True Detective

:

Season 3
  • Network: HBO
  • Series Premiere Date: Jan 12, 2014
Season #: 4, 3, 2, 1
User Score
6.8

Generally favorable reviews- based on 242 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 167 out of 242
  2. Mixed: 36 out of 242
  3. Negative: 39 out of 242
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User Reviews

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  1. cottandy
    Feb 25, 2019
    5
    Very disappointing.
    You expect something to happen throughout these 8 episodes, but nothing really interesting happens. The show is slow, long and just mediocre. The only good thing here is acting.
  2. compaysegundo
    Feb 13, 2019
    4
    Pretty Boring. After the chaotic season 2 this time all is set to "slow". 90% of time the characters look a bit down, and if they say at least something, it has to be pretty silent. You have the feeling there stands someone and says the whole time... slower, longer, look longer serious, all has to be slower, quieter. Ok, this is a form of how a story can be told. And in some Films like thePretty Boring. After the chaotic season 2 this time all is set to "slow". 90% of time the characters look a bit down, and if they say at least something, it has to be pretty silent. You have the feeling there stands someone and says the whole time... slower, longer, look longer serious, all has to be slower, quieter. Ok, this is a form of how a story can be told. And in some Films like the russian STALKER it fits. In this serie it just seems to endlessly stretch a thin story. After 3 episodes i gave up, there was so little that happened it could have been showed in 1 episode, if there weren't these endless slowmo scenes. Also the interaction of the characters isn't interesting.… Expand
  3. Gadlajk
    Feb 25, 2019
    5
    This show keeps getting worse each season, went from 9.5 to 8 and now 5/10, even intro song is mediocre, that one hit me surprisingly hard because of great intro songs in previous seasons.
  4. djuuba
    Mar 11, 2019
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Thought it was alright. Better than season two, miles and miles away from season one.

    It started off very promising, the main characters had an interesting dynamic and alright dialogue but then nothing happens for five episodes.

    There's barely any conflict between the main characters (except with the wife, which got on my nerves eventually) and the story touches on the occult themes and conspiracies of the first season, but then fails to deliver on it spectacularly.

    The amount of red herrings were annoying as well. Boy clasps his hands exactly as the picture from his confirmation? Just a random accident. Black sedan parked outside Wayne's house? Just a man who knows exactly what happened more than 20 years ago and decided now's the time to finally come forward.

    The setup was great, but the execution was abysmal, and some of the dialogue was just cringe.    … Expand
  5. shoulderoforion
    Feb 11, 2019
    6
    ***update 2/11 After starting strong, they've been dragging it out the past bunch of episodes. Just found out their original director quit after the first two eps, and it shows. Not as good as I wanted it to be. The wife is killing the whole vibe. Reducing my score to 6*** Pretty Pretty Pretty Pretty Good. After the disaster that was season two I was expecting a repeat of nonsense, but***update 2/11 After starting strong, they've been dragging it out the past bunch of episodes. Just found out their original director quit after the first two eps, and it shows. Not as good as I wanted it to be. The wife is killing the whole vibe. Reducing my score to 6*** Pretty Pretty Pretty Pretty Good. After the disaster that was season two I was expecting a repeat of nonsense, but it seems Nic Pizzolatto has found his way back to HBO Sunday night relevance even without Cary Joji Fukunaga. These first two eps were thick, and meaty, I eagerly await next weeks installment. Huzzah!… Expand
  6. trooper1993
    Jan 21, 2019
    5
    It's pretty slow and often redundant. While it tries to imitate the first season the tempo and dialogue will remind you more of the second season.

    The more pizolatto continues with the TV Show, the more it becomes evident that he is clueless about the reasons behind the success of the first season.

    5/10. You'll struggle finishing it and when finished you'll never think about it again.
  7. bushivlad
    Feb 25, 2019
    6
    Much better than the second season, but nothing to do with that masterpiece of the first season. This is inspired by the first season but does not reach us even a bit
  8. amotherscrime
    Mar 10, 2019
    6
    Well... it's better than season 2. It tries to go back to basics and copy Season 1 while still trying to create something new. It starts off promising but then struggles with the balancing act.

    The dialogue is quite frankly laughable at times. The story is a mess. The characters are hollow but do come alive every now and again.

    All in all it was just alright.
  9. SeussMyTub
    Mar 5, 2019
    5
    Well, it's better than season 2, but nowhere near as good as the groundbreaking season 1. What would have been a good story becomes mired in the constant flashbacks and time jumps from the distant past to the present day. It kills any momentum that's built up by the scenes. It would have worked better with just a standard narrative.
  10. Bertaut1
    Mar 23, 2021
    5
    Thoughts on Season Three

    Season one of True Detective was ground-breaking, one of the finest seasons of TV ever made. Season two was awful. Season three? Well…of all the shows I've ever seen, season three of True Detective is one of them. Unquestionably, there's a lot to praise – the aesthetics, the sense of place, the acting. And there are some interesting themes – racial tension,    Thoughts on Season Three

    Season one of True Detective was ground-breaking, one of the finest seasons of TV ever made. Season two was awful. Season three? Well…of all the shows I've ever seen, season three of True Detective is one of them.

    Unquestionably, there's a lot to praise – the aesthetics, the sense of place, the acting. And there are some interesting themes – racial tension, journalistic ethics, marriage, fatherhood, the shadow of Vietnam, old age. But this being creator/writer/showrunner Nic Pizzolatto unfettered, there's a lot to criticise too – the glacial pace, the under-written female roles, the cod-philosophy, the (toxic) machismo. Pizzolatto (a novelist by trade) seems to need a director with a keen enough vision to mask the fact that his scripts are actually pretty by-the-numbers. Season one had Cary Joji Fukunaga who gave us a very thin story by way of such unforgettable imagery that it made everything feel deeper than it really was. Season three has such a vision for the first two episodes, which were directed by Jeremy Saulnier. After that, directorial duties were split between Pizzolatto himself and journeyman TV director Daniel Sackheim. Season three without Saulnier (or Fukunaga) isn't as bad as season two, but it's still very weak.

    The story is split over three time periods. In 1980, in the fictional town of West Finger, Arkansas, two children disappear. The case lands on the desk of Wayne Hays (an insanely good Mahershala Ali) and his partner Roland West (a superb Stephen Dorff). Shortly thereafter, Wayne forms a bond with the kids' English teacher, Amelia Reardon (Carmen Ejogo), who has her own reasons for pursuing the case. Ten years later, in 1990, Hays (now married to Amelia and with two children) is working a dead-end desk job and West is a lieutenant. When unexpected evidence comes to light, the case is reopened. And then, in 2015, Hays, now a widower suffering from memory loss, begins recording an interview for a true-crime TV show doing an episode about the case.

    Especially laudable is how the show handles the time jumps, employing a variety of methods that collapse the three different periods into one another. A question asked of Hays apparently in 1990 is actually being asked in 2015, with the sound bridging the picture edit; a streetlight going out in 1980 cuts to a key-light going out in Hays's 2015 interview; a shot of Hays looking through a window in 1980, shows his 2015 reflection; a single-shot scene in a car depicts the characters repeatedly changing from 1990 to 2015 every time their face is off-screen. It's all really well done.

    Also laudable is the old-age make-up by Michael Marino, which is some of the best I've ever seen, and is complemented by an exceptional performance from Ali. He plays Hays differently in each of the three timelines – in 1980, he's driven, confidant, imposing; in 1990, a sense of bitterness and indignation has crept in; in 2015, he's become a vulnerable and confused old man with just a hint of his past acerbity. Elsewhere, Dorff is exceptional throughout, and Scoot McNairy as the kids' father is heartbreaking in a somewhat thankless role.

    So, why is season three a dud? Well, for a few reasons. It moves at an agonisingly slow pace, and without the visual gymnastics of someone like Fukunaga or Saulnier, the story can't sustain itself, and the characters aren't any more interesting than the plot. There's certainly no Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) or Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson). Hays is brilliantly played, but he's as dull as dish-water, and the 1990-set problems between himself and Amelia, which come to take up an increasing amount of screen-time, are so uninteresting, they're difficult to watch.

    And then there's the finale. Okay, the finale of season one was weak. It was when we saw that at the season's core was nothing but a serial killer paedophile, and the mythology (the Yellow King, black stars, Carcosa) all boiled down to little. It didn't ruin the season, but it was underwhelming. Season three's finale is so badly structured that I genuinely do not understand how it made it to screen - about three-quarters of the way through, with most of the season's questions still open, a character literally sits down and explains everything. To hell with the cardinal rule of writing for film or TV ("show, don't tell"); here we have a finale with a 10-minute exposition-dump right at its heart, which literally tells without showing.

    Despite disliking two of the three seasons of True Detective, I'm still a fan (season one was that good). But that magic had more to do with the director than the writer. Much like season one, the mystery at the heart of season three was never as complicated nor as portent as it initially seemed, but unlike season one, season three doesn't give us much else to latch onto. The story Pizzolatto is telling and the characters within are too weak to support eight hours of narrative.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

77
#77 Best TV Season of 2019
15
#15 Most Discussed TV Season of 2019
10
#10 Most Shared TV Season of 2019

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
72

Generally favorable reviews - based on 35 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 27 out of 35
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 35
  3. Negative: 0 out of 35
  1. The Times
    Reviewed by: Carol Midgley
    Jan 7, 2020
    80
    This is often a one-man show for Ali, sometimes wearing prosthetics to make him old, grey and suffering from dementia, and he is terrific in all three timelines. Great performances too from the missing children's dysfunctional, barneying parents. ... It's not yet as good as series one but there are rich, tragic seams here.
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  2. The Telegraph
    Reviewed by: Michael Hogan
    Jan 3, 2020
    80
    This was redneck noir: Twin Peaks meets Broadchurch, with a dash of The Killing. Atmospheric and beguiling, True Detective had its hooks into me again.
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  3. The Guardian
    Reviewed by: Rebecca Nicholson
    Dec 3, 2019
    60
    In the end, this is a decent, serviceable thriller, nasty enough to give the impression of not flinching away from the darkest natures of its characters, and sufficiently gripping to ensure that viewers should keep on watching, to find out who they fingered for the crimes of 1980, and why this particular case returns to haunt Hays, decades on, like so many TV detectives before him.
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