Josie’s Best of 2024

It was neither the best of times nor the worst of time for me this year: I read and watched a lot, but there were very few standouts. Many books I simply didn’t finish; many shows, ditto. I haven’t seen a movie in the theaters since Oppenheimer.

True Detective: Night Country

“Don't confuse the spirit world with mental health issues.”

There was a time when True Detective was on fire, but unfortunately its fourth season left me cold. And not on account of the wintery weather, at home or onscreen.

True Detective: Now Am Found

Hays: "Suppose we get caught?"
West: "We’re old and confused."

True Detective: The Final Country

“Me and my goddamn work ethic.”

The theme song for this season is a cover of the Son House song “Death Letter.” It’s about a man left depressed upon learning of the death of a loved one. There’s particularly a line about how there “Ain’t no satisfaction, don’t care what in the world you do.” That’s the feeling I’m getting from this story.

True Detective: Hunters in the Dark

“We don’t stop. We take it all the way this time.”

I asked for some clarity. And I got some.

True Detective: If You Have Ghosts

“There surely exists a mutable area of soul where grief is indistinguishable from madness.”

As Nic Pizzolatto explained, this episode, more than the others, is about confronting the past.

True Detective: The Hour and the Day

“I wanna know the whole story.”

The fourth True Detective episode usually features a big action scene that solidifies the halfway point in the story. The harrowing one-shot sequence in season one. The relentless shooting spree in season two. This is more of a prelude to this season's intense powder-keg separating the first half of the story from the second. It's another way that this new story toys with paying lip service to what came before while contenting itself with being its own thing.

True Detective: The Big Never

“You feel like maybe being a detective again?”

I’m sensing the overall theme of this season is uncertainty.

True Detective: Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye

“You ever been someplace you couldn’t leave and you couldn’t stay, both at the same time?”

We’ve got our case. Now let’s look at our suspects.

True Detective: The Great War and Modern Memory

“What you don’t remember you don’t know you don’t remember.”

Finally! It’s back!

True Detective: Omega Station

“It’s like a fairy tale.”

A few different people in this season finale talked about fairy tales and the stories we tell ourselves: Ani, discussing the sexual abuse of her childhood. Frank and Jordan, discussing the “story” of their marriage. And, implicitly, Ray, struggling with the story he’s been telling himself about his son.

True Detective: Black Maps and Motel Rooms

“Well, it doesn’t make sense.”

...in which all is explained, some people have sex, and some other people drive to Eugene, while Josie is snarkier than she ought to be.

True Detective: Church in Ruins

“I was thinking about a woman drowning on dry land.”
“Well, I don’t really get art.”

Ray Velcoro and I have the same Edward Hopper print, “Hotel Room.” You can see it at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid. Or right over there -->.

True Detective: Other Lives

"I'll let you get back to your process, then, Michelangelo."

It's backslide city on this week's True Detective as our friends struggle to reconfigure in the aftermath of the Vinci Massacre. Luckily, Nic Pizzolatto let's us know that in the second half of the season, it's never too late to start all over again.

True Detective: Down Will Come

“Those moments, they stare back at you. You don’t remember them. They remember you.”

The fourth and fifth episodes of the first season of True Detective were transformative. “Who Goes There” included a 6-minute tracking shot that forced the viewer into the drug-addled brain of Rust Cohle, and “The Secret Fate of All Things” was all about forward movement.

True Detective: Maybe Tomorrow

“There’s no part of my life not overwrought with live or die importance.”

Our journey into the seedy, sunny underbelly of Southland corruption continues this week with allusive dreams, masculine angst, violence, and 150% more prostitutes than ever before! (Warning: this review contains minor spoilers for the TV show Twin Peaks.)

True Detective: Night Finds You

“Am I diminished?”

The second episode of this new season of True Detective has left me with many questions—and a few concerns—but none more pressing than this one: what I am supposed to be rooting for here?

True Detective: The Western Book of the Dead

“I welcome judgment.”

True Detective's first season was, for me, the stand-out of 2014. Leaving aside the clue-hunting madness that was the internet’s response to Carcosa, True Detective luxuriated in existential despair against a verdigris background of swampland and oil refineries in southern Louisiana. It was beautiful.

Josie’s Best of 2014

2014 was, in many ways, a flat circle. According to my Netflix viewing history, I spend too much time watching TV, I spent an awful lot of time re-watching old shows this year, including my beloved Twin Peaks (which I finally finished reviewing, just in time for the announcement that there is more to come). And then, suddenly, it was December, and I had very little to show for it. But this is what I’ve got:

Doux News: November 2, 2014

This week: DC versus Marvel: Let's discuss -- General TV stuff -- This week in casts -- National Cat Day