This was the finest writing for television since The Twilight Zone created by Rod Serling. Nic Pizzolatto generated a masterpiece of American television with this season of True Detective.
It's unfortunate that they chose to carry on w/ this season. After the eighth season, and the finale of the original series, they didn't have much of an idea to move the show forward. Yes, it was nice to see Elliot and JD married w/ a baby on the way, but it really wasn't enough to base a new series around. To me, that was the best part of this ninth season. Quite frankly, I'm surprised that they chose to create another season given that they had little to work w/.
I'm six episodes through this season, and it's not nearly on par w/ the first season. The first season storyline was interesting, and it was about an outsider and loner who partnered w/ two people to bring his brother's killers to justice, although he still worked alone much of the time. The second season moves away from this premise, where he quickly sheds his loner persona and joins his old military buddies to track down some dirty, former cops. The problem here is that the story for the second season is lame and generic. It's the same thing that any movie about investigators/cops would use. I realize that this can't necessarily be helped, in this instance, b/c it's derived from the source material. However, I think that they could develop some original material for this character that would be much more interesting.
In addition, much of the season has the look and feel of those terrible network cop dramas, such as CSI: Miami or Law & Order: SVU. Even though these programs are episodic in nature, they still have a soap opera feel to them. They're not character-driven programs; they're story-driven programs. Reacher is the opposite. He's the main character, and he drives the story forward. I checked the credits of the directors, and many, if not all, of them have worked primarily in network TV dramas, many of them cop dramas. I think that that was a bad choice to direct episodes of this show. These directors hired recycled actors from the shows they'd previously worked on. I recognized three or four character actors, at least, who had been in this cop drama or that cop drama.
They also brought Malcolm Goodwin in as a callback to the first season, which I really liked, as he was great in the first season, but they utilized him so poorly. He essentially stood around during an interrogation by Reacher and his associate. It was really pointless. I noticed that they also did this during the sixth episode, where a young girl was being protected by one of Reacher's associates. She was in great danger of dying, and they utilized her more as a prop than as a human being. She was just there. I felt that this was really poor writing and direction. They could do a lot better than this.
I didn't particularly care for how this season commenced, but it picked up steam as it went. I really didn't like Paul Rudd's character. I felt that they could've done much more w/ him, and instead, they made him cringey and uninteresting. Luckily, they quickly moved away from this focus. Meryl Streep, however, was her usual phenomenal self. It's truly amazing how she's able to turn in amazing performance after amazing performance. She's truly a cinematic gem.
This was, without a doubt, the best writing for television since The Twilight Zone series created by Rod Serling. Nic Pizzolatto created a masterpiece of American television with this season.
I've just finished watching this season, and the problem I'm having w/ it is the problem I w/ all shows of this type: Whenever time-travel or magic is involved, anything can and will happen over the course of a season, but it can all be undone in 30 seconds by traveling back in time or using magic to sidestep the consequences. It makes the entire show hardly worth watching, as there's no real drama or suspense, b/c everything can be reverted back to the way it was or, at least, to a version prior to cataclysmic events having taken place. It just comes across as a really lazy way to write a show.
