This is what good television is about. As the third season of ‘True Detective‘ is about to start, I have been trying to get in sync (although that is not mandatory, as the stories in each season are independent) with the first two seasons. I discovered a real gem in this first season created by Nic Pizzolatto, produced by Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson with the two wonderful actors playing the principal roles. The quality of this series matches in my opinion the top quality successes in the history of HBO like ‘The Wire‘.
About half of the eight episodes of the season describe the interviews taken around 2012 by police to two ex-cops that were investigating a series of crimes started in 1995 which looked like abductions followed by strange and abject ritual murders of young women and even kids and teenagers. The crimes and investigations happen in the state of Louisiana, the deep South of the United States, impacted by poverty and crime, and often struck by hurricanes, in a landscape of infinite marshes and under a burning sun. Each of the two homicide detectives Rustin “Rust” Cole (McConaughey) and Martin “Marty” Hart (Harrelson) fights his own daemons. Cole is a lonely man whose marriage did not survive the accidental death of his two years girl, Hart is cheating on his wife and his own marriage is disintegrating. Story telling is non-linear and smart, we see the two characters at different moments in time – 1995, 2002 (when a second wave of crimes is taking place), 2012, and we discover their personalities, courage and persistence, friendship and vices, as the action advances. The pace changes in the last four episode, as the two cops go underground in order to follow the threads that lead to religious organizations and highly positioned families. Their personal crisis deepen, so does their personal involvement, with solving the series of crimes becoming the goal of their lives but also a threat of personal destruction. The final episode is one of the best finale that I have ever seen on TV series, although personally I could have renounced to the cheesy last ten minutes.
The story is compelling and keeps the viewers permanently on the edge both in what concerns the crime intrigue as well as the fate of the two characters. Both McConaughey and Harrelson are wonderful in acting their characters at the three moments in time when the action happens. Michelle Monaghan adds beauty and warmth in the supporting role of Marty’s wife. The production is careful to the last of details in describing the subtle changes that their world goes through together with the whole America that they symbolize between the 1995, 2002 and 2012. Setting is amazing using the natural landscape of Louisiana and constructing thrilling environments for the horror sites. The first season of ‘True Detective‘ is definitely one of these productions that prove that TV can be art, and it has good chances to satisfy and more the fans of horror, detective stories and plain good TV dramas.