I watched two of HBO’s season premiers last Sunday: True Detective season 2 and Ballers.
Before I get into the season 2 premiere of True Detective I’ll talk about the first season. What differentiates True Detective from other shows is that it doesn’t rely on plot twists and shock value to keep you hooked to the show. It challenges you to use your mind and really think about what’s taking place in the story. The acting is always phenomenal and even the supporting cast shine. The story always feels raw and the series as a whole feels more like one giant movie than a TV series. True Detective strays from clichés that you would find in other detective shows which makes it so much more enjoyable. The writing is top notch and never falters throughout the series. I found all of this to be the same throughout the season 2 premiere. The show is similar to Game of Thrones due to the fact that none of the characters are good or evil but somewhere in the middle. There is an emphasis on how humans are capable of doing good and bad things. Colin Farrell’s character is my favorite so far and I really enjoy seeing Vince Vaughn in a non-comedic role. Season 2 takes on a more populated city feel opposed to season 1’s small town feel and follows the narrative in a different way than season 1 did. True Detective season 2 already has me on board and I can’t wait to see what it brings in the future.
The other premiere I caught last Sunday was Ballers. This show follows a retired Miami Dolphins player in his trials after football. This premiere really surprised me and I ended up liking it far more than I expected to. Usually a show like this wouldn’t catch my attention due to my focus on things like Sci-Fi and Fantasy, but it really did. Football being the only sport that I pay attention to, I found some of the aspects of Ballers very interesting. Having met some retired players personally it’s cool to relate the things that they’ve said to what is shown in the show. Some of the characters in the show still play football and some are retired. Some of the supporting characters also work in business aspect of football and all of these characters interacting with each other ends up being a good time. I’m not exactly sure how they’re going to move forward in the series but for now I’m on board for the ride. I also like the casting of the Rock as a retired football player. I feel like too often he is cast in the wrong roles like Hercules.
The last thing that I want to talk about is the casting of Spider-Man. I was really looking forward to seeing Asa Butterfield in the role since he was so heavily rumored. I thought that he had performed well in his former roles in Hugo and the Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Instead of Asa we got Tom Holland. I haven’t seen any of his performances so I don’t really know what I think about him. Hopefully we’ll get a taste of Spider-Man in the post credit scene of Ant-Man.
As always, thanks for reading.