OT: True Detective finale may be the best episode of tv ever

Submitted by taistreetsmyhero on February 25th, 2019 at 1:45 AM

Every scene was perfect, from the acting and writing to the cinematography and sound. I know it’s the night of the oscars but this stole the show. 

Sorry, I’m sure everyone is still pissed about the game, but I just had to write this down before the moment passed.

s1105615

February 25th, 2019 at 8:34 AM ^

It was really good, especially compared to the train wreck that was season 2...I would not go so far as to say the greatest of all time...

Breaking Bad, start to finish is probably the strongest, best acted, and most well written and plotted show ever on TV, bar none.  I still hold The Wire as the best show I’ve ever seen if only because it feels like watching a documentary and not a scripted show, even when it dips in quality in seasons 4 and 5.  

Season One of True Detective is certainly in the argument for best season of TV ever.  There have been better than what we saw last night though.

crom80

February 25th, 2019 at 9:44 AM ^

i don't understand why people hate season 2 so much. relative to season 1 it wasn't as good because the style and narrative was very different. but if it was an entirely different stand alone series i don't think people would be as negative to it.

mgobrooklyn

February 25th, 2019 at 2:43 PM ^

The biker gang heist of the projects stash house from Season 1 of TD is definitely one of the best (if not the best) action sequence ever filmed for TV. Amazing tracking shot. IMO Season 3 lacked the action and set pieces from Season 1 that put it over the edge for me, but the acting was great and overall it was a compelling story. 

notetoself

February 25th, 2019 at 11:18 AM ^

season 1 for me was like watching adaptation - the other brother must've taken control somewhere during the finale. it suddenly switches to an action flick where the logic behind the whole season is just thrown out the window. why was this guy being hailed as the yellow king with reverence by politicians and the like? i thought it was all fantastic until they clearly just hoped that "he was the bad guy, and they got 'im!" was enough explanation.

chatster

February 25th, 2019 at 10:18 AM ^

Memorable? Definitely. Very good? Sure. Among the best TV series’ FINAL episodes? Not so sure. “Best TV episode ever”? No. (But thanks for the conversation starter.)

During the past 45 years, most of my TV viewing has been limited to sports, news and news interview shows, but just thinking of the most memorable TV series’ finales that I’ve seen, I'd rate Breaking Bad, M*A*S*H, Newhart, Six Feet Under, Mad Men, The Fugitive, St. Elsewhere, The Americans, The Sopranos, 24, Cheers, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and even Seinfeld and Frasier ahead of last night's True Detective - Season 3 finale.

Among shows that either I’ve never watched or have seen only a few episodes, I’m told that The Wire, The Shield, Lost, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Battlestar Galactica, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Cosby Show, Friends and ER also had great final episodes.

Calling it the “best TV episode ever” ignores several from Seinfeld (The Contest, The Boyfriend and The Strike - in which we learn the story of Festivus), The Sopranos (College, Pine Barrens, University, Employee of the Month and Whitecaps), Game of Thrones (Hardhome, Battle of the Bastards, Blackwater and Rains of Castamere), Breaking Bad (Felina, Ozymandias, Say My Name and Face Off), I Love Lucy (Lucy Does a TV Commercial and Job Switching), The Honeymooners (Better Living Through TV, The Golfer and The $99,000 Answer) and Mad Men Nixon vs. Kennedy, Waterloo, Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency, The Suitcase, Shut the Door. Have A Seat, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes - the pilot, and The Wheel - season one’s finale), among many, many others.

chatster

February 25th, 2019 at 2:09 PM ^

"You name off pretty much every show ever" - Really?

Naming 27 TV shows that have been broadcast in regular runs or re-runs during the past 45 years constitutes "pretty much every (TV) show ever"?   

Other than HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and True Detective: Season Three, Showtime’s Ray Donovan, The Circus and Shameless, CBS’s Sixty Minutes and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and NBC’s This Is Us, I haven’t watched any TV series in 2019.  So far this year, I've watched many more basketball and hockey games and wrestling meets on The Big Ten Network and EPL matches on NBC Sports Network than any one of those shows.

After checking the Nielsen ratings for the top 10 shows from the week of February 11, 2019, I realized that other than CBS’s 60 Minutes and Blue Bloods, I’d never seen a single full episode of any of the other eight shows listed. LINK

 

Robbie Moore

February 25th, 2019 at 3:58 PM ^

The best TV finale, IMHO, was the last episode of Justified. They stuck the landing. After watching the last episode I rewatched the first episode and was amazed at how faithful to the beginning the last episode was. The consistency of the central characters values (or lack thereof) over six seasons was remarkable.

Also, Justified remained true to the spirit of Elmore Leonard.

camblue

February 25th, 2019 at 10:19 AM ^

This deserves a giant lolwut. The entire mystery was revealed by finally finding the dude that they had originally been looking for decades earlier and him just voiceovering the entire plot. Such lazy storytelling. Season started off strong but then meandered with time filling nothingness and then ends with an explanatory monologue. Sucked.

MotownGoBlue

February 25th, 2019 at 11:54 AM ^

 You guys are clearly overlooking “Who’s the Boss?” final episode. Oh, why couldn’t they just get married?! The horror!

In regards to the TD S3 season finale, I think once I understood this story wasn’t about missing children or cops and robbers, but rather a journey through the mind of a man that’s trying to piece together his life, I appreciated it more. 

Hold This L

February 25th, 2019 at 2:09 PM ^

I could never get into true detective because all I saw was harrelson and Matt mac (don’t know how to spell it) and I don’t like either of them as actors. 

My favorite episode of all time is It’s always sunny when the gang squashed their beefs. One of the few episodes of any show where I laughed the entire time.