True Detective Season 3: 8 Ways To Fix The Show

The show we deserve this time, please.

True Detective Flat Circle
HBO

True Detective Season 3 might actually be happening after all.

It's fair to say that, at the very least, True Detective season 2 did not capture the hearts and minds of critics and audiences in the way the first did, which had put the show's future existence into a lot of doubt, with HBO and Nic Pizzolatto seemingly moving forward with other projects.

Season 1 of the show was led by two stellar performances from Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, who brought Nic Pizzolatto's nihilistic, philosophising, masculine characters to life in incredible fashion, aided by his writing and the vision of director Cary Fukunaga. Season 2 doubled the leads, but halved the quality. Rachel McAdams, Colin Farrell and Vince Vaughn were all pretty solid, but they didn't have an awful lot to work with, given thin characterisation and poor dialogue. The less said about Taylor Kitsch, as Paul Definitely-not-gay-just-wants-to-ride-his-bike-do-you-know-how-he-got-those-scars Woodrugh the better; he was badly written and terribly acted.

There was no reason to really care about the characters nor the mystery, which was so convoluted it required pretty much the entire internet to read an exhaustive breakdown of the plot just to know who anyone was or what was going on.

However, it's worth remembering just how incredibly good this show was, and that all stemmed from Pizzolatto. He's drinking in the last-chance saloon, but there is still probably enough faith left in him for a third season, and these are the ways he and HBO can make the show great again.

Contributor
Contributor

NCTJ-qualified journalist. Most definitely not a racing driver. Drink too much tea; eat too much peanut butter; watch too much TV. Sadly only the latter paying off so far. A mix of wise-old man in a young man's body with a child-like wonder about him and a great otherworldly sensibility.