10 Reasons Why Season 2 Of True Detective Is Actually Awesome

As great as Season One was, there are always two things that people forget when comparing it to the second: it started slow (not as slow, but still pretty slow); and, the finale was really, really, terrible. And it's here Season Two got it right.

While the first season's finale descended into a shoot out with a sub-Texas Chainsaw Massacre-esque bad-guy before then hitting a new low by allowing Rust Cohle's tendency to espouse the kind of philosophical, poetic nonsense last seen in a sixth-former's secret diary to run rampant, the second season's finale was close to perfect. True, it still had its faults, but, for the most part it made for riveting, satisfying television. 

What it did right was that it didn't chicken out of anything like Season One did. As we've established, Season Two was about 'characters' and by the end of the final episode, we had lost three out of four of our mains. Though Woodrugh's demise did seem a little exploitative (it would have been nice to see him married, living a lie and back on the bike), Frank and Ray's deaths were touching, heartbreaking, and gave a closure to the season that Rust and Marty were never allowed - perhaps why so many fans find it so difficult to let go of them?

Ray's death was especially tough to take. Knowing that he was lost to his son(s) forever having wasted so many years beating himself up over something that, in the end, never mattered. All hammered home by that heartbreaking final shot of his failed attempt to leave his son just one last voice-mail. Oh, Ray...