I stopped watching episodes of HBO's maudlin Southern-Gothic soap opera “Sharp Objects,” which stars Amy Adams, although I heard tonight's episode was quite the 'shock.' I'll probably budge and catch up later this week. However, rather more intriguingly, the real news for me, in regards to last night's 'Objects' finale, was the surprise teaser trailer for the third season of Nic Pizzolatto’s “True Detective.”
Pizzolatto struck gold with season one of "True Detective," starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, but entered a sophomore slump with the abnormally bad second season starring Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn and Rachel McAdams. That last season completely destroyed my perception of Pizzolatto, whom, at first, I thought might be some kind of creative genius but, on second thoughts, maybe not.
The biggest difference for me, from that failed second season, safe for the poor script and plotting, was the absence of the original season's director, Cary Fukunaga. A California-born filmmaker, Fukunaga, just 41-years-of-age, started off his directorial career on the big screen with the success of "Sin Nombre," which was a scathing indictment of the MS-13 gangs ravaging Mexico, and the United States. However, "True Detective"made him a major player in Hollywood, so much so that Netflix immediately hired him, post 'Detective,' to direct "Beasts of No Nation," a critically acclaimed Netflix Original about child soldiers in Ghana which proved that Fukunaga was, in fact, the real deal. He is now teaming up with Netflix again for his next project, the mini-series "Maniac," starring Jonah Hill and Emma Stone.
Back to season three of "True Detective," the original director was supposed to be
Jeremy Saulnier
(“
Green Room
,” “
Blue Ruin
”) but “
creative differences
” with Pizzolatto, following the shooting of two episodes, had Saulnier scrapped from the project entirely. Enter
the hiring of director
Daniel Sackheim
, known for directing several episodes of
FX
‘s “
The Americans,
” and Pizzolatto himself who will be directing around 60% of the show. Good God. You go from hiring a cinematic talent such as Saulnier to getting a TV director to replace him?
This third season stars
Mahershala Ali, Carmen Ejogo, Stephen Dorff, Ray Fisher, Scoot McNairy
and
Mamie Gummer
and will premiere on HBO
January 2019.
over at The Playlist has this synopsis:
“True Detective” 3 plays out over several time periods. Set in the Ozarks with the ambitious story involving “a macabre crime” and “a mystery that deepens over decades and plays out in three separate time periods,” Ali plays police detective Wayne Hayes. Stephen Dorff plays his partner, Detective Roland West, an Arkansas State Investigator and Carmen Ejogo is Amelia Reardon, an Arkansas schoolteacher who has a connection to two missing children in 1980."
Can't say this doesn't sound, at the very least, intriguing.