True Detective Season Two is Hiding Away Literary References

By Reuben Levine | Jun 25, 2015

Not too long ago, True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto spoke about referencing other literary work in True Detective. The gist being that he wasn’t going to do it, at least not to the extent of True Detective’s first season. Perhaps it was because he got into a little bit of hot water, or perhaps it had nothing to do with that.

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Either way, Entertainment Weekly dug around in the first episode of True Detective season two, “The Western Book of the Dead.” What they found was that the references were still alive and well, though perhaps not in the same way.

The references in season two seem to point toward building a theme instead of just referencing an old work. For example, one of the books that Rachel McAdams’ character, Ani (Antigone) Bezzerides is Hagakure: Book of the Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo. The book is clearly seen in her apartment and is meant to be noticed.

One of its many teachings is that a samurai must be ready to die at any moment. This fits in very well with not only Bezzerides, but all of the other leads minus Frank Semyon. All of them are seemingly moving toward their own destruction, just waiting for the hammer to drop.

This sort of reference better informs the characters and their motives, but isn’t very much at all like what Pizzolatto was doing in the first season of True Detective. In case you’re curious as to what the other references are, you can head over to Entertainment Weekly for the full list.

It’s likely that we’ll be seeing more of these as the season continues.

Next: Watch Lera Lynn in the True Detective opening Credits.

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