Yesterday, the season 3 teaser trailer for True Detective dropped, featuring Luke Cage's Mahershala Ali as a world-weary cop. When it comes to TV shows, HBO has a long history of excellence, including the first season of True Detective...which I thought was the best season I have ever seen on TV.
Unfortunately, season 2 was truly a hot mess. The poor performances by Vince Vaughn, Colin Farrell, and Rachel McAdams wasn't the only issue. The season as a whole felt rushed, like they were in a hurry to try to captalize on the success of the first season. Season 2, in my opinion, didn't have any cohesion and lacked the edge of your seat tension the first season was able to create.
With a release in Jan. 2019, it will be over three years since the second season, I can't say that the third installment will be rushed. Ali is truly an inspired choice to lead HBO's attempt at rehabilitating True Detective. In the last few years, we have seen Ali's star shine bright, beginning with his popular role as lobbyist Remy Danton on Netflix's House of Cards. He more recently won an Oscar for his work in the Best Picture-winning drama Moonlight, and pretty awsome as villain Cornell "Cottonmouth" Stokes on season 1 of Luke Cage.
One thing I was able to notice about season 3's teaser trailer is just how much it returns to the style and tone of season 1. Season 2 centered on four cops, while season 3 is going back to it's season 1 roots with a main duo, Ali's Detective Wayne Hays and his partner Roland West (Stephen Dorff). Also, season 3 seems to jump between different time periods in Hays' life and ongoing attempt to solve the case that has him troubled, a throw-back to how fans saw Cohle and Hart at various points in time.
After the sophmore disaster, I didn't think HBO would ever go back to True Detective, which no one would have blamed them. But I'm very glad they did, it appears that they have taken their time and let enough time pass to get the sour taste out of our mouths. I feel very good about this and I think it will be a huge success again.
