I’ve covered Lone Star beer in True Detective in one of my previous blog posts. The HBO’s show, which is set in 1995, 2002 and 2012, is light on brands and product placement. Lone Star beer doesn’t have a prominent role in the story; however its screen presence is quite remarkable.
There is another brand that could be seen in the second, fourth and sixth episode of True Detective.
In the second episode we could see det. Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson) drinking Jameson whiskey in his home.
In the fourth episode we could see the other main character det. Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) opening an old tool box containing an AK, a few handguns, ammunition, and a small bottle of Jameson.
At first Cohle drank it.
Soon Marty followed.
In the sixth episode we saw that Rust had the bottle of Jameson on the table in his apartment.
Jameson is a blended Irish whiskey produced by the Irish Distillers subsidiary of Pernod Ricard and is the No. 1 selling Irish whiskey in the world.
True Detective is structured and shot in such a deliberate way that everything we see could have a second meaning. However, I believe that Jameson in the show is either product placement or preference of series creator Nic Pizzolatto (or some other production member).
Or maybe not. :)
The first time the old Jameson showed up, I thought it could be a nod to the great Mcnulty from the Wire. But it kept reappearing, so I’m going with product placement.
I was thinking the same jameson featured so heavily in the wire and the brand is after tripling its production in the last 10 years. I wonder how much jameson would be playing for this.