On Sunday night, HBO’s True Detective went from being a good show to a great show. Three episodes in and I still wasn’t completely sold. I was enjoying it, but I was still on the fence as to whether I’d end up making it through the entire season. But then the fourth episode aired and it completely blew me away. By the time the credits rolled I had absolutely made up my mind on the show.
“Who Goes There” was a fantastic hour of television, full of superb acting, thrilling drama and one hell of an impressive tracking shot. It was, in a word, brilliant. The scene followed McConaughey’s character during a raid on a stash house, as he makes his way through several homes in the ghetto. When things go very wrong, very quickly, he desperately tries to get his contact out and find safety.
“We had ADs [assistant directors] all over the neighborhood because we had to release extras, crowd running background, police cars, stunt drivers. There were actual gun shots and stones being thrown through windows. There were a lot of things to put together,” director Cary Joji Fukunaga told MTV. “Even the action, the stunt sequences were complicated. We’re working on a television schedule. It isn’t like a film where you can spend a lot of time working the stunts out with the actors. We only had a day and a half to get Matthew and everyone else on the same page.”
Thankfully, a savvy YouTube user has uploaded the tracking shot in its entirety online, and we have it for you below. It’s very likely that most viewers didn’t even realize that the scene was one take while watching it. If that’s the case, then check out the clip below with that fact in mind and you’ll no doubt walk away even more impressed with the episode, and the show as a whole.
True Detective airs Sunday nights on HBO. It really is one of the year’s best new series and if you’re not already watching it then we suggest you rectify that immediately.
