True Detective Season Two will Contain no Homages or Allusions. Maybe.

By Reuben Levine | May 1, 2015

There’s no mistaking that there was definitely something Lovecraftean about True Detective’s first outing. In fact, it’s almost impossible to deny. The first season contained a fair amount of allusions and references to work by Lovecraft and other horror writers. This actually put creator and writer Nic Pizzolatto into a bit of hot water.

More from HBO

While it was a real thrill for Lovecraft fans to see homages to his work in a series as big as True Detective, it was also part of the series downfall. Those homages never went anywhere, and in the end proved to be entirely unnecessary and even misleading in some cases.

Looking back on it now, it came off as more as fan-service than anything else.

Nic Pizzolatto won’t be looking to make that same mistake again. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that when asked about this directly from Speakeasy, a feature column from WSJ, Pizzolatto couldn’t have been any clearer. To be fair, Pizzolatto’s statement is in reference to author A.I Bezzerides, who appears to at least be partially the namesake of Rachel McAdams’ character, Ani Bezzerides.

"“…This show is certainly not putting his work in the spotlight, as his work has nothing to do with mine. There are no references or homages at all in True Detective Season 2.”"

Bezzerides was a noir novelist and screenwriter that is very much in Nic Pizzolatto’s alley. He passed away in 2007. Even if True Detective’s second season does contain some sort of reference to another literary work, it will likely not be anywhere near the same ball park as the first season’s.

As beloved as the first season of True Detective is, there is still room for meaningful improvement. Ditching unnecessary references is one way to do that, in order to make the plot a bit cleaner. We’ll know for sure in June, when the second season of True Detective is set to premiere.

Next: True Detective's Cary Fukunaga is a hot commodity.

More from Show Snob