‘True Detective Season 3’ review: Thank god, it’s really good again

After a much loved first season and a near-universally panned second, HBO’s “two cops, sitting in a cop car, two feet apart because the space between them is occupied by the unfathomable cruelties of man” show True Detective is back. And thank god, it’s good again. Very good. 

True Detective Season 3 — which made the first five episodes of the season available for review — is more than a return to Season 1’s spooky, winding excellence. It tackles different issues to previous seasons and focuses more sharply on issues and realities that were left unexamined in its previous iterations. 

Casting Mahershala Ali as Detective Wayne Hays, undoubtedly the star of the third season, is the most affecting choice anyone involved could have made for True Detective. His character, who was originally conceived as a white detective, gives the show an opportunity to explore the machinations of racism in three different time periods — the 1980s, the ’90s, and finally in the 2010s.  Read more…

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