HBO will premiere True Detective tonight at 9 p.m. eastern/pacific, and you’ll want to jump aboard this compelling new drama.
True Detective season 1 tells the story of two detectives played by Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey during two different points of their lives. The show is framed in the retelling of how they solved a mysterious case, to two new detectives in 2012, who are investigating a similar case to the one Harrelson (who plays Hart) and McConaughey’s (Cohle) characters took on in 1995.
After we viewed the first three episodes, we became quickly attached to this show. What makes it worth watching? The acting chops of the two leads aside, the relationship between Hart and Cohle is anything but your typical buddy-cop partnership. The two have been working together for three months and are frequently at odds, going surprisingly far to push each other at points. The 2012 scenes reveal that things go awry between the two detectives years later, which foreshadows that we’re going to see fireworks before the season is over.
Individually, the back stories of the two characters are arguably more compelling than the investigation itself. There’s Cohle, who’s never afraid to say something that weirds Hart out and lives alone in a place that looks emptier than his personality. He also has a sort of sixth sense sleuthing intuition that his partner has a hard time trusting. Then there’s Hart, who is not a loyal man on one level but appears very committed to his family on another. He’s also one of the best detectives at the agency, but this case may be his biggest challenge yet.
Hypable will be offering full coverage of True Detective throughout the season. The synopsis for tonight’s episode titled “The Long Bright Dark,” reads, “When Rustin Cohle and Martin Hart provide statements about the 17 year-old murder of prostitute, Dora Lange, during their time at Louisiana State CID, details emerge about not only the crime, but also their personal lives.”
True Detective is a 10-episode miniseries. All episodes were written by Nic Pizzolatto, and all episodes were directed by Cary Fukunaga. Having the same writing and director for the entire season adds a beautiful layer of continuity to the show.