HBOFinally, after what feels like years, the flat circle that is time has brought us to another season of HBO's current grittiest drama that does not involve dragons.
Gone is the interrogation room framing device, along with the bromantic duo that is Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, so in some aspects, it's a totally different show. However, strangely, even though everything is different, it all still feels comfortably the same.
Season two of True Detective takes place in Los Angeles, where three detectives are tasked with investigating the murder of a city manager. Rachel McAdams plays Antigone Bezzerides, a tough detective with a screwed up family and a somewhat surprising backstory, while Colin Farrell plays her partner Ray Velcoro, another tough detective with a screwed up family, along with a screwed up sense of how to work out his problems.
Tim Riggins, meanwhile, just wants to ride his bike.
Sorry. Taylor Kitsch, of Friday Night Lights fame, plays Paul Woodrugh, a California highway patrolman who would always rather be patrolling those highways on his motorcycle than be literally anywhere else.
Together, they're attempting to find the killer of the guy who was supposed to be helping businessman Vince Vaughn (this season's main philosophizer so far) close a very expensive land development deal.
One of the biggest changes already this season is just in the number of characters. Season one was all about Rust Cohle (McConaughey) and Marty Hart (Harrelson), but season two definitely has more of an ensemble feel. There's even a woman in a lead role, working hard to fight sexism and prostitution all at the same time, and McAdams totally kills it. (Seriously, one time she punched us in the face. It was awesome.)
In fact, all of the acting is exactly as great as you might have expected it to be, given that this is HBO and an A-list cast.
"It's different, the second season, for sure," Colin Farrell told E! News earlier this month. "There's a similarity and a certain tone that the piece has that I think resonated with me as having a tone that was reflective of the tone of the first year and a sensibility that's the same. But the characters are very different, the aesthetic is very different, the pace is very different."
What's not different, however, is that feeling of never wanting to leave your house again after you watch an episode because you're now convinced the whole world is depressing and terrible and that you might get murdered, which is clearly a thing that HBO is going for lately with that Game of Thrones finale (still. not. over. it.). Nobody's really in a good mood at any time on this show, but perhaps that's all a clever strategy to keep you from getting off of your couch so you'll just keep watching TV all day, and if that's the case, it's totally working.
True Detective season two premieres tonight at 9 p.m. on HBO.