens Casino, where the investor-focused fundraiser takes place. A decade ago, he helped Ray Velcoro detect his wife's rapist and, apparently, dispose of the torso.
Antigone "Ani" Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams)
A detective in the Ventura County Sheriff's Part Criminal Investigation Partition, seemingly devoid of any emotion other than anger. She has a male parent, whose into "hippie shit" equally she calls information technology and runs or speaks at a commune. She too has sister, Athena. We met Athena when Ani and her law enforcement partner, Elvis, burst into a house where Athena and several others were doing webcam porn. Her mother is dead, peradventure drowned. Ani is divorced, according to her begetter.
Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch)
A California Highway Patrolman who, in the first episode, gets suspended with pay afterwards pulling over a adult female who offers a sexual favor in lieu of a ticket. A couple of offhand comments indicate that he worked with a individual armed forces contractor, Black Mount Security, presumably in Afghanistan or Iraq. He has burn down marks beyond much of his upper body.
Ben Caspere (uncredited)
The city planner and apparent partner of Frank Semyon. He's referenced many times in the starting time episode merely he doesn't have a speaking office. He'due south missing. When Ray Velcoro and his partner, Teague Dixon, visit his house, they find all style of sexual paraphernalia. Caspere becomes the mucilage that binds four singled-out characters when he shows upwards dead at the finish of the first episode. His eyes were burned out with acid. Nosotros acquire — and see — in the second episode that his genitals were shot off, too.
Title SEQUENCE AND Song
Before we discuss an episode, we should look at what starts them: the championship sequence. Information technology weighs in at 90 seconds, and, like the first season's, contains a montage of abstract images, silhouettes and notwithstanding-frame character shots.
Behind information technology all, a raspy Leonard Cohen sings "Nevermind," a song that appears on his 2022 anthology Popular Problems. It was first published equally a poem on The Leonard Cohen Files website in 2006 and the following year in Book of Longing, a collection of Cohen'due south poetry.
Information technology'southward chopped up in True Detective'south 2d flavour title sequence, merely hither are the stanzas that made the cutting:
The war was lost
The treaty signed
I was non defenseless
I crossed the line
I was not caught
Though many tried
I live amid you Well bearded
I had to leave
My life behind
I dug some graves
You lot'll never discoverThe story's told
With facts and lies
I had a proper name
Simply nevermindNever mind
Never listen
I had to go out my life backside
The story'due south told
With facts and lies
You lot own the world
So nevermindMy woman'south here
My children, besides
Their graves are safety
From ghosts like you lot
In places deep
With roots entwined
I alive the life I left behindThe war was lost
The treaty signed
I was not caught
I crossed the line
I was not caught
Though many tried
I live among you
Well-disguised
The song's steady 4/four blueprint carries viewers through the infinitesimal and a half as images of this season'due south primary characters announced in diverse degrees of legibility. They're superimposed and interspersed with images of industrial parks, radio towers, California desert, palm trees, highways, satellite images of farmland, helicopter shots of residential neighborhoods. Red, the color of blood, is the principal hue.
It doesn't tell a story, exactly, but information technology establishes a location and sets a tone. Its title carte, though, might be the most direct visual metaphor.
The show's name superimposed over a rat's nest of cloverleaf onramps and offramps implies much, but perhaps nil as strong every bit intersection. If you call up of united states every bit viewers, the people behind the camera at whatsoever given moment, peering into this world, this shot sums up our role perfectly. Nosotros sentry from above and outside as the characters travel and intersect.
Episode 1:
The Western Book of the Dead
The claiming inside the first episode is that it is nearly an hr's worth of dense exposition presented at a steady prune. It'due south backstory. It's characters being established and congenital in front end of you lot. The plot is barely moving. We're just learning gobs of data in scene afterwards seemingly unrelated scene.
Then, given that we're going to become through the episode, person by person, event by upshot. There'south a lot to accept. We'll talk it out.
The title and the structure
The first episode's title alludes to the Book of the Expressionless, an ancient collection of Egyptian texts designed to assist the deceased on the journey through the afterlife. It is non, to exist clear, an actual book. The drove'southward medium spans from wall engravings to papyrus and encompasses illustrations, spells and other religious texts. It tells the story beginning with the deceased inbound a tomb, its descent into the underworld, an explanation of the gods' origins, the deceased's journey, judgment and, ultimately, transfiguration to godhood.
Its relationship to True Detective'southward second season is emblematic. There is, of course, a expressionless man, and the 2d flavour begins with a chronicle of what happens around and afterwards his decease. The 2d season is, itself, a journey.
That journey is told thorough the lives of four characters. Rather than telling them sequentially, information technology feels similar creator and writer Nic Pizzolatto wrote the story beats out on individual pieces of paper, shuffled them like a deck of cards and stuck with the order that emerged. It's an interesting Citizen Kane-like way to tell a story, but it's also confusing. To gainsay the confusion, nosotros'll suspension "The Western Book of the Expressionless" into sections divided by characters.
Detective Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell)
"The Western Volume of the Dead" begins with Detective Ray Velcoro, who's dropping his son Republic of chad off at school. The two await null alike. Chad doesn't desire to go. Ray tries to cheer him up past request if he likes his new shoes. That gets a little grin. He tells his son to keep his caput upward and be strong. He says he loves him. His son, worried, doesn't reply.
Ray meets with a lawyer to discuss the possibility of expanding his visitation rights. This is equally shut a scene as we get to Truthful Detective'southward starting time flavour, at to the lowest degree from the camera's perspective. Ray sits at the end of a table, wearing a bolo tie, sporting a most of a tough guy's handlebar mustache. The camera sits on the opposite end.
The coming together brings the painfully obvious into question: Are we sure that Chad is Ray's son, biologically speaking? It's a question Ray doesn't want answered. Chad is his son, and that's all there is to information technology, as far as he's concerned. But the truth is more complicated. Ray's ex-wife was beaten and raped nine months before Republic of chad was built-in. How's their human relationship? Adept, he says. They exchange messages on voice recorders. He slides wads of cash beyond the tabular array, says the lawyer should just figure something out. Is there anything else the chaser should know, she asks? "No," Ray says, "I welcome judgment."
"Peradventure we'll talk old. Maybe not."
Ray and Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn)
That leads into the episode's merely flashback, a scene set a dozen years ago where Ray meets Frank, who says he can proper name the rapist. The perpetrator bragged nearly information technology. Frank's people heard. "This is but data, man," Frank says. "Shit in the air. I'chiliad sharing with yous. I wanted to do this, and now it's washed. That's information technology." What does he want in return? Nothing. "Perhaps nosotros'll talk sometime," Frank says. "Maybe not." Ray walks out.
Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn)
Dorsum in the present, Frank is nervous, getting dressed for something big. He hasn't slept. We meet his wife, Hashemite kingdom of jordan, who calms him. At Frank's function in the Vinci Gardens Casino, his right-hand man hands him a copy of The Los Angeles Times, opened to an commodity called "Metropolis of Vice: Is Vinci the Almost Decadent District in Fifty.A. County?" Frank tells his underling/henchman, Blake Churchman, to have Frank Velcoro (Farrell) learn what he tin can about the reporter who wrote information technology.
Ben Caspere
So comes a short, foreign, unexplained scene in which a big, old, burgundy Cadillac pulls out of a house in broad daylight and drives downward Highway 101. A raven'due south head mask sits in the rider seat. In the back is an older man wearing sunglasses, motionless.
Antigone "Ani" Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams)
Nosotros meet Sheriff's Detective Ani Bezzerides merely after she's been intimate — or attempted to be intimate — with her apparent boyfriend. He's all apologetic for … something that isn't quite clear but that happened when they were intimate. She's not really upset. She's indifferent. She apparently has no emotions. At the very least, she'southward not into the guy she's sleeping with. He wants to talk about taking the relationship to the next level. You're a overnice guy, she says, only this own't the time.
In the side by side scene, Ani and her partner, Elvis Ilinca, lead a raid on a house in which women are making pornographic webcam videos. Here, she finds hither sis, Athena, who is non ashamed. Ani is furious.
Ray
Ray Velcoro sits in a chair while the master of law discusses the LA Times commodity, which talks about "municipal salaries, undocumented workers, pollution, policing practices." They transition immediately to news that the Vinci city managing director, Ben Caspere, has disappeared. It's a missing person's case, the Chief and a Lieutenant say. Velcoro'south on the case, and he'due south been assigned partner, Teague Dixon. Ray ain't happy.
Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch)
California Highway Patrol officeholder Paul Woodrugh is riding his motorcycle on the highway. A blood-red Mercedes pulls onto the road at a crazy speed, crosses the center line. Woodrugh pulls the car over, suspecting the young blond inside of a DUI. She's wearing an ankle bracelet. She's clearly drunkard or loftier. "Wait," she says, "mayhap you could only escort me domicile. And we tin talk … or do something? Trade, similar." She smiles, bites her lip. Woodrugh looks on, stone-faced.
"Look, peradventure yous could just escort me home. And we tin talk … or do something? Trade, like."
It'south not clear whether Patrolman Woodrugh took her up on her offer, only in the next scene, we learn that Woodrugh gets suspended — put on paid administrative leave — because of the incident. The adult female he pulled over, the actress Lacey Lindel, says that Woodrugh solicited oral sex. He seems horrified at the thought of a forced holiday, even though his dominate frames information technology as such and tells him it'll all blow over. "I like the bike, sir," he tells his boss. "The highway. It suits me. I am no good on the sidelines." He mentions something unexplained, unprovoked, as he leaves the room. "Black Mountain. We were working for America." Sounds like maybe civilian contractors in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Frank Semyon
In that location's a party in the Vinci Gardens Casino ballroom, and the establishing shot centers on a big poster advert the California Key Rail Corridor. Frank and his wife Jordan are in attendance, drinking champagne amid the formally dressed attendees. The mayor, Austin Chessani, is there, as is his immature wife. He'southward pissed about the LA Times story. Allow them write all the stories they want, he says, but after the "contracts come up through." Frank downplays it, saying it won't be a problem. (Remember from earlier that he'south having Ray Velcoro await into it.) Jordan, Frank's wife, plays diplomat to diffuse the rise tension. The angry, drunk mayor walks away, and Franks lifts his glass to toast an unnamed homo in the altitude.
This is when Frank finds out that Ben Caspere, the city planner, hasn't been to work in two days. Caspere was supposed to make the railway pitch at the party.
Ray Velcoro
Velcoro and his forced partner Dixon visit urban center planner Ben Caspere's part and speak to his secretarial assistant. She'south new. She doesn't know him very well. Does Caspere take any enemies? Not exactly, she says. "Mr. Casper sort of holds the handbag strings for a lot of stuff. A lot of people have to go through him."
"Hey, you see that, also, correct?"
Velcoro and Dixon visit Caspere'south home, and Velcoro picks the lock on the door to become in. Here's the very first impression we get, without a word: A big basin of what wait likes milk sits in the eye of a glass coffee table. Inside, a Barbie doll-sized nude Asian model floats, breasts exposed. "Hey," Velcoro says to Dixon. "You see that, besides, right?" The place is a mess, in the way that movies and Idiot box shows tell yous bad guys have been here looking for something. Moving picture someone with a knife cut through pillows. "Now we got us something something," Velcoro says. In Caspere's bedroom, at the foot of the bed, at that place is a minor chest full of sexual activity toys. The shot's mayhap a second long. You lot could miss information technology. Information technology is of import. There's a painting of an orgy on the wall, phallic statues in his office. The only obvious thing we know is missing from the house is his figurer, which Dixon points out.
Based on what he hears and sees, Velcoro assumes 2 things: The city managing director's been kidnapped, and his bosses already know that. "Teague, we don't belong on this," he says.
Frank Semyon
Meanwhile, back at the Vinci Gardens Casino party for the proposed railway, Osip Agranov arrives and greets Frank warmly. Agranov appears to exist a Russian mobster. He's there with his attorney, Michael Bugulari. "This man in the 90s," the Russian says nearly Frank to no one in particular, smiling. "What a terror. The good life suits you." Frank seems furious.
Information technology seems like Frank'due south trying to become directly — or has been for some time. Once again, Jordan steps in to play diplomat and ease the tension. Agranov introduces Bugulari to Frank, says they didn't encounter in Paris, though nosotros don't know when that was or why they were there. They have a stare down. Jordan escorts the visitors to meet others in attendance, similar contractors.
Ben Caspere
The erstwhile, burgundy Cadillac returns. The car hits a bump on the highway, and the passenger in the back seat slumps against the window. He looks like he's passed out. Or worse.
Frank Semyon
Back at the party, Frank, lonely, pitches the group on the $68 billion high-speed rail projection that would begin construction next yr. Anticipating the project, several belongings companies have already purchased land next to the proposed railway, and they're expecting hundreds of millions in federal grants. The Feds, he says, take guaranteed price overages, news that causes an excited murmur in the crowd. I man, the person Frank tipped cheers to across the room earlier, looks unimpressed.
Ani
Ani Bezzerides and her partner serve a notice of foreclosure to an upset mortgage holder, Danielle Delvayo. She mentions, in cloy, that her younger sister has been missing for at least a month, after last existence seen at some sort of religious community. "Panticapaeum?" Ani asks. Yes.
Ani and her partner visit Panticapaeum, which turns out to be something like a commune. Ani watches a gray-hared man lecture to a grouping of devotees. He quotes Ginsberg, speaks of "the final historic period of man." They catch each other's eyes. Ani walks away. The episode blast cuts to Ani quizzing a couple waitresses about the foreclosed woman'due south sister. They say she left for a ameliorate paying task a couple months ago.
Caspere
Police are taking photos at the city planner'southward wrecked house.
"When you meet only with God's optics, you see only the truth. And y'all recognize a meaningless universe. Ginsberg said this to me once, and it was a gift. So, today'southward exercise is to recognize the earth as meaningless and to sympathise that God did not create a meaningless globe. Hold both thoughts as irrefutable and equal. Because this is how we must alive now, in the final age of human being." — Eliot, Ani'southward father'
Ray
Velcoro tugs from a small bottle of bourbon while sitting in his car outside of an apartment edifice. He's visibly upset, huffing. He's tracked downwards the LA Times senior staff author, Dan Howser, who drives upward to his apartment in a crappy old hatchback. Ray puts on gloves and a mask, follows Howser up to his apartment, kicks in his door and beats the living hell out of him. This, remember, is Frank's bidding.
Ani
Nosotros're back at Panticapaeum. Ani is quizzing the instructor, a human in his late 50s with a short beard and long, gray hair past his shoulders. He tells her that he might recognize the foreclosed woman's sister, but merely from seeing her around, nothing more. This is Ani'south begetter. They don't become along. They contend. Eliot defends Ani's sis, Athena. "Athena, the goddess of love," he says, bemused. "She's doing porn," Ani says. "Well, what exactly is porn?" he says. Ani is the precise opposite of her father. And her sister. They fence. "Yous're angry at the entire world for something you never received," he says. She leaves angry.
Ray
Drunk and with claret on his sleeve, Ray walks through a parking lot with a sleeping bag under his arm. He's at his son's schoolhouse. So is his son's stepfather, Richard. The sleeping bag is a souvenir for a camping trip that the stepdad says was last weekend. Ray notices that his son isn't wearing the new shoes he referenced in the first scene. He demands to know what happened, screams and threatens his son until he gives upward the proper noun of the bully. The keen'southward name is Aspen Conroy.
In the next scene, Ray is talking into his voice recorder to his son while sitting in his motorcar. "Totally my mistake," he says. Likewise that he used to want to exist an astronaut, "merely astronauts don't even get to the moon anymore." The dispatcher comes on the radio, says she has the address for Conroy that he requested. He appears to be smoking a joint.
Ani
She and her partner drive downwards the highway. Elvis tries to sympathize. She says don't talk about her family.
In the adjacent scene, she's getting dressed in the constabulary department's woman's locker room. Alone.
Paul
Woodrugh, the highway patrolman, arrives at his girlfriend'south apartment. She's in the mood for love. He begs off, says he wants to shower kickoff. Won't take five minutes. He takes a Viagra and a shower. He emerges from the bathroom half an hour later, wrapped just in a towel. He's full of scars. They start fooling around. He doesn't look the to the lowest degree chip happy. He doesn't tell her about his day.
Frank
Frank is pitching directly to Agranov, who's not exactly on board. It's cool, they explicate. In that location'due south precedent with the subway system. Money flows through holding companies — all sorts of weird, quasi-legal, probably illegal stuff. "This goes across us," Frank says. "A legitimate legacy. A chance for the grandkids to be part of one of those quondam California companies, don't fifty-fifty remember where the money comes from." Frank asks anybody else in the room to exit. Frank thought Osip was here to shut the deal. He tells Frank non to rush him, says he looks frontward to meeting Caspere and leaves the room. Frank utters the missing human being's proper name, throws his drinking glass against the wall, shattering information technology.
Ray
Ray is at the Conroys' house, where the kid who took his son's shoes lives. He's talking to the male parent on the front stoop. Says he wants to talk about some stolen belongings. Bring your son out, Frank says, and we tin do this off the books. He slips on a pair of contumely knuckles and beats the living hell out of the father in front of the son. He makes the son watch, threatens to come back if he e'er bullies anyone again.
Caspere
It's the Cadillac again, with the older dude slumped against the window. It'due south nighttime now. The car pulls off to the side of the route. The driver gets out, drags the man's torso from the car. As the driver drags the homo in the sunglasses across the clay, the latter'southward legs do not move. Rigor mortis.
Paul
Paul and his girlfriend lie in bed. She asks about the scar on his shoulder. She thinks it's from when he was in the army. "Information technology'southward not from the army," he says. "It's from before, a long fourth dimension ago." He gets out of bed, says he's taken a side-job and has to go. Turns out he never spends the night, and she doesn't like this. His life is messed up, he says. He needs to piece of work. She says come back to bed. He kisses her and leaves.
Now he'south driving his motorcycle downwardly the highway.
Ray
In a dimly lit bar where a woman plays guitar and sings "This is my least-favorite life, the one where you wing and I don't," Ray sits at a berth in a bar, smoking, drinking.
Frank is there, too, sitting across from him. It'due south been a bad day for everybody.
Ray passes the LA Times reporter's files and laptop across the table, says he won't be writing that series nigh abuse anymore. Frank gives Ray an envelope, presumably in payment. They drink, pouring from the aforementioned canteen on the tabular array. Frank asks nigh Ray'south son and the lawyer. Ray is getting super drunk.
A waitress with a pronounced scar brings a beer to the table, kind of flirts with Ray and ignores Frank. Seeing anyone? "Nah," Ray says. "Not interested in anything like that anymore." Frank's advice: "A good woman mitigates our baser tendencies." Says he and his married woman are trying to have kids, trying in vitro fertilization.
Boom cutting to the vocaliser, singing "This is my least-favorite life."
Frank'due south assistant comes to the table, says Jordan (Frank's wife) has their friends (whoever they are) at the Soho Bar (whatever that is, wherever that is). Frank leaves, puts his hand on Ray's shoulder. "Take care, Raymond. Talk soon." They aren't even looking at each other. Frank's guy tries to accept the canteen from the table. Ray stops him. He leaves it and Frank pours himself another double, about the fifth since the scene began. He stares into the distance.
Ani
Ani sits, drinking, playing blackjack. Orders another drinkable.
"This is my least-favorite life," the vocalizer sings. "The one where I'm out of my heed. The one where you're just out of reach. The 1 where I stay. And y'all fly. And I'1000 wondering in the shade. And the rustle of falling leaves. A bird on the edge of a blade."
Paul
He speeds downwardly the highway on his motorcycle. He turns off the headlight at some betoken after exceeding 100 mph, as if he has a expiry wish. He changes his mind, turns the light back on, and pulls off to a rest area on the side of the route, shuts off the engine. "Stop it, y'all motherfucker," he says to himself. He looks up. There'south an older human being sitting at a picnic bench in the darkness. "Sir?" No response. He eases the man'due south sunglasses down. Then back up. Sees a wallet on the human being's left thigh. Opens it advisedly. It'due south the city manager, Ben Caspere. He's dead. "Fuck," Paul says as he calls 911.
Ray
Two waitresses make clean at the bar. Ray is where we last left him, passed out. The waitress with the scar who flirted with Ray earlier tells the other waitress to keep quiet and let him residual. He'southward snoring softly.
Ani
She leaves the casino, still drinking equally she walks out the door. She gives the bouncers escorting her out the finger, throws her cup at them a few developed words and then walks to her car. Her phone rings. She answers. It's her partner, Elvis.
Ray
His phone vibrates and wakes him from slumber. He answers. Someone on the other end of the line says Frank needs to go on the Pacific Coast Highway and drive to to Point Mugu. Utilise the sirens. Why? "They found Ben Caspere," the vocalization says.
Everyone
Ani, Elvis and Paul are standing around Caspere's trunk. Someone from the Ventura County medical examiner's office is explaining the state of affairs. Caspere'south eyes have been burned out by acid. Some entity called Catalyst Grouping maintains this part of the highway. He doesn't know when he died but "bled out somewhere else. Severe pelvic wound."
Ray pulls up, late, smoking, chewing gum. Introduces himself. "This man'southward a missing person with united states of america," he says. They all introduce themselves. Size each other up. Everybody gives everybody else the side-middle. They're all miserable in their own weird ways.
The episode ends.
INTERSECTION
That's the story, beat-by-crush. Ray's beholden to Frank. Frank's beholden to the very dead Caspere and his investors. Ani is lost and angry, at state of war with her family. Paul is lost and solitary.
That's information technology, but True Detective's 2d flavour carries a weight far heavier than those 4 factual but understated sentences could possibly explain.
The first time I watched the first episode, it seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time developing characters and barely nudging the story frontwards. Its breakneck pace confused me. Going back, slowly, helped.
It remains to exist seen whether True Detective's second outing volition be able to recapture the magic of the get-go season. I doubtable, however, that everything that happens for the next seven episodes is jump to flow from what we saw here. Hence, the arguably excruciating detail. And if the magic does return, it will simply practise so considering we viewers put the fourth dimension and effort to truly sympathise these poor, unfortunate souls whose paths collided in a freeway rest stop, huddled around a cold, dead body.
Source: https://www.polygon.com/2015/6/30/8869875/true-detective-season-2-explain-details-characters-plot-help
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