'True Detective' season 2: What went wrong?

After the success of the first season of 'Detective' starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, the second season has been mostly negatively received by critics and viewers. Here's how the show can recover.

|
Lacey Terrell/HBO/AP
'True Detective' stars Colin Farrell.

With the seventh episode of the second season of “True Detective” having aired and only one more to go, it has become evident that the second installment of the HBO drama has not been a success. 

While some found the season’s second-to-last episode to be intriguing – and to be a relief in that it provided some answers to the show’s mysteries – many critics and viewers seem to agree that the season finale, which airs on Aug. 9, will have to be spectacular to make up for the previous episodes. 

“Detective” debuted in 2014 and starred Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as police detectives in Louisiana. It was critically acclaimed and both McConaughey and Harrelson received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for their work. 

However, “Detective” is an anthology show, and “Detective”’s take on that format means having all-new characters and a new setting from season to season (at least so far). Therefore the second season centered on four new characters: police detective Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell), police detective Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams), highway patrolman Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch), and criminal Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn). The three law enforcers are working to solve a murder that took place in California. 

But the second season hasn’t been as well-received as the first. Part of what may have led to this struggle is the anthology format. Creator and writer Nic Pizzolatto had to start from scratch with the second season, creating new characters and a new story (though he did already have the audience’s goodwill from the first season). For any TV show to accomplish that is challenging. 

What could have helped this second season succeeded? Taking out about eight different plotlines (give or take a dozen) probably would have helped. The show’s central mystery is who killed Ben Caspere, the city manager of the California city Vinci. However, the mystery has come to also involve a missing young woman, a corrupt police department, and Frank’s business associates, among many more. Critics have complained over how many characters there are to keep track of, with one writing of the most recent episode, “Who killed Ben Caspere? Why, it would seem, Laura a.k.a. Erica did it. And if you’re saying, ‘who?’ right about now, then you’ve zeroed in on one of the problems at the center of True Detective Season 2.” Another mentioned two characters involved in the show’s conspiracy and labeled them as “two of the Very Important People that we met for like two scenes, five episodes ago,” while yet another critic noted that “even 'True Detective's' detectives have trouble following the case… Twice in the scene [in which the detectives discuss the case], someone says, ‘It doesn't make sense.’ It ends with Ani literally throwing up her hands and groaning.” 

Another problem has been how many protagonists have been at the center of season two. With the show delving into the personal histories of Ray, Ani, Paul, and Frank, as well as having secondary characters like Frank’s wife Jordan and Ani’s sister, all of them have felt shortchanged. One reviewer wrote that viewers “flail to learn about four main characters” and another called the character of Paul “underdeveloped.” 

Michael Lombardo, HBO president of programming, recently said, “If [Pizzolatto] wants to do another season, I said [that] the door is open. We’d like to do another season of it.” If “Detective” does return for more episodes, those behind the show will have to address some of the problems of the second season before the program can move forward in a satisfying manner.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to 'True Detective' season 2: What went wrong?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Culture-Cafe/2015/0803/True-Detective-season-2-What-went-wrong
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe