Anais Gutierrez
HBO confirmed the third season of ‘True Detective’ on Thursday. The network also announced the casting of Oscar winner Mahershala Ali. A release date is yet expected to be announced.
While there’s no much information about the upcoming third season of the successful show, some facts hint that it will go back to its acclaimed roots from the first season.
‘True Detective’s season three has its green light
It’s been more than two years since Nic Pizzolatto’s HBO anthology series aired its last episode. And for the longest time it felt like the next one was a long way off, at best.
Viewers may still have to wait a bit, but it’s actually happening: HBO has given the official greenlight to a new season of ‘True Detective.’ The show’s’ critically acclaimed first season starred Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson; Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams and Taylor Kitsch appeared in the second season.
This season stars Oscar winner Mahershala Ali, playing Wayne Hays, a state police detective from Northwest Arkansas. Ali follows in the footsteps of season one stars, and continuing executive producers, Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, and season two’s Colin Farrell and Vince Vaughn. No word yet on whether he’ll have a partner.
Also, HBO has confirmed that the new series will be written by Nic Pizzolatto, the showrunner for the show’s first two seasons. Pizzolatto is the sole writer of the series, with the exception of episode 4 which he co-wrote with ‘Deadwood’ and ‘Luck’ creator David Milch.
“I’m tremendously thrilled to be working with artists at the level of Mahershala and Jeremy,‘ said Pizzolatto. “I hope the material can do justice to their talents, and we’re all very excited to tell this story.”
Pizzolatto is still writing scripts for the series, with only five confirmed as finished.
Finally, the big new confirmation regarding the third season is that director Jeremy Saulnier, who gained recent attention for his work on last year’s Nazi-sploitation punk horror-noir ‘Green Room’, will be directing the majority of the season.
Let’s hope its better than the second season
The follow-up to the HBO sensation was almost universally derided as a bust, partially because of the unreasonably high expectations set by the first season, and also because it wasn’t really that enjoyable to watch.
It received a not-that-terrible score of 63% on Rotten Tomatoes, but “what went wrong”-style think pieces abounded. HBO president Michael Lombardo even appeared to admit defeat.
“Our biggest failures—and I don’t know if I would consider True Detective—but when we tell somebody to hit an air date as opposed to allowing the writing to find its own natural resting place, when it’s ready, when it’s baked—we’ve failed,” he told The Frame.
”And I think in this particular case, the first season of True Detective was something that Nic Pizzolatto had been thinking about, gestating, for a long period of time.”
The show’s second season featured four different high-profile actors—Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, Vince Vaughn and Taylor Kitsch—that the show landed after months of fervent speculation.
It even became a meme, which probably wasn’t a good sign. It appears that Season 3 will revolve around one star, Ali, who is primed to step into the spotlight. He will play Wayne Hays, a state police detective from Northwest Arkansas.
Getting back on track
So far, the few things we know about the upcoming third season make it look quite good. The official plot summary for Season 3, courtesy of HBO, reads:
The next installment of ‘True Detective’ tells the story of a macabre crime in the heart of the Ozarks, and a mystery that deepens over decades and plays out in three separate time periods. The shifting time periods and decades-spanning mystery harkens back to Season 1, which bounced between two timelines and slowly pieced together what happened in between.
Another good sign is the fact the series is going back to a single director mode.
‘True Detective’ made such a sterling first impression, in part, because of Cary Fukunaga’s direction in Season 1. He helmed every episode and served as a powerful collaborative force in defining the series itself. Season 2 lacked a similar vision, as six directors helmed eight episodes, so there’s understandably quite a bit of interest in the two people set to get behind the camera for Season 3.
After director interviews began in July, HBO confirmed two directors for an unknown number of episodes: Nic Pizzolatto and Jeremy Saulnier.
Saulnier broke out with the 2013 Cannes entry, ‘Blue Ruin,’ for which he won the Director’s Fortnight award. He also helmed the well-reviewed 2015 horror film ‘Green Room’ and is in post-production on ‘Hold the Dark,’ a thriller starring Riley Keough.
Pizzolatto has no directing experience, but, as showrunner, he worked closely with Fukunaga in Season 1 and a team of directors in Season 2.
Source: Chicago Tribune
