As Semyon and Velcoro have a tense moment, Bezzerides prepares to attend one of the notorious, underground parties.

PARTY CRASHERS

Note: The following review goes into detail about the episode. SPOILER ALERT!

I think we’ve finally reached the tipping point in the season, the point of no return. While the shootout a few episodes ago provided an opportunity to shuffle the deck and reposition the characters, the crazy sex party depicted here has just kicked the story into high gear. Our three cops had, up until now, been on the outskirts of the truth. They had a few threads to pull at but they had nothing concrete, and they certainly didn’t have a good view of the bigger picture. “Church in Ruins” completely changed that, however. Bezzerides got a good look at who was attending that party, and Woodrugh managed to grab himself a big pile of evidence with people’s signatures all over it. They’ve hit the motherload, but now there’s going to be a great big target painted on their backs.

The infiltration of the party was one of my favorite scenes of the season so far. The whole scene was fraught with the kind of tension that has been a little lacking from the rest of the season. I think we all could have guessed that it wasn’t going to go too smoothly for Bezzerides once she got inside the house, and things took a turn when she found herself having to keep up the charade by taking a lot of drugs. Velcoro and Woodrugh silently making their way through the grounds only added to the excitement, with it being really hard to know exactly what was going to go wrong. We got some insight into Bezzerides’s troubled past through her drug-induced hallucinations. There were glimpses of an unknown man from her childhood, and the way it all played out makes it seem like she may have been abused by this man in her youth.

Bezzerides’s trip was unsettling, as was the rest of what was happening inside the house. It all started off with the girls parading around in front of the men, and then quickly descended into some Eyes Wide Shut-style debauchery. All of the sex mixed with the strong drugs set Bezzerides off on a big trip that ended with her beating the hell out of one guy, and then absolutely destroying one of the security guards with her very handy knife skills. There’s been plenty of foreshadowing of her knife skills throughout the season, but I didn’t expect her to use them like this. It could actually land her in a huge amount of trouble. She’s going up against some very powerful people now, and she just killed a guy while out of her mind on drugs. It could be spun to bring her down. She did manage to find Vera, the missing person she’s been looking for all season. That was a bit of a surprise, as I figured she’d most likely turn up dead, and now we’ll have to see if she has any stories to tell.

So, I’m very worried about our three lawmen. They’ll have kicked a massive hornet’s nest with their little covert mission. Woodrugh managed to steal some paperwork that is linked to the big deal at the center of the season, and we know all of the influential people behind it are going to want that evidence back. The one thing I’m wondering, though, is will anything actually come out of their mission? It was hardly an officially sanctioned operation, and I don’t think any of the evidence that they recovered will be usable in court at all. We saw Rust and Marty fail to take down the real bad guys last season, so will Velcoro, Woodrugh and Bezzerides fare any better here? I’m not too sure.

Semyon had an interesting week. He’s just kind of doing his own thing at the moment, working the same case as the rest of the characters, just in a completely different way. The opening scene with Velcoro went pretty much exactly how I expected it. Plenty of flared nostrils and talking, with nobody winding up dead. You know I’m not sure whether to believe that Semyon really had no idea he was giving Velcoro the wrong name all those years ago, but he just seems to find his way out of every situation he’s in at the moment. That was until he ran into the boys from Mexico again. Unless I completely missed it, we don’t know for sure who these guys are, but I’m assuming they’re involved with a cartel. They definitely have interest in moving drugs through Semyon’s clubs, anyway. Semyon is trying to fight an unseen enemy at the moment, but these cartel guys have shown that they can’t be ignored. Still, Semyon did find out the man he is looking for is a cop, who sounds like he might be a higher up on the force. This goes with the previous evidence that pointed towards the man in the crow mask being a police officer, so he’s on the right track.

Velcoro had another big week, and Colin Farrell continues to do great work in the role. The confrontation with Semyon at the beginning of the episode was a nice way to kick things off. One moment it seems like the two of them could be friends, but then you remember that they’re pointing guns at each other underneath the table. Velcoro paying a visit to the real rapist in prison was an unexpected turn of events for me. He scared the absolute crap out of that guy, and I have no doubt that Velcoro will end up killing him if he’s still around when that guy gets out of jail. Velcoro then had his first supervised visit with his son, something which didn’t really last too long because he just couldn’t handle everything. He broke, knocked back a whole load of booze and drugs and then tore his apartment apart. While I initially feared that he was going to revert back to his old self, Velcoro instead used this as a turning point in his life. It was through all of this that he decided to just let his son go. It was a big decision for him to make, and considering how much of a mess he is, it could be the right one. Perhaps if he lives long enough to get his life together, he could play a role in his son’s life in the future.

THE BREAKDOWN

An exciting episode of True Detective handed our three lawmen their biggest break in the case to date, but it could come at a cost. There were some major players in attendance at that party, and a lot of them have a stake in the big deal that Semyon desperately wants back in on. Woodrugh stole plenty of evidence that presumably has a lot of their names on it, and Bezzerides can identify several of the people at that party, so there’s going to be a bounty on all of our heroes’ heads after this crazy night. It may not be too long before a guy in a crow mask comes looking for them.

How screwed do you think Bezzerides, Velcoro and Woodrugh are now? Is there any way they can possibly take down all of the bad guys. Tweet me @OldSnake24. And be sure to follow us @YouNerded!

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