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Something about True Detective Season Two’s (2015) first episode, “The Western Book of the Dead,” didn’t jive with a lot of viewers. It felt thin, preachy, pretentious, and like it was trying too hard to mimic all the things that worked during the first season, yet failed at almost all of them. But it was only the first episode, and one shouldn’t judge everything based on a single hour of content.

The season’s second episode, “Night Finds You,” still hasn’t hit the highs of its predecessor, but offered a lot more of the bizarre absurdity that fans were hoping for from True Detective. What makes the franchise shine is its combination of surreal noir atmosphere, insane situations, unrealistically terrible characters, and gruesome discomfort; all of which somehow manage to forge a connection with the viewer through an odd brew of intrigue and sheer unpredictability.

The first season started off a bit slow in its own right, but was quickly engaging due to its unprecedented style and the metaphysical mystery of its setting. While Season Two offered an even clunkier and sleep-inducing formulaic beginning too focused on establishing how awful its characters are, the second episode had more moments of cohesion. There was a lot more within this hour that felt like the True Detective we remember. As Erik Adams of the AV Club says, “There’s just enough weirdness coursing through “Night Finds You” to pull the episode away from its non-stop misery parade.”

Beginning the episode with a three-hour long monologue by Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughan) recalling a childhood memory of being locked in a basement smashing rats with his fist was a terrible way to start. To wake everyone up, the speech was followed with close-ups of the season’s deceased maguffin, Casper, who we quickly learn had his eyes burned out with acid and his manhood blasted off with a shotgun - all of which we get to see in joyous high-definition. That is pretty True Detective.

The episode then reminds us of the murder mystery, lets us see all the players involved, and tells us about the deep corruption in Vinci. It also gives purpose to each of the show’s major characters - something the first episode failed to do in any fashion.

“Pizzolatto writes people who are always shuffling who they are, who they show themselves to be, and who they are afraid they might be. He knows that characters who play characters are the best kind of characters. True Detective Season Two came alive in those office meetings between Velcoro, Paul Woodrugh, Ani Bezzerides, and their bosses. If the first episode was all brood, mood, and ideas of fatherhood, the beginning of “Night Finds You” had liftoff. We learned more about the various angles being worked by the State’s Attorney, Mayor Chessani, and Frank Semyon. This episode gave our characters objectives, put them to work, and crashed them into one another. By the end of the episode, we became aware of each character’s duality. All three law enforcement officers are looking for Vinci city manager Ben Caspar’s killer, and each has a separate “confidential mandate,” though most of them hardly labor to hide who they are or what it is they’re really doing.” - Chris Ryan, Grantland

Frank also proves himself to be as good a detective as the actual detectives, as his gangster-going straight-going gangster character is forced back into criminality to recoup his losses.

We’re also introduced to a weird therapist / cosmetic surgeon who was Casper’s pal and is a throwback to the 1970s who wears sunglasses indoors and is played by Rick Springfield. Where that arc is going, who knows, but it’s got that “man out of time” mysteriousness going for it that felt very True Detective.

Each main character has some new reveals in this episode, all of which complicate and/or degrade them in True Detective fashion. We learn that Woodrugh is most likely a closeted homosexual with more personal issues than he knows how to handle. Not only does he seem to suffer from PTSD, but an implied glimpse into his upbringing comes in the form of his awfully handsy mother who has an inappropriate fondness for her son and his muscular build.

“The scene between Paul and his mother… we finally began to feel a sense of discomfort, which is something this season has lacked so far.” - Erin Whitney, Huffington Post

Ani Bezzerides was not only raised by a strange religious leader (introduced in the first episode), but she had four siblings. Two committed suicide, two are in jail, and Ani is a homicide detective who spends her nights drinking scotch and watching hardcore BDSM porn on her laptop.

Velcoro was involved in two major conversations in the episode - one with his ex-wife (Abigail Spencer) in front of a Buffalo Wild Wings, and one in a car with Bezzerides. The difference between these conversations says everything about this season’s continued struggle to define itself. The one with Velcoro and his wife is, to quote Erik Adams again, ‘two talented actors delivering performances for completely different shows. Meeting up with his ex-wife, Ray’s mustache might as well have a built-in vocal filter that turns all of his lines into Frank Sabotka’s “We used to build shit in this country” speech.” It lacks nuance (“You’re a bad person, Ray. A bad guy.”) though it did serve the purpose of extracting the only positive element of Ray’s life from him.

In a reversal of tone, the Velcoro-Bezzerides car chat harkens back to the Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) - Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson) conversations of Season One. It was dark, funny, and most importantly, gave a little look into the shadows of its characters - something this season needed.

“Showrunner Nic Pizzolatto has shown he can do some things really well as a writer, others not so much. What he has proven undoubtedly over his time running True Detective is he knows how to nail the dialogue between two beaten-down cops driving in a car together.” - Nate Scott, USA Today

Talking about her obsession with knives and furthering the season’s impotency-emasculation theme, Bezzerides tells Velcoro, “Could you do this job if everyone you encounter could physically overpower you? I mean, forget police work. No man could walk around like that without going nuts. I’d still wear ’em if I wasn’t on the job. Fundamental difference between the sexes is that one of them can kill the other with their bare hands. Man of any size lays hands on me, he’s going to bleed out in under a minute.”

Near the end, the show provided a look at Casper’s house, complete with a sex swing and a secret porn-recording room. In a final twist, a shotgun-wielding fellow with a bird head comes out of nowhere and shoots Velcoro. Now that’s True Detective.

From Nate Scott of USA Today again, “Two shotgun blasts to the stomach, done by a guy wearing a bird mask, which has to be a pretty humiliating way to go. It was the first moment of the show that felt like True Detective — an unexplained bad guy wearing an unexplained and stylish animal mask, a sharp cut of violence, a major twist in the plot.”

All that said, there’s still work to be done for True Detective’s second season. Largely, it’s about connecting the characters to the atmosphere, and adding depth to most everything. From Matthew Jacobs of Huffington Post, “The show doesn’t seem to realize what it’s lacking, which is a sense of identity within the world it depicts. Every location featured is a grubby, nondescript part of this fictional LA-adjacent town, and without color from local denizens drifting through the background, it is rendered culture-less. That’s why I griped about the freeway shots last week—they reflect the web of plots the show has weaved, but do little to immerse us in what makes this town tick and why Casper’s disappearance is worth eight talky hours of television… I still don’t understand much about Ani and it seems like the show thinks we know more about Frank than we actually do, while Ray is so on the nose that I understand far too much about him. But wait! Maybe he’s dead? Those final few moments with that raven-masked stranger were pretty gripping, and it could point to interesting things to come.”