If we had been watching Rust being a regular cop doing his job he might have been hard to take. Alternatively, if we were watching a broken-to-the-point-of-seeming-crazy Frank we might be buying it more. I wonder if that is where his character will be after the time jump.

I thought Kitch was good with Farrell in the car. But then, I also thought Farrell was very good with McAdams in that scene at the commune. So it could just be that now that his character isn't drinking Farrell is able to give him some consistency and depth for the other actors to bounce off of.

I think the whacking is too perverted to be a hit job. It smacks of private vengeance to me, and probably all of the players think someone else is behind it.

I am kind of intrigued as to where Chekov's plastic surgery is going to come into this.

I think the motive for killing Caspere will turn out to be private and will have to do with someone being a child of someone at that commune. Diseased land/ screwed up children seems to be the theme.

I guess if we jump to the future it will explain the portentous music in every scene so far. Looks like these first four eps were supposed to be building up to a huge thematic death scene for the three main characters. Even the smallest pieces of dialogue were leading up to their downfall in the shootout scene. Hence…

Yeah, I have a feeling these first four episodes are going to turn out to have been one long flashback.

That is a good point. This land does seem rather obviously contaminated.

Hahahahahahaha

Up north.

If Pizzolatto doesn't want his intentions interpreted by critics he shouldn't put so many of his opinions into his characters' dialogue in such an obvious way. Having the Fukunaga director say "I drink." For no reason. All the little jibes at feminism in the dialogue around Ani. I don't really disagree with Pizzolatto…

A lot of people view Apocalypse Now as an inspired mess. JO also passionately defends The Walking Dead, fwiw.

Yes, it was the mixture of realism and tv clichés that killed it for me. One or the other would have been fine. In fact, that might be my problem with the whole season.

Agreed. If a violent scene is going to go on that long it better be for a purpose other than watching people die. In this one we saw Woodrugh being good at being a soldier, but we already knew he was good at that. Other than that it was just about the body count.

It's rude to contradict.

It went on too long. It was full of itself. Those were the thoughts that went through my head as I was watching it. I like shootouts, but those were my thoughts.

You didn't know when they were getting ready at the station? I thought it was ludicrously foreshadowed that Things Were Going to Go Horribly Wrong.

A big reason for the confusion is that Chessani's one family is like three different families. And that's just his family. Besides that there's his family of crooked cops which is hard to keep up with since there is a whole unit of noncrooked cops behind Ani. And now there is Chessani's connection to the hippie colony…

His "kids today" lines are especially ludicrous to me. I keep thinking the part was meant for someone older even though I know it was supposedly written for Vaughan. But if it were played by a guy in his fifties it would automatically have more pathos attached to it.

Well, the cops are tied to the mayor. Birdman could be Pitler or that English actor who plays Velcoro's boss/partner/whatever.