LOOKING — Page 24

At dot429, Those Four Guys sit around and wax smart about the last episode.

Not as smart as us, but smarter than the average blogger.

http://dot429.com/articles/4176

---

I have no regrets about having stopped watching this after about three episodes, but I do still enjoy reading this thread.

Did After Eight slip you something?

---

The show slipped me Episode 5. Neither I nor the show recovered. As you can see in this thread, I thought each of the first four episodes was better than the previous.

Now that I have read the interview I realize that the reason I hated the 5th episode was because they didn't know what they were doing and making it up as they went along.

Maybe they'll write a second season before they start shooting. But I doubt it.

---

Nope. In the finale piece of wood was still telling the character who behaves the most like a flesh and blood human that he wasn't "ready" for the wood to fall in love with him.

---

They should hire one!

---

"Maybe they'll write a second season before they start shooting. But I doubt it. "

I'm pretty sure they'll do it the same way. Unless for some reason they hire some new co-showrunner... It's just the way both of the guys work--in film, tv, etc. Even with that interview though I don't think it's all written on the fly--they obviously have some direction but it's not too unusual to then decide certain actors have potential together or change story points as they go on. (At any rate obviously some others agree with you about episode 5, given PJ's link.)

Just watched the finale and I unabashedly adored it. It was my favorite episode since the gorgeous all day date of episode 5. I spent way too much time today discussing the True Detective finale with friends and colleagues--not to mention analyzing every review and post-season essay. So, for now, I think I'm going to simply watch and enjoy the LOOKING finale and not worry about any post-show analysis. A couple of small things I loved:

-Dorris' championing of Dom
-The glow that Dom had once the pop-up started taking off
-Richie admitting to Patrick that his pride gets in the way (hell that entire beautiful scene between them at the Patrick's front door)


Like I said, I haven't read all the articles posted in here yet, but I gather that some members of this board are deeply outraged by any sort of improvisation that may have happened in the writing, direction or acting. While it may be true that Haigh & co embrace improvisation and catching inspiration moment-to-moment rather than mapping out everything in advance, there is also an enormous amount of care and craft taken in this show.

It might seem a little rough around the edges, but the way in which Haigh and his co-creators and directors map out an episode can be incredibly artful. For example, in this finale, I really loved how they (no doubt intentionally) had nearly every conversation between two characters be a fight against silence and repression. When Dorris tries to tell Lynn about Dom being worth it, Lynn tries to silence her; when Augustin tries to tell Frank he's seen the error of his ways, Frank does silence him; when Kevin approaches Patrick on the roof to apologize for the wedding kiss, Patrick shuts him down; When Patrick visits Richie at work, Richie quiets Patrick and asks him for distance. But then in that last scene between Patrick and Richie, Patrick didn't push back. Maybe it was the guilt about Kevin, maybe it was a crazy mix of emotions, but it was a beautiful moment in which he--the one who can never stop talking--actually stops and just listens to Richie. Whether Richie was entirely right or not, I'm not sure. I think Patrick might have been ready.

Anyway, I can't wait for the next season.

Updated On: 3/11/14 at 03:41 AM

Oh absolutely--the direction in particular I think is subtly but very carefully planned--this episode also had a lot of nice parallels to the first episode visually anyway (like the three part opening).

^ agree except for the Scott Bakula fantasy.

---

I've been pimping those AV reviews, so it's no shock that I mostly agree, but I also like how he does point out the strength and thought in the direction--which still manages to feel so natural.

Robbie I do agree with you to an extent about the timeline. In one of the interviews with the creator, the interviewer said something like "the series in total took place over a month, right?" And Michael replied "Ummm, right." Like he had no real idea either. I assumed it was at least a couple of months--I mean we went from one episode ending with a wedding invite "in two weeks" and then the next episode was the wedding... It doesn't really bother me, but... On the other hand they apparently are extremely careful to make SF work as a real city--not faking how areas are connected to each other, etc.

I do agree that the show is really more than the sum of its parts.

Definitely agreed, Kad. It's pretty much the only place I go for TV reviews now... Their comments section also, for the most part, is remarkably civilized--trolls are rare there. (And I love their various features--right now I love the series on TV one season "wonders")

That threw me about it being ONE day later--it was just one line that revealed that, and it did make me think "Wha?" the stuff with Kevin, for example I think would have made more sense even if it was just a weekend after the Wedding--but a day? (I admit a part of me also always thinks "So these people got drunk the night before, and they seem perfectly fine going into work the next morning?" but that may reflect more on myself--and at any rate is a TV cliche anyway.)

Richie and Patrick's relationship makes sense to me if it was over a two or three months--not a super long time, but one month seems awfully short. As it does for Augustin and Frank to have only lived together for under a month, although that was imploding from the word go.