True Detective Season Two’s Finale Experienced a Small Ratings Surge

By Reuben Levine | Aug 12, 2015

Lots of people will tell you that True Detective’s second season didn’t hit all the marks. We’d tell you that. Actually, that’s being a tad generous — most people would just outright call it bad. But that didn’t translate to poor ratings. During HBO’s boss Michael Lombardo’s presentation at TCA, the ratings for season two were still very strong to that point.

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The ratings, however, had been steadily declining since the first episode premiered. That never really changed, but the finale did see an increase in viewers according to TV by the Numbers. Still, that puts True Detective season two’s finale lower than season one’s in the ratings department. That was inevitable and expected.

But there’s more good news here.

Overall, the ratings for the entire second season have been higher than that of the first season’s. In time, it’s possible that people will refer to season two as something of a “sophomore slump” for True Detective. The public opinion of season two right now is not very high, and some of it is well-deserved. But that’s no reason to not talk about season two’s accomplishments, which do, in fact, exist.

Season three of True Detective will have a little bit of an uphill battle since it will have to recover from the negative perception of season two, but it will likely recover with time. You can check out our own review of the season two finale right there.

Next: Here is True Detective season two in two minutes.

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