True Detective’s second season isn’t amounting to much. The HBO anthology burst onto the scene with critics and audiences alike last year, but left in its new incarnation is quite a bit to be desired. The dialogue is deliberate and hackneyed. (Even if intentional, it’s badly working off of classic California noir.) The acting is inconsistent. The imagery is unremarkable. And the plotting, though too early to judge holistically, has already engaged in trite cliches, hitting predictable beats like corrupt cop and criminal-going-straight with a severe absence of nuance.
It’s not very good; the series seems to have turned into an attempted genre exercise without the writing or directing quality necessary to pull it off. But the show is still a hit. Even with B-level movie stars Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams and Vince Vaughn replacing Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, the series is still the most-talked-about of the moment, generating more recaps and morning-after discussions than anything else out there.
Why? What is it about a brooding, humorless, hyper-masculine (and predominantly white) vision that deserves so much patience, attention and dissection? This, especially when the vast majority of reviews have admitted to it not being good at all -- only “sporadically promising,” the most optimistic of critics essentially say. I’m all for giving shows the time of day, and in an all-things-being-equal climate, this wouldn’t bother me nearly as much. But it seems contradictory for critics who preach checking out those hidden gems to spend so much intellectual time on something so inessential.
In part, True Detective Season 2 is a beast of our own creation. The startling anticipation for which “movie stars” would join the show ultimately led to the casting of Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn and Rachel McAdams after higher-profile actors like Christian Bale and Michael Fassbender passed. (I wonder why.) Vaughn drowns under his character’s inorganically distinct manner of speaking; Farrell drowns in a well of misery. You might say McAdams has left the most lasting impression, but one can only imagine what Elisabeth Moss -- a superior actress -- would have done with the part that was once rumored to be hers.
True Detective’s first season worked so splendidly because of its terrific pair of leads and the remarkable direction from Cary Fukunaga, who didn’t return to helm a single episode this go-round. McConaughey in particular tapped into Nic Pizzolatto’s angsty, philosophical dialogue with humor and melancholy; along with Fukunaga’s evocative direction, the season progressed beautifully in mood like a tonal poem. Those elements have been stripped. Without that magic combination, True Detective is a below-average slow-burn with the pretensions of being something more.
I’m saying this as matter-of-fact less because I know it to be true -- art is always subjective -- than due to the fact that this is the critical consensus. After aggregating reviews for its third episode, Criticwire made the claim that “If there's a way to enjoy the new season, it may be to shift gears and think of it as high camp … rather than a Serious Work of Art.” There’s an admission that this discussion space isn’t reserved for a show of Mad Men depth or intrigue, but for a cultural event that critics can approach with a sarcastic, light-hearted lens.
Considering it’s usually a dead-zone, this summer TV season has been an embarrassment of riches. Familiar networks have churned out promising new series, including AMC’s Humans and Amazon’s Catastrophe. Even better fare has come out of completely unexpected places, including USA’s cinematic Mr. Robot and Lifetime’s scathing UnREAL. And that’s just the freshmen: critical darling Rectify, ambitious period drama Masters of Sex and creative breakout Halt and Catch Fire are among the many returning series doing great work this summer. The quality of those shows, relative to True Detective or not, speaks for itself.
But in ratings and -- more importantly -- critical conversations, True Detective eats up the lion’s share. While commercially it’s safe to say that the pulpy stylings and movie star gloss of Pizzolatto’s crime drama would draw more viewers than Masters’ clinical study of sexuality or Rectify’s transfixing journey of family and soul, it’s disappointing that episodic recaps and in-depth reviews are far more the norm for Detective than they are for the others. Indeed, these very critics checking in so religiously on an episodic basis for a show they don’t much care for are the ones dubbing others like Rectify and UnREAL “the best show you’re not watching.”
Part of this speaks to economic interests. It’s no secret that critics, for the most part, produce content for large publications; there’s a supply that needs to meet the demand. Put simply, True Detective is more popular than those aforementioned shows.
But so is your average CBS procedural or USA popcorn fare, and that’s the point of difference. Viewers of True Detective are, somewhat inexplicably, demanding a mass critical analysis, even though it’s pretty clearly not as much as what some would like to make it out to be. The treatment was last handed to Game of Thrones in the spring, a show of bigger ratings, more critical acclaim and, generally, more to discuss. Ripe for engagement is its deep universe, its source material and, yes, its mass popularity. True Detective doesn’t check any of those boxes. (Well, maybe a little of that last one.) But even still, it’s being taken seriously at the expense of other shows more in need of the attention.
Part of this is an aimless frustration, I’ll admit. And while I’m not checking in on Detective weekly, I’m still committed to seeing it through to the end. The show has a brand and a cultural factor that’s undeniable. It may be an entirely different creation from its original, but there are still elements worth chewing on -- like with anything.
HBO has, through marketing and the luring of film actors, attached a “prestige” label to True Detective. Even the many critics smart enough to see through it aren’t immune to its commercial and cultural powers. Mary McNamara, the Los Angeles Times’ Pulitzer prize-winning critic, weighed in on the narrow cultural definition of prestige thusly: “‘Prestige’ is just a half-step away from ‘elite,’ and our nation's president notwithstanding, we all know what color ‘elite’ is. [It’s] alarming.”
And that’s the crucial point -- what are we talking about when we talk about “prestige”? And why is True Detective, often intellectually vacuous thus far, a part of that conversation? McNamara’s talking about something more specific -- racial diversity -- while also acknowledging the “genre” as predominantly male. It’s safe to say that True Detective, in ideal a meditation on men, men, men, boasts an aesthetic that begs a certain treatment. But it doesn’t earn it. Its attempts at genre are undercut by a writer with too many influences stuck in his head. Rather than feel original, or even like successful homage, this True Detective has evolved into hate-watch material. Instead of spending hours dissecting what makes it so damn terrible, let's hope that the conversation reorients around a show that really deserves it.