True Detective Information

True Detective is an American television anthology drama series on HBO created and written by Nic Pizzolatto, with the first season directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga. Season one stars Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Monaghan, Michael Potts, and Tory Kittles, and uses multiple timelines to trace two Louisiana State Police Criminal Investigations Division homicide detectives' hunt for a serial killer in Louisiana across seventeen years. The series premiered on January 12, 2014, and will consist of eight episodes.

Development and production

In April 2012, HBO picked up the series with an order of eight episodes. The series was created by Nic Pizzolatto, who wrote all the episodes, while all the first season episodes are directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga; both also serve as executive producers, with Pizzolatto as showrunner. Season one is set along the coastal plain of South Louisiana, where it was also filmed.

Format

The series will use an anthology format, with each season featuring a different cast of characters and story.

Cast

Main

• Matthew McConaughey as Det. Rustin "Rust" Cohle
• Woody Harrelson as Det. Martin Hart
• Michelle Monaghan as Maggie Hart
• Michael Potts as Det. Maynard Gilbough
• Tory Kittles as Det. Thomas Papania

Recurring

• Kevin Dunn as Major Ken Quesada
• Alexandra Daddario as Lisa Tragnetti
• Elizabeth Reaser as Laurie Perkins
• Brad Carter as Charlie Lange
• Lili Simmons as Beth
• Jay O. Sanders as Billy Lee Tuttle
• Shea Whigham as Joel Theriot
• Clarke Peters as Minister

Episodes

No.	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	U.S. viewers (millions)	Viewers = 2.33	ShortSummary = Louisiana, 1995. Detectives Martin Hart (Woody Harrelson) and Rustin Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) investigate the ritualistic murder of former prostitute Dora Kelly Lange, found with a symbol painted on her back and wearing a "crown" of deer antlers, blindfolded and posed as if praying to a large solitary tree. A twig latticework, like a Cajun bird trap, is found with her body. Cohle is convinced that this is not the killer's first victim, but Hart is skeptical. Their investigation brings up the case of Marie Fontenot, a little girl whose disappearance five years earlier was not investigated. Another report is brought up of a child who claimed to be chased through the woods by a "green-eared spaghetti monster." Hart invites Cohle over for dinner, unaware that it is Cohle's deceased daughter's birthday. Cohle reluctantly accepts, but, losing a battle with alcoholism, turns up drunk. Hart and Cohle follow up on the Fontenot disappearance with a visit to Marie's uncle Danny. In a dilapidated playhouse, Cohle finds another twig latticework. Seventeen years later, Cohle and Hart are interviewed separately, five days apart, about Dora Kelly Lange by Detectives Thomas Papania (Tory Kittles) and Maynard Gilbough (Michael Potts). Hart and Cohle have not spoken since a falling-out in 2002. Cohle is shown a photograph of another girl whose body has been found posed in similar fashion to Lange. Papania and Gilbough want to know how the killer could have struck again if he was caught in 1995.	LineColor = 7C7B77 }}	Viewers = 1.67	ShortSummary = In 1995, Cohle and Hart continue to investigate the murder of Dora Lange, and learn she was attending church prior to her disappearance. Cohle deduces that Hart is cheating on his wife, Maggie (Michelle Monaghan), with court reporter Lisa Tragnetti (Alexandra Daddario), creating friction between the two. Cohle is also experiencing hallucinatory synesthetic side effects to his drug consumption and is contemptuous of Reverend Billy Lee Tuttle's (Jay O. Sanders) lobbying for the creation of a special task force focusing on "anti-Christian crimes" to assist in the investigation. While buying drugs from a young prostitute, Cohle is pointed towards a trailer park of runaway girls. The two find Lange's diary and learn the location of the church, which was destroyed in a fire, and that she came under the influence of a man she called the "Yellow King." While searching through the wreckage of the church, they find a nightmarish image of a woman with deer antlers painted on a wall. In 2012, Papania and Gilbough continue their interviews of Cohle and Hart. Hart is divorced, and Cohle confides that his daughter died after being involved in a car accident, leading to the collapse of his marriage and the beginning of his addiction. To avoid prosecution for killing a meth user who had injected his own infant child with the drug, Cohle's superiors compelled him to be a "floating" drug undercover officer for four years, until he was hospitalized in a psychiatric institution after shooting three cartel members and being wounded in the gunfight. After his release, Cohle's request for another job resulted in his becoming a homicide detective with CID, where he was partnered with Hart.	LineColor = 7C7B77 }}	Viewers = 1.93	ShortSummary = In 1995, Hart and Cohle locate the owner of the burnt-down church, preacher Joel Theriot (Shea Whigham), learning that Dora Lange was often seen with a tall man with facial scarring, and begin searching for him while being pressured to turn the case over to the task force. Hart begins to reconnect with Maggie despite her fascination with Cohle, and assaults Lisa's new boyfriend out of jealousy, questioning his own morality. Cohle goes through dead body files in search of cases similar to Lange and learns of Rianne Olivier, a supposed accidental death that shared elements with Lange's murder. They learn through Olivier's grandfather that she attended Light of Way, a defunct religious school owned by Reverend Tuttle, before running off with her boyfriend Reggie Ledoux. The detectives follow their lead to the school, devastated by Hurricane Andrew, but before they can investigate further, a records check reveals Ledoux to be a drug trafficker, repeat sex offender and former cellmate of Lange's ex-husband, Charlie, and they head out to question Lange again. The episode closes off with Hart and Cohle putting out an APB on Ledoux, while elsewhere a tall man wearing only underwear and a gas mask, presumed to be Ledoux, is seen wandering a remote compound wielding a machete. In 2012, the Papania and Gilbough interviews of Hart and Cohle identify their character flaws, particularly Hart's hypocritical views on morality and Cohle's nihilistic view of the world. Hart reflects that he is now divorced from Maggie.	LineColor = 7C7B77 }}	Viewers = 1.99	ShortSummary = In 1995, Hart and Cohle interrogate Charlie Lange for information about Ledoux, his former cellmate. Lange informs them that he showed pictures of Dora to Ledoux and identifies a known associate, Tyrone Weem, as a lead. Hart tracks down Weem at a warehouse rave and forces him to name the East Texas biker gang Ledoux is now cooking meth for, the Iron Crusaders. Cohle, who previously worked with the gang while undercover, takes "sick leave" to infiltrate the gang, giving the excuse that he needs to visit his dying father. Meanwhile, Lisa spitefully tells Maggie everything about her affair with Hart, who returns home to find his family gone and his bags packed. He tries to talk to Maggie at her workplace and is confronted by security officers before Cohle arrives to take him away. Cohle hits the Iron Crusaders hangout masquerading as former security for a Mexican cartel breaking away on his own, using high-grade cocaine taken from the police evidence room to back up his claim. He negotiates with his contact Ginger that if given a commitment to back a deal with the gang's meth producer, Cohle will help Ginger rob a stash house in the projects. Disguised as police, they rob the stash house, shooting one of the residents, and stir up the neighborhood's inhabitants in the process. With the actual police on their way, Cohle drags Ginger away from the house and calls Hart, who collects them from the scene as the police arrive. In 2012, doubts in the investigation start to come forth as Papania and Gilbough question Cohle's sick leave, claiming that there are no hospital records of his father. Cohle tells the detectives about his father while Hart feigns ignorance.	LineColor = 7C7B77 }}	Viewers = TBA	ShortSummary =	LineColor = 7C7B77 }}	Viewers = TBA	ShortSummary =	LineColor = 7C7B77 }}	Viewers = TBA	ShortSummary =	LineColor = 7C7B77 }} </ref>	DirectedBy = Cary Joji Fukunaga	WrittenBy = Nic Pizzolatto	OriginalAirDate =	Viewers = TBA	ShortSummary =	LineColor = 7C7B77 }}

Reception

The first season of True Detective has received widespread acclaim from critics. It holds an 88% "Certified Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 8.4/10, based on 56 reviews. On Metacritic, it has a rating of 88 out of 100 based on 38 reviews, indicating "Universal acclaim".

David Wiegand of San Francisco Chronicle wrote "The dialogue is rich, colorful and provocative, adding to the gothic sensibilities of the series. Director Cary Joji Fukunaga makes great use of the Louisiana location, giving it as much importance to the story as the characters of Cohle and Hart. All the performances are superb, but those of McConaughey and Harrelson are in a class by themselves." Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times praised the series' format, writing "We are seeing the return of the miniseries, reborn out of the seasonal long arc of the 8-to-13-hour dramatic serial. With no hurry to get to the end, there is time for slow, detailed storytelling with lots of room for conversation and for silence." Alan Sepinwall of HitFix praised the performances and dialogue, writing "The two central performances are so powerful, the dialogue so evocative, the look so intense, that they speak to the value of the hybrid anthology format Pizzolatto is using here"?points to a potentially fascinating shift in dramatic series television."

After the fourth episode aired, Christopher Orr of The Atlantic called the series "the best show on TV." In particular, the six-minute long take featured at the end of the fourth episode received much critical praise. Erik Adams of The A.V. Club wrote about the scene, "we might not see another sequence of such sustained tension on our TVs in 2014. This is the crowning achievement of Cary Fukunaga's True Detective direction thus far." James Poniewozik of TIME called it a "tour-de-force" and that "it was one of the most amazing scenes you're likely to see on TV all year." Sean T. Collins of Rolling Stone wrote that the "climactic gunfight was the best TV action sequence since the Blackwater episode of Game of Thrones."