True Detective Season 3 Premiere Review: 7 Ups & 3 Downs From Episodes 1 & 2

Downs...

3. Not Making The Most Of Its Setting

One of the elements that contributed to Season 2 being underwhelming was its setting, as it traded the otherworldly Louisana bayous for the cold hard concrete of Los Angeles stand-in Vinci.

Season 3 has the chance to get back to the stranger settings that worked wonders in the first season, with the story taking place in the Ozarks (a mountainous region across Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and this show's focus, Arkansas). It's the kind of setting you might see lush hues of brown, red, and orange, eerie shades of green, or stark, barren trees. It should be a place you can get lost in, and that adds to the creepy atmosphere of the series.

Sadly, we don't really get any of that in the first two episodes. Save for a brief sojourn into the woods, there's little here to give us any realm sense of place, and definitely not to transform the settings into a living, breathing space that pulses with its own energy, which feels like a missed opportunity.