True Detective Season 2 Finale: Good Smoke but No Cigar

Well, I've apparently enjoyed True Detective season 2 more than have most of the people who have publicly been posting about it, but I gotta say that the season finale, though certainly powerful and even justified, was a little too grim for my ever-hopeful taste.

Ray dying and the reason he did was also a little trite.  He could have made it, gotten away with Ani and the money, except, against all reasonable caution, he needs to see his son one last time.  You just knew that that would be his undoing, and you have to wonder why Ray didn't realize it, too.   And even then, why not let him escape in this woods, and maybe kill Buris in the act, too?

Frank's death was also predictable, given the commitment that he made to meet Jordan in two weeks "or less".   The twist of who did him in was strong, though - as was the way he want out, walking, mortally wounded, in the desert.   That was certainly a fitting way to go.

Ani and Ray were good couple, and their all-too-brief relationship was handled well.  Especially memorable was Ray's telling Ani that this was the first time for him in a long time, Ani saying she could see that, Ray asking how, and Ani saying he seemed like a man who was "making up for lost time".   That scene was one of the best of season, capped off by Ray's smile in the car, when he can't quite bring himself to tell Ani he loves her, though she knows that's the way he feels and she the same.

Ani and Kelly's survival, with Ani and Ray's baby, was also a nice way to end this story.   All in all, enjoyable television, but not even close to the masterpiece that this series was in its first season.

See also Season Two: True Detective: All New ... True Detective 2.2: Pulling a Game of Thrones ... True Detective 2.3: Buckshot and Twitty ...True Detective 2.4: Shoot-out ... True Detective 2.7: Death and the Anti-Hero

And see also Season One: True Detective: Socrates in Louisiana ... True Detective Season One Finale: Light above Darkness

 
Like philosophic crime fiction?   Try The Plot to Save Socrates ...

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