Nic Pizzolatto Participated in a Short but Sweet Q&A with Medium

By Reuben Levine | May 8, 2015

The True Detective promotional machine has been slowly coming to life, but it has been stable. Not too long ago we were treated to a serious of motion posters for True Detective’s second season, and early today we saw some new character posters. But the cherry on top has got to be a new Q&A with True Detective creator and writer Nic Pizzolatto.

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Pizzolatto is a very private person, and that may be why HBO has chosen to be so secretive when it comes to True Detective. This Q&A is also perfect Pizzolatto; a short, controlled session closed off from fans. But believe it or not, there is a bit of meat here.

It stars off with a bang: will True Detective season two have anything at all to do with the first season? A link between the new and old would cheapen the new season, in our opinion, and Nic Pizzolatto appears to agree:

"“There’s no relationship between the stories or characters, which was the result of fully committing to something new…”"

But he does go on to say that the two seasons share a “sensibility and vision,” which is exactly what we wanted to here. Pizzolatto also goes into how the season has changed over time and what that means for the occult themes found in the first season:

"There’s definitely bad men and hard women, but no secret occult history of the U.S. transportation system…The complexity of the historical conspiracy first conceived detracted from the characters and their reality, I felt, and those characters are ultimately what have to shape the world and story. So I moved away from that.”"

Not that we didn’t already know some of that. The simpler story of a corrupt businessman and those involved in his circles doesn’t have any rom for such a complex story, and that’s for the better. But when it comes to the aforementioned occur themes, there won’t be any:

"“While there’s nothing occult in this season, I think there’s a disconcerting psychology to this world, and its characters have other kinds of uncanny reality with which to contend.”"

So we won’t have to wonder about that any longer. It’s a bit of a shame, truth be told, but it further allows for a clean break from the first season. And that’s for the better. Nic Pizzolatto was also asked about the story structure for season two and was predictably coy while admitting it will be different from the first:

"“We were conscious of not wanting to repeat ourselves or remake the same album in a different setting, but I try to be open to whatever structure the story and characters suggest, so I never drew a line through those things…And there was the conviction that if we were to do something entirely new, then we shouldn’t lean on past conceits, but really build from scratch.”"

That’s not necessarily a surprise either. Nic Pizzolatto definitely seems to agree with us that True Detective’s second season has to move fully out of the first season’s shadow. While there aren’t any major bombs in the interview, it’s exciting to see Nic Pizzolatto finally speak about the second season again.

You can check out the full interview over at Medium, and we fully encourage you to do so.

Next: Four new True Detective season two posters.

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