HBOBest. Scene. Of. The. TV. Season.
As if True Detective wasn't already one of the best new series of the year, they had to go and top themselves in the Sunday, Feb. 9 episode, when, in a stunning display of filmmaking, they ended their fourth episode, "Who Goes There," with a six-minute scene that was filmed in one take. Yes, you read that right: a six-minute long shot of a robbery-gone-wrong, with Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) running away from the scene of a failed drug bust through a housing project into Hart's (Woody Harrelson) car.
In an interview with MTV News, director Cary Fukunaga, who has employed the epic single-take before in Jane Eyre and Sin Nombre, revealed the HBO drama filmed the intricate scene seven times
True Detective filmed the sequence in an actual housing development, which took weeks to secure permission to do, with Fukunaga plotting out the "the most interesting path, but also the most logical path."
And prior to filming, Fukunaga said the crew practiced the scene in a replica of the house so they could carefully choreograph every beat.
"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," he explained. "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."
But the tension wasn't limited to just the heist scene during the episode as Lisa (Alexandra Daddario) revealed her affair with Hart to Maggie (Michelle Monaghan), his wife, who then took the kids and left him.
Of the troublemaking Lisa, Daddario told us, "It was fun to play that, just a little crazier and different than any other character I've ever played." And while she couldn't say much about what's ahead in the final four episodes, she gushed, "It gets really exciting."
As for her headline-making nude scene in the second episode, Daddario admitted. "There's something very nerve-racking about doing something like that for the first time, just like going in front of a camera for the first time and having your first line. But I tried not to think about it too much and I understood why it was important in the story and for my character and for Woody's character. I just tried not to think about it and that was pretty much it. I think it makes total sense in the story."
True Detective airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO.