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A recent review of True Detective’s sixth episode of Season Two, “Church in Ruins,” noted a chief failing of this series as a whole as Nic Pizzolatto’s apparent belief that the only important thing in this story is how it ends.

Television is becoming increasingly serialized - that is, each episode builds upon the next to tell one overall tale. Within that structure, sure, the ending is important - it’s what the show has been building towards all along. But whether a program is serialized or a procedural, the journey to the end still matters. Too much of what’s happened in True Detective’s second season simply isn’t interesting, and doesn’t provide any reason for the viewer to invest in it. Consequently, we’re less invested in the things that do matter - like characters - because their developments haven’t been given the attention they should.

Now that the series is 75% over, “Church in Ruins” finally handled the theme of origin stories for several of its major players. Everyone had to come to terms with the past in one way or another, but somehow the material managed to do that without really providing anything new.

Origin story context is a swell thing to see. The problem is too much of what we get here is too little, too late.

Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams) was abducted and sexually assaulted as a youth? That was obvious ten seconds after her introduction in episode one, but the show seems to think it’s a big reveal after six hours of programming. During her undercover, Molly-hazed meandering around an Eyes Wide Shut-style Sonoma orgy, her drugged state somehow manifests hallucinations of a Manson-esque character sitting around the party. Brightly-colored flashes of scenes indicate he once lured little Ani into a van under false pretenses of unicorns and safety, only to destroy her perception of men for the rest of her life. One would assume this took place during the days she spent at her father’s hippie cult sanctuary, furthering her contempt for the man (he may even be the culprit) and creating the sexual conflicts with which she still deals.

The scene was captivatingly directed by Miguel Sapochnik, manifesting Ani’s past demons in physical form, with all the sexy orgy stuff blurred and subdued to bring the audience into Ani’s mental haze - but the revelation it provided was obvious and timeworn. Ani has been a stereotype of television’s representation of repressed childhood sexual abuse from the word go, so the reveal was destined to only surprise those who have never seen an episode of Law & Order: SVU. (That is, nobody.)

Ray’s (Colin Farrell) origin caught up with him in the episode after learning that the man he killed for raping his wife years ago wasn’t the right guy. Unknowingly, Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn) fed him bad information, and Ray has spent the last 11 years in Frank’s service on false pretenses. After a phallic pistol-gripping-under-the-table confrontation and staring contest with Frank, Ray seems convinced he didn’t provide the wrong man on purpose.

Ray pays a visit to his wife’s real rapist in prison, hoping to look him in the eyes and face reality. After doing so, and following a visit with his son where they uncomfortably eat pizza and talk about Friends in front of a court-appointed supervisor, Ray seems willing to admit his son is not biologically his child. He knows he’s about to get shut out of the kid’s life, so he uses his last bargaining chip to gain a little control over the separation. There’s conviction in Ray’s phone call to his wife as he promises he won’t contest custody as long as she vows to never tell the kid the truth about his parentage. It’s a rare piece of closure for a True Detective plot line, but at the same time, bringing the origin story to a close doesn’t change much. Everyone, including Ray, knew the kid wasn’t his, and Ray’s terrible, brass-knuckle “buttfuck your father” parenthood from the series’ first episode forward made it inevitable the two would be separated by the end.

Good old Frank’s purpose this episode was origin rationalization. Repeated, incessant rationalization. Through the frame of his dead henchman Stan’s son, he monologues about life being bookended by defining moments that shape everything that follows them. “I have like five at this point,” he tells the kid. Frank’s sentiment of “everything that happens in your life colors what comes after” is true, albeit obvious.

What Paul (Taylor Kitsch) contributed to the episode, aside from its hilariously dumb final line (“These contracts - signatures all over them!) was uncovering the Batman-style origin story of some kids whose parents were murdered in a robbery. Paul has been pounding pawn shops in search of blue diamonds which probably have some relevance to the show’s plot, but may exist solely as a red herring to point the narrative at these children. After Paul shows a picture of the kids to a retired detective, the fellow tells him the youths were hiding in the pawn shop when the diamonds were heisted and their parents were killed in front of them. They ended up in foster care.

These children likely grew up to be someone we’ve seen on the show - but who? Paul dug up someone’s origin story here, but exactly whose remains to be seen.

If nothing else, it’s nice to see True Detective building upon things instead of introducing more extraneous details nobody will remember. But it would have been nice to spend time reaching more depth of character earlier in the series so by the time the sixth episode rolled around, we could be treated to some developments that weren’t visibly approaching the whole time.