Althouse: "Why did I stop midway through episode 2 [of 'True Detective']? It wasn't the sex. It was the mumbling."

March 13, 2014

"Why did I stop midway through episode 2 [of 'True Detective']? It wasn't the sex. It was the mumbling."

"Between McConaughey and the other guy who looks too much like him (Woody Harrelson), it was way too much 2 guys mumbling. This show could not fill the aching gap left by 'Breaking Bad,' which we watched, all 60 episodes in just about exactly 60 days. In 'Breaking Bad,' not only was it easy to tell Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston apart, but the 2 actors frequently spoke quite clearly."

That's what I wrote yesterday, and a reader sent me this spoof from "The Soup" which had us laughing here at Meadhouse at 5:50 a.m.:

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27 comments:

Ron said...: But I still feel the show was better written than Breaking Bad...the whole run of which I watched...twice. As much as I liked BB, it will stay with me less and less over time. As for the mumbling, so what? I've heard far, far worse, and spent way more time in books whose prose was worse than any mumbling in a film or show ever. That's only part of it.; 3/13/14, 6:01 AM
Ron said...: Here's a good piece on True Detective:

http://www.vulture.com/2014/03/true-detective-finale-7-things-it-was-about.html; 3/13/14, 6:07 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Good, but not good enough to bother to make a hyperlink.

That's like the blog commenting equivalent of mumbling.; 3/13/14, 6:10 AM
FleetUSA said...: Mumbling together with loud music is a problem with many films since the mid-90's; 3/13/14, 6:55 AM
KCFleming said...: Damned funny spoof of True Detective.

Same thing was done in Adam Sandler's The Waterboy, with another Loo-zee-anna bayou character no one understood.

I loved the series, and I hate series in general. Haven't watched any in over a decade. Just happened to catch part of episode 3 not knowing what it was. Hooked.

But if you hated it, it wasn't for you. Matters of taste aren't worth fighting about.; 3/13/14, 7:34 AM
rehajm said...: I'm just gonna guess that you cheated on me..

Heh.; 3/13/14, 7:44 AM
KCFleming said...: It's a Southern Gothic Silence of the Lambs.; 3/13/14, 8:08 AM
Known Unknown said...: Professor-

Handhandfgfd gjdf muromrntnfk thwogg!!!; 3/13/14, 8:27 AM
Known Unknown said...: I loved the series, and I hate series in general. Haven't watched any in over a decade. Just happened to catch part of episode 3 not knowing what it was. Hooked.

It's an anthology, so season 2 will be all-new plot and characters. It's supposedly set in Southern California, so there will be less mumbling.; 3/13/14, 8:27 AM
Known Unknown said...: Good, but not good enough to bother to make a hyperlink.

Frankly, I'd blame Blogger. Their commenting system is hyper-antiquated.; 3/13/14, 8:28 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: How to put a hyperlink in a Blogger comment.; 3/13/14, 8:31 AM
Ann Althouse said...: @EMD It may be a deliberate speed bump.

I like the simple look of the comments threads here.

But come on, if you've got a URL you actually want anyone to go to, make it a link or forget it. It looks junky and no one is going to go to it. People hardly even click on links.; 3/13/14, 8:42 AM
Seeing Red said...: I don't like either of those actors in True Detective, but the episode I saw changed my mind on McConaughey.

Haven't and won't watch BB. marathoned Walking Dead was bored.; 3/13/14, 9:03 AM
KCFleming said...: From Ron's link above:

"And it passes at least two of what I consider to be tests of great popular art.

First, it walks a fine line between sincerity and self-parody that makes audiences wonder, "Are they kidding with this?" The answer is usually "yes and no." (David Lynch is probably the king of this sort of thing, though David Fincher, whose Se7en and Zodiac clearly influenced True Detective, is no slouch, either.)
Second, if you pose the question, "What is True Detective about?" you'd get a different answer depending on whom you asked, and every answer would be equally valid, and there'd be enough Venn-diagram-style overlap between the "abouts" that you could make a case for the work being rich and multilayered as opposed to wishy-washy or confused."; 3/13/14, 9:26 AM
Xmas said...: What's sad is that no one here is talking about "Black Sails". Which has been an interesting show to watch.; 3/13/14, 9:47 AM
Ron said...: I go to links however they show up. Both Twitter and Wordpress just do it automatically.; 3/13/14, 10:12 AM
KCFleming said...: That was a great article, Ron.
I read it twice and saved it.; 3/13/14, 10:19 AM
Wince said...: Why did I stop midway through episode 2 [of 'True Detective']? It wasn't the sex. It was the mumbling.

The sex was the only thing that brought me back, intermittently, to the miasma of that Louisiana mumble-swamp.; 3/13/14, 10:24 AM
KLDAVIS said...: Only through 5 episodes, but have had no issues with understanding the dialogue. I'll credit my time on the debate team and learning to glean the gist of even the fastest garbled speech.; 3/13/14, 10:29 AM
Ron said...: Thanks Pogo...One of the many cool things about these past few years of quality TV, is that there is a lot of quality writing about it as well.

It's slacked off now, but at the peak of Mad Men, there would be several good articles about each new episode within a day or two! Remarkable.; 3/13/14, 10:41 AM
KCFleming said...: I sometimes watch movies with the sound off.

You should be able to follow along, if it's any good.; 3/13/14, 10:45 AM
Meade said...: I sometimes watch Rachel Maddow with the sound off. It's great!; 3/13/14, 11:10 AM
michaele said...: Give Justified a try as a follow-up to Breaking Bad. The character humor is smooth and sly and, even though the Appalachia accent is strong, I could understand it easily. The slidey intonations gave humorous comments some extra kick. I often thought that Designing Women wouldn't have been as entertaining without the lines being delivered in the southern accent.; 3/13/14, 12:09 PM
Rusty said...: Meade said...
"I sometimes watch Rachel Maddow with the sound off. It's great!"

It's even better without the video!

My wife loves to cook and watches a lot of cooking shows. Sometimes my daughter and I will turn off the sound and add our own dialog and sound effects.
Hilarity ensues.; 3/13/14, 12:14 PM
Robert said...: I never had one single instant where I couldn't understand them.

Also, I think True Detective should be thought of as an 8 hour movie, not a series. It's already over. Next year will be a different plot.; 3/13/14, 3:49 PM
CB9 said...: We used closed captioning. And you thought it was just for the hearing impaired? We turn on the closed captioning for many BBC shows as well.; 3/13/14, 7:25 PM
James Graham said...: On Direct TV I click CC (closed captions) under the INFO heading for any program where I'm not catching all the dialogue.; 3/14/14, 3:04 PM