True Detective Season Two’s Car Scenes Don’t Land

By Reuben Levine | Jun 29, 2015

We’re two episodes into True Detective season two, and already we’ve had what feels like an inordinate amount of conversations that take place in cars. This was a gimmick used in True Detective’s first season, and it also happens to be something completely natural that most people do on an everyday basis.

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But it’s not working.

What would be best for True Detective is for it to carve its own path away from season. To some extent, this is what True Detective season two has been doing. With four leads to juggle, and especially after yesterday’s episode, True Detective season two is very different from the first. Except for the ways in which the show forcefully throws back to the critically lauded first season.

This was a problem almost immediately, but now it’s distracting. There are so many conversations that take place in cars in True Detective’s latest episode that it’s becoming a challenge to mentally distance season one from season two. It’s almost as if True Detective season two demands that you remember those scenes from season one, and the comparison is not flattering.

Part of the issue is that the banter that we get to see just isn’t compelling. It’s moody detectives being moody, and not much else is being said or done. At best, they’re acceptable vehicles for exposition. At their worst, they’re wastes of time that add up to weaken the episode.

True Detective is a very serious show, and there is a very fine line between being dramatically serious and being too serious to actually take seriously. These scenes so far show the worst parts of True Detective, and they threaten to fall into cringe-worthy territory.

Luckily, True Detective has proven itself to be a better show than that so far. But it could be something more if it would just let go.

Next: True Detective season two is about to pick up.

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