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Jun 20, 2015 By Alee Karim Web Exclusive

Even before a single frame rolls, you want (and half-expect to hear) The Handsome Family’s “Far From Any Road.”

Expectation is a motherfucker and True Detective showrunner/creator Nic Pizzolatto along with his feature-film-ready cast and crew (including Rachel McAdams, Colin Farrell, and Fast and Furious director Justin Lin) find themselves saddled with more bales of it than most. And while this new season leaves the gate with the same luxurious and careful aesthetic as its predecessor, it’s a slower burn overall.

Short answer: it’s very, very good. Don’t look for Farrell or Vince Vaughn to burst out of each frame with philosophical meanderings and swagger-and don’t expect this season to be any less compelling because of it. This season’s protagonists, which also includes Taylor Kitsch (in what may be his best casting since Friday Night Lights) are mute in their gloom, unwilling to put on the show of having even nihilistic answers. They punch, drink, and fuck in a dour haze and don’t pretend to enjoy themselves. If Woody Harrelson’s Martin Hart was a latent hypocrite, McAdams and Farrell-this season’s main arms of the law-swim laps in their own crapulence. It’s a real frickin’ bummer, to be honest.

And it’s massively fun to watch. It’s punchy, violent, and darkly funny. The mystery, centering around a murder that links Farrell, McAdams, and Kitsch, is Lynchian without attempting to ape the man the way so many bad ‘90s movies did. There are faint shavings of, if not supernatural weirdness, then the furthest taffy pull of the real in a couple of key scenes that define the mood. It helps that they’re skulking around the locale of Lynch’s great noirs Lost Highway and Mulholland Dr. But Pizzolatto and Lin’s Southland isn’t even ironically glamorous. It’s as doomy and decayed as the Louisiana swampland that housed season 1, all refineries and washed out nature.

What True Detective manages in its second season (at least what we’ve seen of it) is a modulation of the critical conversation from the question, “Does it stack up to Season 1?” to, “How do we define this format of storytelling?” There’s so much room to explore this nascent style of anthology miniseries in a creative way and the fact that the first season did not end up being a direct template for the second bodes well for the creative future of the show. Pizzolatto has referred to the seasons of his show as albums and If Season 1 was his Tommy, this season seems to be his Who’s Next-who wants to live in a world where we can’t have both? (www.hbo.com/true-detective)

Author rating: 8.5/10