5 Reasons Why You Should Watch The New Series of ‘True Detective’

(Written for Beamly)

The second series of Sky Atlantic‘s hard-hitting crime drama, True Detective, is returning to our TV’s later this evening, so here are five reasons why you should be watching it.

1. The cast

Above all else, what will intrigue you most about this series is the star-filled cast. With the first series of True Detective showcasing jaw-dropping performances from the ever-impressive Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, it’s going to be difficult to top this series. But with a whole new cast including Taylor Kitsch, Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn, Rachel McAdams and Kelly Reilly, it’s got to be good.

Will Farrell and Vaughn have the same impact as McConaughey and Harrelson? It might seem like an odd bit of casting in comparison, sure, but they’re both bound to excel with such a great creation of a series and production team to work with.

Watch the new series of True Detective every Monday on Sky Atlantic at 9pm or catch up on demand.

2. Because you won’t know anything until the end

With the first series following a non-linear plot, and many of Sky Atlantic’s other series doing the same, it’s easy to presume that the new series will follow the same style. And that’s what’s so great about this series because, as all crime dramas should, it keeps you guessing.

The plot structure and split narrative take the length of series to catch up with each other, with the conclusions not being revealed until the very end. It’s what kept everyone watching the first time around, and it’s the reason why we’ll all be around for the new series, too.

3. Because it will make you sleep with the lights on

Everything about the first series was downright disturbing. Crime investigations usually do have that hint of surrealism, that’s what keeps them so interesting, but to say that True Detective steps up the level of disturbance a notch would be an understatement.

And we can’t expect anything less this time around!

Even if an episode provides very little in terms of plot development, there’s sure to be something in it that will twist a knot in your stomach that you won’t easily be able to sleep off.

4. There’s going to be even more sex and death

Well, when you say it like that it doesn’t sound so appealing. But think of sex and death in terms of the brilliant Game of Thrones – the more, the better.

How do we know this? Various plot synopses and character descriptions have defined the main characters in terms of the impact that sex has had on their lives.

One character finds themselves looking for a stranger in the night as he struggles with intimacy in his private life, another is known to be sleeping with somebody she cares little about, and a third character is distressed from a past event involving his wife being raped. These sexual issues are what push each of these characters further in their jobs for different reasons and motives, a job that revolves a lot around death as it is.

So you thought season one was bad? It can only get worse (or better..?).

5. In the end, it’s all about how messed up the characters are themselves

The detectives’ work may be around the central murder but, in the end, it’s all about the detectives themselves.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto described the new season as a detective story in the manner of Oedipus Rex, in which “the detective is searching and searching and searching, and the culprit is him.”

In other words, the more the detective searches for the horrible truth, the more they find out about their own truth. And there’s nothing more entertaining than seeing the unravelling of remarkably developed characters, is there?

Here’s the official trailer: