True Detective and the Underwhelming Orgy

Just the Lady Parts is a new TV review series wherein Jezebel reviews just the lady parts.

For the first half of last night’s True Detective, “Church in Ruins,” our female characters are faced with more of the same. Ray’s ex-wife Gena barely appears as the details of her rape (and the reveal of her rapist) are played out on camera by Velcoro, Frank Semyon, and a new con who claims to not remember Gena’s assault. Frank’s wife—who is such a non-entity that I can never remember her name (the internet tells me that it’s “Jordan”)—continues to skulk around in the background while wearing a kimono. Ani, forever fueled by anger and a fear of intimacy, stabs things with knives. Everything is in its usual place until…

ORGY TIME.

Last night’s True Detective orgy scene is perhaps the most hyped scene of the season. “Your stern tweets and pleas for strong female leads to be cast in HBO’s prestige drama have been heard,” wrote our very own Natasha Vargas-Cooper back in March. “According to The Hollywood Reporter, two female porn stars have been cast for a Caligula level fuck fest to be featured on the upcoming season of Nic Pizzolatto’s gritty crime drama.”

As the Hollywood Reporter reported:

Amia Miley and Peta Jensen, both 24, were hired for a deliriously vast orgy sequence involving dozens of naked bodies in Eyes Wide Shut-caliber sex antics. According to participants in the scene, the sequence was shot over the past few days in a Pasadena mansion. Season two stars Colin Farrell and Rachel McAdams were also present for filming.

Such excitement! Such anticipation! Was it worth the wait? I’d argue that it wasn’t, but I don’t know, maybe I’m too particular in my orgy scenes (NOT ENOUGH MASKS). Or perhaps I was too swayed by this very on-point tweet by Kumail Nanjiani:

Despite my disappointment (I mean, people fucking everywhere and hardly a dong in sight?!), I have to hand it to Ani Bezzerides. While, sure, it seems like Nic Pizzolatto could have come up with another way for the True Detectives to infiltrate the circle of California’s most corrupt and elite without dressing Rachel McAdams in a slinky dress and chic wig or showing two girls tongue-kissing while an old man watches nearby, this is what we were handed.

Using her sister’s sex work connections to get into the Pasadena fuck mansion, Ani arrives with a group of prostitutes/party girls and is given an obligatory dose of pure Molly. While one of her cohorts promises that the drugs will make her have a better time, they actually throw Ani into full-on hallucinations, bringing back memories of a childhood sexual assault.

The reveal hardly comes as a surprise. Male television writers have a long tradition when it comes to assuming that the only female traumas worth writing about are rape or pregnancy (see every woman in True Detective, season 2 for examples) and you’d be foolish—and adorably optimistic—to think that Ani would somehow be exempt from that.

While plenty of us have experienced hard Molly come-downs, Ani’s is exceptionally awful. Running into a bathroom of drugged up sex workers, she pukes into a bath tub (been there), manages to find Vera (the missing woman she’s been looking for since episode one), stabs two men (and kills one) with a cheese knife, and sprints from the mansion—while hauling Vera—to Velcoro’s car, and dodges bullets. It’s all very unrealistic, but only because there’s NO WAY her wig could possibly stay THAT secure through all of that action.