True Detective: Season 2 (2016 Nic Pizzolatto)

What's in a name? Consider Antigone Bezzarides. Antigone in Greek mythology is Oedipus's sister, her name meaning 'worthy of one's parents', who meets a tragic fate when attempting to secure a burial for her brother. Not quite sure what the relevance of that is. Any fan of film noir, though, will recognise that surname, which belongs to one of its key authors responsible for the novel of Desert Fury and the brilliant scenarios of Thieves' Highway, On Dangerous Ground and Kiss Me Deadly. Indeed this season of True Detective - quite different in flavour from the first - is like an epic, tragic (OK - got the Greek reference!) film noir, particularly in its old LA settings and themes of personal and civic corruption and its doomed antiheroes.

Also too though is that seventies' noir sensibility, that especially of Chinatown (the land deals and the extent of the complicity, which weaves and coils like those endless aerial shots of serpentine highways, and the 'Chinatown' of Vinci), plus the references to hippy communes and sects (quite Long Goodbye - a film which seems to be back in vogue in the reference department, viz. Inherent Vice etc.) Also a film in which you have to really pay attention (particularly through some of the mumbling).

Fabulous, convincing cast of Rachel McAdams, Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughan, Taylor Kitsch and Kelly Reilly in the primary roles. Of the support I'd single out Ritchie Coster as a particular odious and venal Mayor, the others too numerous to mention, but casting is definitely in the 'interesting faces' category.

My only complaint is that it would have been impossible for the Mexicans to have known where to find Vince, though his ending in the desert is worthy of von Stroheim's Greed, whilst Colin's fate lies in a forest of giant trees.