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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
124
Mixed:
40
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews
Jan 12, 2024
Jan 10, 2019
Season 3 Review:
It’s a time-shifting saga about an emotionally disturbed person trying to solve the disappearance of children in a rural area, a tale told mere months ago on this same cable channel, in a dazzling adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects. But there’s still plenty to like, starting with the way Pizzolatto and Deadwood creator David Milch (who was a consultant and co-wrote an episode) have decided to focus not on a mismatched buddy-cop team, but on a single protagonist, Arkansas detective Wayne Hays (Mahershala Ali).
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Jan 10, 2019
Jan 10, 2019
Season 3 Review:
If you score “True Detective” Season 3 on originality, it fails--for repeating both its own history and the already-dated cable genre of glum loners confronting the evils men do. But if you treat it as a do-over--if the series, like one of its haunted antiheroes, is retracing its steps to try to get things right--then it’s fine. Often quite good. Far more consistent.
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Jan 2, 2019
Season 3 Review:
True Detective arrives for a third installment seeming to have already established its peaks and valleys. As a vehicle for actors and mood, few shows are better, and with Ali front and center, the new season is easy to get interested in, despite a lackluster mystery that may make it a struggle to stay interested.
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Jun 12, 2015
Season 2 Review:
You’ll probably miss the humor of the first True Detective but the brooding sourness of this one is fascinating in a different way, though it loses points for showing us a world that feels far more familiar than the one showcased in season one. When Ani, Ray, and Paul are drawn together as a unit, it takes a while to establish any kind of chemistry between them, because they’re all variations of the Mann-style, soul-sick badass.
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Jan 10, 2014
Season 1 Review:
As brilliant as many of the storytelling flourishes are, the narrative frequently suffers from awkward construction, clumsily bouncing among three time periods.... It's a brainy drama, to be sure, and it's a challenging one. The riveting lead performances are what keep you engaged when the going gets static--something more than engaged, actually.
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Jan 9, 2014
Season 1 Review:
Often True Detective is too much about the performances–there’s something very actorly about it, setting up McConaughey in particular with set pieces and monologues that, while exquisitely written on the page and probably potent Emmy-bait, would be twice as effective if there were half as many.
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Jan 10, 2019
Season 3 Review:
This season is more season one True Detective than season two True Detective, with Ali giving a tour de force performance as the show toggles between three time periods. The bad news? The central mystery is more fitting for a CBS crime procedural, and over eight episodes is stretched to its limit.
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Jan 2, 2019
Season 3 Review:
The new somber mystery will satisfy fans seeking the old True Detective high, and the Ozarks setting will surely please your cousin who loves Ozark. The acting is very strong. ... But Saulnier departs the series after the second hour. And the episodes that follow (I’ve seen through the fifth) feel repetitive, dreary, self-serious if not just mopey.
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Jun 19, 2015
Season 2 Review:
Just about everything that made the first season of True Detective entrancing is missing from the second, wholly re-imagined second season. In truth, only the worst, most clichéd parts remain. And yet.... If you make it to the third episode, chances are you'll keep going.
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Jun 17, 2015
Season 2 Review:
These are all excellent actors, most of them trying to push themselves out of their comfort zone in the same way McConaughey and Harrelson did, but with more mixed results.... The second season has [Pizzolatto] at times contorting himself into doing things that don't play as well to his strengths, and at others cranking up his specialties.
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Jan 7, 2014
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