We’ve been hearing more and more about the upcoming second season of HBO’s tremendous crime anthology series True Detective as the weeks have ticked by, with word that Colin Farrell is set to take on a lead role and that Taylor Kitsch is also in talks. But in terms of what exactly the second season is going to focus on, we had previously been drawing from comments creator Nic Pizzolatto made back in May about the second season involing the “psychosphere ambience” of California, “hard women, bad men and the secret occult history of the United States transportation system.” Now, however, we may have a better idea of what to expect from the new episodes of True Detective.
Film Divider, which is relatively new but gaining a good reputation for scoops, recently reported what it has been hearing about the second season, giving us an exciting glimpse into how it all kicks off:
“The new mystery is to be kickstarted by the murder of Ray Caspar, City Manager of a fictional Californian city. From what I can gather, the new, partly invented map that Pizzolatto is drawing will be essential to his new story. As he teased, some months ago, part of the mystery will involve California’s transportation systems. This plot will involve a corrupt scheme to link North and South California with a high speed train, all in pursuit of profitable land ownership and lucrative federal grants.”
That definitely fits with Pizzolatto’s comments about “transportation” factoring into the plot. It also has a certain Chinatown feel to it with the corruption scheme, don’t you think? Film Divider also reports that the “occult” will play into the story, albeit not as a main component, and that the three main characters, reportedly two men and one woman, will be from different branches of the state government. Caspar’s murder is what brings them together. Pizzolatto has been inconsistent about the number of leads in True Detective season 2, but the fourth character he has mentioned before is likely the villain of the series.
Additionally, we have more details on Farrell’s character. A California Highway Patrol officer, he was “suspended for sexually exploiting a young woman he pulled over.” He, like Matthew McConaughey’s Rust Cohle in season 1, has some serious demons, having problems with “cocaine and anger management.”
If this scoop is true, which seems likely given how well thought-out it is, I’m definitely a fan of the set-up that Pizzolatto is imposing this time around. It’s going to be really important for him to turn the second season into a different kind of animal than the first, and these plot details suggest he’s well on his way to doing just that.
True Detective will return for its second season next year on HBO.