What went wrong? Well find out eventually, the Internet being what it is, but I wouldnt be surprised if the culprits werent ego and time: Too much ego, not enough time. In the aftermath of season ones success (deserved, Id say), Pizzolatto, a literary fiction writer by trade, became an overnight wunderkind showrunner philosopher-king. He parted ways with season ones sole director, Cary Fukunaga, and hired a bomber crew of guest directors (including Justin Lin, who helmed the first four). In interviews like this one, he seemed to go out of his way to assert primary authorshipperhaps understandably, considering that most of the positive attention paid to season one had to do with the shows direction, photography, music, and acting, while most of the complaints (including the ones about sexism) were about the writing. Pizzolatto committed to solo-writing season two fast enough to get it on HBO just 15 months after the season-one finale. Given all this, its not hugely surprising that the result feels like a first or maybe second draft rather than a polished final product. The break in the middle (after the shootout) makes the final four play like a re-do, and there arent enough mirrored elements to make it seem as though its all part of some grand design, the intricacies of which will be revealed if you stare at the thing long enough.
Im not ready to write off Pizzolatto, though, because if this season was a failure, as I believe it was, at least it was a singular failure, a morose pastiche of neo-noir, the civic corruption story, James Ellroys crime fiction, and ham actor fantasies of edginess. (Cocaine! Knives! Molestation! Arson! Sex parties!) I wish Pizzolatto could have had another year to work on it, but only if hed hired a writing staff experienced in untangling a spaghetti-blob of plot threads, and perhaps a powerful showrunner unafraid to tell him that he isnt good at everything, and that theres no shame in moving over and letting other people drive sometimes.
