Other Lives (S2x05)
Airdate: 19 July 2015
Written by: Nic Pizzolatto Directed by: John Crowley
Running Time: 59 minutes
By the time Other Lives arrived as the fifth installment of True Detective's beleaguered second season, the series had already crossed its event horizon—a point of no return where devoted viewers would see it through to the end while the disenchanted would only harden their resentment. The spectacular shootout that concluded Episode 4, despite its visceral shock value, ultimately changed nothing. The Twitter mob had already rendered its verdict: this incarnation of Nic Pizzolato's anthology would receive no Emmys, no masterpiece accolades, no elevation to the pantheon occupied by its predecessor.
Yet the vitriol directed at Season 2 was, in its own way, as disproportionate as the worship Season 1 received. This does not, however, absolve the second season of its fundamental and likely irreparable flaws—problems that Other Lives both acknowledges and fails to resolve.
For those seeking narrative momentum, "Other Lives" opens with what initially appears to be a disappointing regression. The adrenaline of the previous episode's violence gives way to quieter, dialogue-heavy scenes examining the aftermath—consequences that many viewers found tedious. The street bloodbath that claimed several Mexican gangsters provides the perfect pretext for the powers-that-be to terminate the investigation: the dead serve as convenient scapegoats, case closed.
State Attorney Geldof, who had been using the investigation to "dig up" corruption in Vinci, seizes the opportunity to launch his gubernatorial campaign, declaring the matter resolved when it becomes politically expedient. Paul Woodrugh receives a hollow promotion to detective—actually a banishment to fraud investigation, a desk job he despises. Ani Bezzerides is demoted to evidence custodian and forced into therapy groups for police officers accused of sexual misconduct (where she delivers one of the season's rare genuinely funny moments). Ray Velcoro, having shaved his mustache and quit the force entirely, now works full-time as Frank Semyon's private investigator.
The episode's central contrivance arrives in the form of Deputy State Attorney Davis (Michael Hyatt), functioning as a deus ex machina who discovers blue diamonds suggesting the Mexicans weren't the actual killers. She initiates her own discreet investigation, allowing the trio to reunite—though they uncover nothing the audience hadn't already anticipated. Ray learns that Blake, one of Frank's lieutenants, is connected to Russian gangster Osip and Mayor Chessani's son, who organizes sex parties for California's political elite. The implication, hardly subtle, is that Caspere participated in this sordid enterprise and likely helped produce blackmail recordings of the orgies. The same figure who shot Ray with rubber bullets presumably also murdered Caspere. Meanwhile, Ani and Paul's investigation leads them to a remote Northern California cabin bearing traces of blood and torture.
The episode's sole unexpected development concerns the protagonists' private lives rather than the case itself. Ray, embroiled in custody battles with his ex-wife, discovers she has followed through on her threat to test his paternity—a revelation that devastates him. The greater horror follows when Davis informs him that his wife's actual rapist was apprehended weeks ago. Ray realizes he murdered the wrong man, and with escalating rage, understands that Frank deliberately set him up with a false target to transform him into a "resource" within the police department.
This revelation culminates in the obligatory cliffhanger: Ray confronting Frank, with Frank's wife Jordan caught in the crossfire. Whether violence erupts, and who among them survives, remains suspended for another week. Unlike the contrived rubber-bullet cliffhanger of Episode 2, this one at least offers more freedom for resolution without requiring implausible escapes.
"Other Lives," like its predecessors, suffers from Pizzolato's overwritten dialogue—exemplified by Frank's self-description as "being born on the wrong side of class war" Yet the episode deserves credit where due: Colin Farrell emerges as the season's strongest performer, particularly in scenes requiring Ray to react with cold detachment to revelations that have shattered his existence. His talent for conveying suppressed devastation is genuinely impressive. The tragedy is that Pizzolato didn't deploy such character turns earlier; perhaps the remaining episodes will deliver more of the same.
"Other Lives" encapsulates Season 2's central dysfunction: a labyrinthine conspiracy that reveals itself as obvious, characters who remain archetypes rather than people, and dialogue that mistakes portentousness for profundity. The episode's most compelling moments—Ray's existential unravelling, Ani's gallows humor in therapy—suggest what might have been had Pizzolato trusted human moments over mythic pretensions. Instead, we are left with a narrative that moves without advancing, surprises without enlightening, and promises resolution while delivering only more knots in an already tangled web.
RATING: 4/10 (+)
(Note: The text in the original Croatian version is available here.)
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