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True Detective’s second season has been a painfully slow-moving narrative. It follows a murder that is impossible to care about, draws scenes out to numbing effect, and its characters, though each has their moments, are largely just different frowning faces spewing cartoonishly silly lines of noir dialogue. There’s too much going on for any of its interests to stick, or for anyone to understand without taking notes.

But it’s not a bad drama. It’s just one that needs to be analyzed for what it is - a ridiculous story with ridiculous people doing and saying ridiculous things. It’s relatively boring any way you look at it, but in that context can’t be compared to “normal” television dramas.

That said, something still has to happen on a television show, and the convoluted plot of True Detective was pushing the limits of how long its viewers would continue waiting for a turning point. As Season Two reached its halfway mark with “Down Will Come,” it delivered a scene that was actually interesting, and confirms Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams) should never lead another police raid. Much like the now-famous shootout in the same position in season one’s chronology (artfully captured by Cary Fukunaga in a 6-minute tracking shot), this season’s fourth episode treated us to a crazy gunfight that resulted, in ridiculous True Detective fashion, the deaths of everyone involved save for the show’s three central protagonists.

In the 45 minutes prior to the gunfight, the episode helmed by frequent HBO director Jeremy Podeswa (Game of Thrones, Six Feet Under) is another yawnfest exploring the sexual failures of its main characters. It reads like a story bored with itself, finally choosing to break free of its tone and spray everything with bullets.

“If your story is going nowhere — and so far, True Detective’s second season is the definition of a go-nowhere story — you might as well sweep your arm across the chessboard, knock all the pieces over, and see where they land. The tense, bloody shootout that ended this week’s “Down Will Come” is the kind of thing that should pay some serious dividends in the weeks to come.” - Scott Meslow, The Week

And that’s a key point: Will True Detective follow-up on this bloodbath the way such an event would be handled in reality, or the way things are handled in Vinci? Something involving the death of multiple cops, multiple drug dealers, and a bunch of civilians would be a huge, national headline in the real world. It would trump the investigation of some little city manager’s murder, and would effectively end that case. Such results might be exactly what the True Detective cast needs. If a bunch of the expository garbage from the first four episodes disappeared thanks to this shootout, it wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Additionally, the shootout opens some questions that are more intriguing than anything the series has put forth so far. Was it a setup? A seemingly random explosion breaks out during the shootout - was the facility a cook house as is speculated during the scene? What caused the criminals to so wantonly open fire on a gang of cops and bystanders? Did someone in Frank’s organization tip off the criminals at the last second, knowing they’d be shot, to advance through Frank’s gang? Did Mayor Chessani (Ritchie Coster) tip off the criminals so they’d be armed and ready for Ani’s crew? Such a badly-botched raid could lead to the removal of her badge, which he’s gung-ho to make happen.

Finding out what sparked the fight could be the first interesting thing the season has had to offer. And, for the first time on the show, the three main characters are all in the same boat after everything goes down. No sneaking behind each others’ backs, no withholding. This mess is collective.

One thing’s for sure - True Detective needed this sort of rejuvenation to keep people on board for the story’s second act. Another four hours of Frank’s funereal dialogue about failed erections and instances of Woodrugh’s (Taylor Kitsch) self-loathing homosexuality without something to wake people up would have been the destruction of this series.