It shouldn’t be understated that she’s also tasked with ushering in the more spiritual elements of the series, and like Price, she never teeters into the outlandish. It’s a very physical performance, and Erivo speaks volumes with each glance, as if she’s figured everything and everyone out in her head. Her introduction is a tad jarring, if only because she’s such a departure from the more-remedial detectives of the first few episodes, but she wins you over fast. So is Erivo, who is saddled with so many scenes by her lonesome that you can’t help but applaud her performance. In turn, these moments offer a riveting shock to the jugular, all of which are made even more effective by Bateman’s moody direction. Again, Price wields his drama so effectively that you’re often too distracted to even notice when the supernatural punctures through.
#True detective season 1 review series
This series goes to great lengths to achieve its own bizarre moments, and while they don’t always work (there’s a scene in the back half of our six-episode offering that inches into Chapter Two territory), they’re certainly earned.
It’s almost Lynchian, and the allusions to Twin Peaks aren’t too far off. The Outside is Not What It Seems: The irony of having all the evidence and none of the answers is such a dizzying spectacle to watch unfold. How long do we keep searching for answers until we finally admit it’s beyond our reasoning? How much of ourselves do we give in to the unknown? And do you risk losing yourself in the process? Or might you find yourself again? They’re all intriguing themes worth chewing on - and Price gnaws away - but they also offer a refreshing twist on the all-too-rote arc of the obsessed detective lost in the case files. It’s a little more gray than that, but that divide is where this series begins to simmer into more existential dilemmas - and when the themes of King’s story begin to truly surface. The only difference is that time isn’t just a flat circle for this series, and any meditations on the world beyond us are more than heavy posturing. It’s a delicate dance, and yet he tangoes with ease, framing the bizarre and unexplained in a lens that’s not too dissimilar to how Cary Fukunaga dabbled with the occult in the first season of True Detective. He’s among all the detectives he can write and humanize in his sleep, but up against a threat that goes way beyond the court room. He’s both in and out of his comfort zone on The Outsider. It’s King giving himself a heat check.īy proxy, so is Price, who’s likely never been this challenged on paper. Reason being, this is a story that insists upon its realism, so much so that anyone who even suggests otherwise are laughed right out of the room - literally. Be it novels, films, or television, he’s maintained a strong conviction for the monsters of reality, and while that might make some Constant Readers a little wary, it actually empowers the series. A strong cursory glance through his resume reveals he’s never once left the streets to dabble in the occult. Here’s the thing, though: King still indulges in the supernatural with The Outsider, and that’s certainly out of Price’s comfort zone. Mercedes) by Temple Hill Entertainment, who also helped usher this project into reality alongside Bateman’s own Aggregate Films and Media Rights Capital. It’s also not the only one of those works to hit the screen in fact, the Bill Hodges trilogy was similarly turned into a series (see: Audience’s cruelly ignored Mr. It’s one of a handful of novels King has written over the last 10 years that capitalize on the true crime wave, focusing less on the things that go bump in the night, and more on the forensics and procedurals that have since turned everyone on Reddit into a pathologist. In that respect, The Outsider makes perfect sense for Price, at least if he’s going to venture into King’s Dominion. You know, stuff that hits home, makes us think, gets under our skin. For HBO, he’s written some of their sharpest offerings in this century, from The Wire to The Night Of to The Deuce.
For decades, the guy’s built a reputation of delivering tough-as-nails thrillers, all steeped in reality, and awash with the kind of stakes that feel less like fiction and more like headline news.
Not that he’s above the Master of Horror or anything, but seeing Richard Price attached to this project still feels like a lucid dream.
The Price You Pay: HBO spared no expense for this Stephen King adaptation, and it shows, but particularly off screen.