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Enough has already been written about the overly-complex narrative of True Detective’s (2015) second season. The story warped what could have been a concisely interesting plot into a convoluted, perplexing dance between details and exposition that suffered under the weight of itself.

The second season of the True Detective series surely had some great elements. The acting, particularly by Colin Farrell, was convincing and engaging. Farrell’s commitment to the material was rock-solid, even when the material seemed insanely goofy. And the show as a whole, boiling with narcissism and a pessimistic message on the futility of overcoming mass corruption, sells the product as advertised. It is 100%, absolutely, positively faithful to its tone. And that is great.

Yet, love and hate aside, those who watched True Detective’s second season arguably would agree that the story proved overly and unnecessarily involved. This is largely due to the solo penmanship of series creator Nic Pizzolatto, who wrote every episode on his own.

It makes one wonder how the season might have turned out if Pizzolatto had employed a writer’s room - a group of fellow writers with whom he could have pitched ideas, gathered feedback, and made changes. Their purpose is to collectively shoot down ideas that don’t make sense or add to the story, while creating storylines that carry the narrative, boost character development, and tie up loose ends. Instead the show as presented consistently injected backstory details and copious information that proved more voluminous than relevant to the central storylines. The one-man pulp formula just didn’t jive this time.

“This season was a mess — a mess that had moments, and some good performances, but still a mess — yet I doubt it’ll be the last we see of True Detective. The ratings have remained strong for HBO, and Michael Lombardo said he’d like another installment if Nic Pizzolatto wants to do one. If it happens, I would hope Pizzolatto recognizes that he bit off way more than he could chew this season, and also that he’d do well to take on some more collaborators, whether a strong directorial voice like Fukunaga’s or a full writer’s room to help him figure out which story points are working and which aren’t coming across clearly enough.” - Alan Sepinwall, Hitflix

The other issue with this season is that many of the story points which did work out for the characters, such as Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ani’s (Rachel McAdams) eventual relationship were easily predictable from the beginning. Since so much time was wasted on components that didn’t need to be part of the story, the depth of character in the show’s principal cast never got fleshed out. That rendered all their behaviors and decisions that much more transparent.

“There’s nothing wrong with a little predictability, even in a mystery. We always need safe and steady ground to return to, so we don’t feel lost. But when almost every story turn can be telegraphed episodes in advance, maybe it’s time to try something new. (This is where Pizzolatto likely would have benefited the most from a writers’ room.)” - Todd VanDerWerff, Vox

Writing for television isn’t easy. Nearly every show employs a writer’s room to ensure they churn out the best material. If Nic Pizzolatto wants to continue creating complex, dark, noir worlds under the True Detective moniker, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get some other opinions in the mix.

Very few people can churn out season after season of successful material on their own. While Pizzolatto didn’t do television’s worst job ever with True Detective’s sophomore offering, the majority of the criticisms leveled at the show could have been fixed, or at least minimized, by the tighter writing direction collaborators could have offered.