True Detective Weekly 8: Omega Station

True Detective Season 2 is over, and it went out with a bang. Well, lots of bangs. It was an unusual season, and an unusual season finale—and as it turns out, we had more than a few conflicting thoughts about it. Tune in, then let us know what you thought!

In the penultimate episode of True Detective season two, every step someone takes towards the truth, the tighter the noose cinches around their neck. When each character finds who is holding their rope, will they charge at them with full force, hunker down and ride it out, or burn everything down? Join us for a discussion of True Detective's "Black Maps and Motel Rooms."

With an impressive infiltration-gone-wrong setpiece spanning much of its final third, this episode of True Detective Season 2 was among our favorite yet. The investigation chugged along, and our principal characters got to dive into some heady emotional material (well, maybe not Paul). We're only two episodes away from the end, and it feels like we're well on our way to wrapping things up.

After last week's climactic gun battle, pieces of the mystery are coming together like they never have before. It's a big reset for True Detective Season 2—for its characters, for their investigation, and for the show as a whole. And that feels refreshing in many ways—but is it too much of a good thing?

By the end of this episode, we were left just as lost as our detectives were following their very bloody shootout. There were a lot of strong character moments in "Down Will Come," but overall we didn't find it to keep up the momentum of the preceding two much stronger installments. With half of the season done and half left to, we're still of two minds on the whole thing.

The plot threads keep piling up–but now we know the characters of True Detective Season 2 well enough to trust them to guide us through. "Maybe Tomorrow," our favorite episode of the season so far opens with an Elvis impersonator and ends with a fistful of teeth. What else do you need?

After the second episode of True Detective Season 2, we're bought in. Despite some lingering misgivings from the season premiere, the show has firmly staked its claim in pulpy conspiratorial Southern California noir fiction, and the character relationships are starting to take form. Join us as we discuss "Night Finds You" and speculate about what's to come. (Some cliffhanger, huh?)

True Detective Season 2 is off to a contentious start. Nobody is quite sure to make of what appears to be an even bigger departure from Season 1 than was expected, but we still find plenty to like (and some to be cautiously optimistic about) in this wide-ranging introduction to a tale of municipal corruption and bad cops.

Welcome to True Detective Weekly! We'll be discussing each episode of True Detective Season 2 as it airs on HBO starting June 21. In the meantime, we sit down to talk about what we liked about Season 1, and why we're excited about the show's unusual anthology format. Join us, and send in your thoughts to [email protected]!