I loved the first season, but hated season 2 so much that I’m hesitant to take up the third season, especially since I’d have to pay HBO to watch it.
I’ve read some good reviews–that it hearkens back to the mood and atmosphere of the original season and that the acting is top-shelf.
If you’ve seen it, what do you think of it?
Yes, I’m watching it (watched the first two episodes last night and awaiting the third.) I think it is off to an excellent start and if it continues at this rate, it will make up for how awful the last season was. So far it has all of the things that made the first season great - a compelling lead character and a good sidekick, an intimate small town setting, small-scale, rather than some vast byzantine conspiracy. (Could the latter potentially arise over time? Probably, as it is common in detective stories, but I can’t imagine it being as convoluted as the mess that we were treated to in Season 2.)
Mahershala Ali and Stephen Dorff are better actors than Vince Vaughn and Colin Farrell, though Farrell had a few good moments, Vaughan did not remotely have the gravitas or presence to pull off the role. The police procedure scenes feel like The Wire, which is a very favorable comparison. The supporting cast is also good, or at least there’s nobody in it who sticks out as being bad.
The inactivity of this thread is rather damning evidence of how badly they fucked up the last season, that people would actually be scared off from watching Season 3.
I’m in. Season 2 didn’t do anything for me so I’m glad to see the new actors and a return to the vibe of Season 1.
I enjoyed large parts of S2. <shrugs> We’re letting a few episodes S3 accumulate before we start watching, so we can binge a bit.
I didn’t think Season 2 was that bad either ( I even liked Vince Vaughan just fine). It just can’t compare to the first season. This season does seem like an improvement so far.
Turns out that paying HBO to watch it wasn’t in the equation, after all. The girlfriend had a surprise for me the other day–she’d purchased an HBO Now subscription so we could binge all of Game of Thrones before the new season begins in April. So now we can watch True Detective, as well.
Haven’t seen any of season 3 yet, but god, I hope it’s good this time. That first season just blew me away.
.nm
Not sure if it was a nod to The Big Lebowski, but it was cool hearing the funky version of Just Dropped In in the S1E1 outro.
I watched the first two episodes and I’ll be continuing. I get the feeling that Mahershala Ali wouldn’t sign on to a shitty project so his presence gives me hope.
I liked the first season a lot and didn’t bother with the second one. IIRC it was panned before it even came out so I didn’t bother downloading it.
I thought I recognized Sarah Gadon from somewhere. She played Sadie Dunhill in 11.22.63.
Ohhhhh. Well, shit, that’s an extra reason to watch it.
Just finished season 2 of GoT, so we’ll probably get around to watching TD in a couple of weeks. Of course, now we’re behind on Vikings and Supernatural, too.
Season 3 continues to keep me enthralled - and I’m usually not a fan of multiple timelines jumping around. But it’s tastefully done here. This latest episode was a rather slow burn culminating in the standoff at Woodard’s house (where the hell did he get a Claymore mine, anyway?) which is presumably going to result in a pile of corpses at the beginning of the next episode - and maybe the case going cold because the murder/abduction gets posthumously pinned on Woodard (who I have to assume will be one of the corpses).
C’mon, friend… spoilers.
Fuck…sorry. Totally spaced out on the thread title.
Not a problem. I literally have no idea what you were talking about. 
Jesus H. Christ, the horribleness of Season 2 really must have caused people to stay away from the current season in droves, if the utter deadness of this thread is any indication. It’s too bad, because Season 3 has been really, really good so far. But I am hesitant to expend much thought into writing out my ideas about the story, fearing that I may just be talking to myself. So consider this bump a ‘feeler’ to gauge whether or not there’s enough of a possibility of an exchange for me to bother. I hope so.
In the event that other watchers are indeed still following the thread, I will throw a few very wild theories out there:
Could it be that Roland is not real - that he’s an imaginary partner conjured up by Hayes’s dementia?
To take this even further:
Could it be that Hayes’s real partner was this other cop (can’t remember his name) who was described in this episode as having mysteriously disappeared? And that Hayes was in fact the one who “disappeared” him?
One more thing, which is not a theory but an observation, but should nonetheless be spoilered:
In the previous episode, Hayes was shown being haunted by “ghosts”, presumably the ghosts of people that he killed. They took the form of Vietnamese soldiers. Except for one guy, a tall white guy in a suit who was just standing silently in the background. That guy - I am going to go out on a limb here and assume that guy is the cop who disappeared. Which obviously means that Hayes killed him.
I’m still reading this thread, and (partly due to the comments here) I now intend to watch season 3. We’ve gotta finish binging GoT first, though. We’re a little more than halfway though, so in the next couple of weeks.
OK, on second thought, after reading on Reddit that the show’s creator claims “there will be no cheap twists” in this season (and assuming he’s telling the truth), I’ll have to retract my spoilered theories above. The first two, anyway. The third, was a conclusion I arrived at on my own, but reading the Reddit confirms that I am far from the only one who noticed it.
The lack of interest in this thread is pretty surprising. It is a well done show. We started it after 5 episodes and flew through it. I kinda wish we waited because I hate having to wait a week to see what’d going to happen. There are very few shows I’ll watch that way anymore.
The end of the latest episode really gives a peak into where it is going.
Your theories would have made quite an interesting take, but there are several instances where I realized that couldn’t be the case.