True Detective

With the last two episodes, it's time to actually focus on the mystery.

Episode 7 gets into the mystery, and brings things up to date. It seems without a family, the show has to get into the case. But there still isn't really a full Chambersian influence yet, the Yellow King stuff is just dressing. You could swap out with any other names and get the same things. Certainly no hint of anything supernatural. That all said, although this looks to be just humans being capable of bad things, this is not going to end well.

Episode 8 and... it remains dressing. It's just people being people, and this reaches its rather desultory conclusion. It's hard to say the case is about anything, and certainly there isn't really any feeling of achievement when the final pieces drop. Indeed the last clue/trail is just what needs to happen because of plot, not because of the long lengths of detective work they've been doing. And then in the final moments, the show goes for a human connection again, and gets on firmer, if wishy-washer, ground.

There's decent acting in this show, but nothing crime wise that hasn't been done before, and the Lovecraftian angle is overrated. The only reason to watch is for the characters, but that isn't enough to drag this out over eight episodes.

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