In the centre of a burnt up cornfield is the body of Dora Lang, a young woman who over the course of this episode’s round of investigation would turn out to be a part time prostitute who was drugged with meth and LSD, stabbed repeatedly in the abdomen, bound at her hands and feet, and positioned at the base of a large tree with a crown of thistle and deer antlers on her head to look like she was in prayer with some sort of rune painted on her back. It should be noted from here on out, there are SPOILERS.

If the CSIs and NCISs and whatever other acronym shortened shows out there have you down and you really want something with some meat on its bones (or if you just like exceptionally crafted television), True Detective will be where it’s at for the near future.įor the next few weeks, I’ll be on the True Detective recap beat (Sunday nights immediately following the East Coast airing of the show for the next three weeks, Monday afternoons for the rest of the season) and taking the show on an episode-by-episode basis to see if it keeps up at the great pace it has set. As much as I have a soft spot for something like Law & Order: SVU re-runs on a slow afternoon, True Detective stands alone as a slow burning, thoughtful, genuinely creepy, and almost punk rock “fuck you” to worthless spin-off shows of established franchises and series like Criminal Minds that like to deal with extreme blood-lust one episode at a time and then largely forget about the consequences. Thankfully, the show (after the three episodes we were able to screen in advance of the series premiere) suggest that unless something goes completely off the rails, the hype is surpassed in what amounts to the perfect answer to all of the dreadfully pat and standard procedural shows that have become almost like a cancer on television. But to then entrust the first series to director Cary Fukunaga (who previously made the brutal but gorgeous looking gangster drama Sin Nombre and the gorgeous looking, but less successful 2011 adaptation of Jane Eyre) and cast A list talent like Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in the leads, the show became something that opened a lot of eyes, making it possibly the most anticipated series debut of the year.īut with all that pre-release buzz, wondering, and artfully cut trailers to tease the arrival of the show there also comes a great deal of hype that needs to be tempered. The very concept alone – an anthology show with a different cast and director every season – combined with the fact that HBO can basically let the filmmakers and writers get away with whatever they want was enough. I’m normally the film guy around these parts, but there hasn’t been a television show that I have jumped at wanting to cover as hard and as fast as I pounced on True Detective.

True detective season 1 setting