When True Detective premiered in January of 2014, it was hailed as one of the most incredible accomplishments television had managed to produce in years. Powered by extraordinary performances by Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson and featuring superb direction by Cary Fukimaja, it seemed to set the bar high of television in general. Its presence almost certainly helped McConaughey win an Academy Award a few months later, and even when the ending to the mystery came as anticlimactic, critics everywhere were in awe of it.
Then the second season aired in June of 2015, and it was so dreadfully written and poorly acted (which considering it had such powerhouses as Colin Farrell and Rachel McAdams in its cast, is really saying something), that the same people who rhapsodized the first season couldn’t hail down enough expletives to curse the second. In that years Emmys, Andy Samberg made some very telling jokes about it saying: “We said goodbye to True Detective even though it’s still on the air.” Truer words were never spoken. The series disappeared for more than three years, and the fact that it has returned may be due to HBO’s desperation for known quantities rather than any faith in the actual property.
Trying to figure out whether Season 3 of True Detective works is going to be a hard story to figure out even for those who those who know nothing about the series first two installations. One can’t help but thing that maybe Nic Polazzo, in his determination to try and find his way back, decided to use the first season as a road map more than trying to come up with something different. Once again, the series is set back in the South – Arkansas this time – and once again, it involves a detective trying to look back on a ritualistic homicide that was resolved in the past. The major difference is the lead – Wayne Hays played by Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali, the first African-American to have a role of any significance in this series. And the story is being told in three time periods – the original crime which Hays investigated in 1980, the reopening of the case in 1990, and Hays being re-interviewed for a true crime drama in 2015.
Let’s consider what about the series works this time. There is the flowing between time periods, usually with Hays at the center. It is clear that in the present Wayne is dealing with some major memory issues, and that is causing him to black out and seriously consider suicide. The flowing between the three major time periods works surprisingly well, considering that there is a very good possibility for an incredible amount of confusion. And the acting is definitely a lot better than it was in Season 2. Ali has very quickly demonstrated that he is one of the great actors working today. We get a clear perspective of him in all three periods, a detective desperate to solve the case in 1980, a slightly burned out husband and father looking for redemption in 1990, and a man still trying to get closure while worried about the lost of his mind in the present. He commands the screen in a way that very few actors can.
But he’s not the whole story. Stephen Dorff, a criminally undervalued actor who has never gotten the credit for his work, plays Roland West, Hays’ partner in 1980, who has to serve as a buffer for people and brass who don’t want to listen to a black man ask sensitive questions. Something will happen because of this case that will get him promoted to lieutenant, but its clear he still has genuine admiration for his former partner. Also good is Carmen Ejojo as Amelia, a school teacher in 1980, who is of interest early on, and will become Wayne’s wife, the mother of his children, and a writer of a true crime book about the investigation. She is the first fully drawn female character in this entire anthology series
Its where we get to the investigation itself that things start to bog down. It involves the disappearance of two children. One is founded murdered, and placed in a ritualistic position. The younger daughter disappeared, and is clearly presumed dead. And its clear that the parents (Scoot McNairy and Mamie Gummer) aren’t telling all their secrets. Something in the investigation will go wrong, and we will later find out that the daughter is alive. Something will go wrong again. What does the woman interviewing Hays know? Frankly, she’s so irritating and much of a social justice warrior that its hard to care. More importantly, this particular plot line follows Season 1 so closely that it’s kind of hard to imagine Polazzo had to work this hard to come with it. And the characters have so much built in bigotry and sexism that one begins to wonder just what Polazzo’s views are.
Now, don’t get me wrong. True Detective’s third season is very good as a work of television. Ali and Dorff in particular are brilliant, and one can easily see them being at the forefront of the Best Limited Series Acting Emmys. But its beginning to seem less like True Detective is a groundbreaking piece of television, and more just another anthology series. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – we can always use a couple more of those. But for those of us who remembered Cohle and Harte discussing whether or not time was a flat circle, it’s just a little disappointing.
My Score: 4 stars.
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