True Detective Season Two is Just as Spooky as the First

By Reuben Levine | Jun 26, 2015

The first season of True Detective had a sinister, supernatural edge to it that made it more compelling and creepy. True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto has since ditched those supernatural notions, and that’s probably for the better. True Detective’s first season didn’t really know how to handle the supernatural elements in the end, and they contributed to an overall disappointing finale.

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But that doesn’t mean that True Detective season two plays it straight. The first episode, “The Western Book of the Dead,” is spooky enough in its own right. And there’s currently not a single reason to believe that won’t continue.

This couldn’t be a discussion of the inherent creepiness in True Detective without mentioning that crow mask. The crow mask is only in a single scene; you can see it as the passenger-side accessory of whoever is driving Caspere around. We only see it once, but that’s all it takes.

The next time we see poor dead Caspere his eyes have been removed by acid. It’s a strange, cult-like murder that lets us know that True Detective is still the creepy show we think it is. Introducing The Yellow King into the first season of True Detective was a creative decision that never really panned out. The second season offers up similar scares, but without all the mess of supernatural allusion.

It’s possible that True Detective season two could still get bogged down by this sort of imagery. True Detective will have to prove that this is going to be worth the investment. Hopefully Nic Pizzolatto has learned from past mistakes.

Next: Learn about the Leonard Cohen song from the True Detective intro.

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