
Between sleeping-in until noon, working nights, catching the flu from an eating contest for an episode of Campus Chowdown, and finally getting around to watching The Office (UK)—I haven’t had the time to check out True Detective, until this week (alright, alright, alright). I saw all of the buzz it was generating on Twitter and was anxious to see if it was worth the hype.
From peoples Tweets I sort of understood what it was all about beforehand. My feed was practically drowning in piss-poor Yellow King memes and “jokes”, so going into it I knew there was some sort of mystery on who this “Yellow King” is. I decided to make a night of the on-demand experience seeing how every episode garnered the Twitter attention of the Breaking Bad finale. I cleared all the plans I didn’t have, ordered pizza, hit the lights & lit candles to provide the optimal viewing experience. I was ready. Within the first five-minutes, however, I was quite confused. They showed and referenced the Yellow King?! How was everybody wondering who he is the whole time when they blatantly said it within the first five minutes of the very first episode? As the episode progressed I grew more and more confused. Much of the plot was unexplained and dialogue referenced things that the viewer was supposed to know but had no way of knowing, nor ever explained. The two detectives seemed to have a strange relationship and a lot of background that never was shown—I was completely lost. Thinking maybe I was too dazed during that episode, I decided to make a more cognitive effort to focus during the second. I didn’t touch my phone, I was in the zone. Yet, it still made no sense, what so ever. For the life of me I could not understand how the masses followed the show or enjoyed it because it made zero sense.
It took me three episodes…THREE EPISODES…to realize I was watching the show from end to finish, and now I can’t go back because I know how it ends. I bought the book and went straight to the last page. Here I was thinking everybody was an idiot for liking this show, when I was the fool. I bet I would have actually enjoyed it had I not dyslexicly viewed it. Hopefully I’ll learn how to read by the time season two rolls around.