Did We Just Learn the Plot of True Detective Season Two?
Stubby the Rocket
September 05, 2014 3:40PM

True Detective season 2

The most recent hints about the shape of True Detective season two came out today as Deadline reported that Justin Lin, director of Fast and Furious 6, is in talks to direct the season. HBO has declined to comment, as they have with every rumor that's circulated so far, but if confirmed, Justin Lin is an exciting pick for the second season.

But the Deadline article contained another kernel of information that might reveal the underpinnings of next season's plot. True Detective is moving from Louisiana to California.

Why does this matter? Well, back in March the show's creator Nic Pizzolatto revealed that the second season would be about “hard women, bad men and the secret occult history of the United States transportation system.” While this may seem vague, the combination of occult transportation systems and a California setting is as much of a tell as the word “Carcosa” was in season one. There is strong reason to believe that season two will be about the Trystero.

Thomas Pynchon’s postmodern novella The Crying of Lot 49 is an ideal inspiration for True Detective. It would maintain all the deeply-ingrained conspiracy of the first season while translating the Southern Gothic decay into suburban desperation. It even has a prominent symbol for Pizzolatto to transform as he layers another mind-bending paranoia onto the many blighted landscapes America has to offer.

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1. jim162065
Friday September 05, 2014 04:43pm EDT
I hope is as good as the first season. That was great season.
2. Penedict
Friday September 05, 2014 05:09pm EDT
Oh it was!!! Fingers crossed the second is at least it's equal!
3. quinne
Friday September 05, 2014 07:22pm EDT
As a fan of Weird Fiction, including, but not limited to, Robert W. Chamber's King in Yellow cycle, I thought Season 1 was ultimately a massive bait and switch. The central stories in the King in Yellow cycle by Chambers have an explicit supernatural quality to them. In True Detective Season 1, there was absolutely no supernatural occurrences, The King in Yellow stories were mere window dressing and all of the references were ultimately red-herrings.

The bait-and-switch in True Detective season 1 was as egregious as Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica endgame.

I won't be tuning in for Season 2. :P

"Fool me once..."
4. AlanB
Friday September 05, 2014 08:40pm EDT
You make a good point, quinne, but I think it all hinges on how you view the "vortex" which Rust sees in the last episode. I love Chambers' work, so I prefer to go for a literal take on True Detective. In other words, the story takes place in Chambers' universe; the King in Yellow is a real cosmic entity that has been influencing the bad guys for its own incomprehensible ends; there really is a planet called Carcosa in the Hyades, and the "vortex" is the conduit through which the Yellow King's malign influence flows. Of course, it could just be one of Rust's hallucinations, but he tells Marty that he's stopped seeing them, and in any case, they're characterised by glowing lights, and the "vortex" isn't. Just my ten cents. Anyway, I'm going to re-read Lot 49, just in case.
5. Transceiver
Friday September 05, 2014 10:52pm EDT
Minor season 1 SPOILERS I loved season 1. Great vehicle for sound if mostly depressing philosophical musings, capped off with a world weary atheist touching the divine, and restoring some of his lost sense of wonder. Perfect. Excited for season 2, and I'm fine with authors cribbing potent imagery from other sources in order to enrich their own stories, as long as it's as deftly accomplished as True Detective. I'll pick up the book - even if it has nothing to do with season 2, I should probably read it, eh?
6. Ellisande
Saturday September 06, 2014 01:51am EDT
huh, I could have sworn Pizzolatto said he was scouting locations in California quite a while ago, so I'd taken it as a done thing, that S.2 would be set in California.

I tend to think of Justin Lin more as an action director, so that's certainly an interesting choice, if true. I'm curious to see what he'll do with it. But there's no question it's going to be a very different show in S2 - probably even more different than the seasons of AHS.
7. Shan
Saturday September 06, 2014 09:32am EDT
I'm liking the “hard women" part. While I think Emily Nussbaum was a little harsh in her review, it's hard to argue that there were any females in the first season of True Detective who don't fit in the archatypes of victims, prositutes, mothers and daughters. Here's to True Detective hopefully giving us a female lead as memerable as Cole and Hart.
8. barth Anderson.
Saturday September 06, 2014 01:36pm EDT
Tristero is a secret mail system.
9. maxfieldgardner
Monday September 08, 2014 01:40pm EDT
@4. There's nothing to say that take on it isn't a valid one. And for all that it seems as if the whole thing has a mundane explanation rather than a supernatural one, I think there are also enough bits and pieces left unexplained to see a cosmic-horror underpinning to the whole thing. I'm mostly thinking of the common threads in the dialogue of people who've been out to the weird fort/labyrinth. The quotes from the play in the story, the black stars, and especially the servant freaking out about "him who eats time, in robes." There's no immediate supernatural horror, but there's a lot that can still be tied in with the King in Yellow as an actual entity. (The Elder Gods rarely interact directly with their worshippers, remember.) I didn't figure the season would end with Rust and Marty trying to put the cuffs on Hastur. I like your version of it though.
10. random
Friday September 12, 2014 10:45am EDT
There's nothing in Lot 49 about a transportation system, you're thinking of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

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