It’s Time to Analyze the Preview for True Detective’s Next Episode, “Black Maps and Hotel Rooms.”

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Last night’s episode of True Detective, “A Church in Ruins,” was one of the best of the season. It brought all of the mysteries several steps forward, showed us that there’s someone above Frank giving orders, and gave us a tough couple of scenes with Ray and his boy. Next Sunday’s episode, “Black Maps and Hotel Rooms,” will have to top it.

It already wins the award for having what is likely the most literal name of any episode of True Detective season two so far.

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The episode will be helmed by Doug Attias, who is known for his work in television — he’s directed episodes of The WireBuffy the Vampire Slayer, and many others. We’re getting close to the end here, and neither HBO nor True Detective are feeling very open with what we can expect. What that boils down to is we have a preview wasting time reminding us that there are only two episodes left and a lot of quick cuts and flashes.

More than anything else, it’s a hype trailer. What we can so clearly is that Frank is definitely going to hit someone, Ani is going to have a meeting with her father, and Paul will have more baby drama. We don’t see any reference to Caspere or the crow men, which hopefully means that True Detective is holding back those bits close to the chest. We haven’t seen a crow man — or any other animal-masked man — in about five episodes.

The masked men isn’t really what True Detective season two is about, but it would be a shame for it to squander the excitement from what was a compelling mystery. As this preview for the new True Detective episode tells you (twice,) there are only two episodes left. There’s no sign of anyone getting their life together, so if you’re hoping for True Detective season two to end on a happy or optimistic note, you may want to keep those expectations in check.

You can check out the preview for “Black Maps and Hotel Rooms” below.

Next: The sin of watching in True Detective

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