True Detective is one of those cultural monoliths that can seemingly only be produced by HBO, Netflix, or AMC. The show was an instant hit, using its semi-spiritual mystery to stay on the tips of everyone's tongues and provide a capstone for the McConaissance. We couldn't get enough of the Yellow King, the weird guy in his underwear, time being a flat circle, the True Detective season two joke pairings, and all the rest.
This scene pretty much sealed its status as an instant classic with staying power. This is masterful.
Then, season two's dead cat bounced onto our small screens with a sickening crunch. The only bright spot was Colin Farrell's legitimately insane Ray Velcoro. The worst part of a terrible show was the line, “Thing is, you ain’t that thing no more. What you used to was.”
We didn't really think it was coming back. I first heard it was last Thursday, when an agent let slip that he had placed someone in the writer's room. Now we know more, and The Hollywood Reporter writes that horse racing enthusiast David Milch will co-write the season alongside showrunner Nic Pizzolatto.
Milch, if you're not excited about him, is a genius. He co-created NYPD Blue and HBO's masterpiece Deadwood. He's also quite the character, maybe one of the only writers with a personality big enough and a resume long enough to tell Pizzolatto he ought to sit down and shut up. Milch has had his share of trouble with HBO in the past, with the Dustin Hoffman horse racing drama Luck cancelled after horses kept dying, but this seems like the perfect re-entry into the HBO family. He'll shepherd a formerly dead show back to glory. If it works he gets all of the credit, if it fails he gets none of the blame.