I confess I didn’t start watching “Sherlock” until a few months ago (and it’s a good thing I started because I’m pretty sure I’ll be a Benedict Cumberbatch fan for life now).
While I was procrastinating on that, HBO gave BBC a run for its money and made a detective show that could truly compare. Bear with me here.
“True Detective” has been talked about by both fans and non-fans, and not just because the show marks Matthew McConaughey’s temporary foray onto the small screen.
The buzz is also because it’s another show you’ll have to add to the ever-growing queue of this year’s best TV. Even though it debuted halfway through the 2013-14 season, “True Detective” might just be up for an Emmy based on its riveting plot and style.
Tracing the Louisiana State Police Criminal Investigations Division’s quest to find a serial killer who’s been on the loose for almost 20 years, detectives Rust Cohle (McConaughey) and Martin Hart (Woody Harrelson) focus on one case, which spans the seven-episode first season.
Of course, the case never gets old because I’ve seen enough of “Twin Peaks” to know featuring only one case over the course of a season can win, when done right. And the case is intriguing enough: The victim on this season was Dora Kelly Lange, a dead, former prostitute found with a disturbing symbol on her back and curious ritualistic positioning. What a perfect recipe for weirdness all around.
Of course, just as interesting as the case are the characters. McConaughey plays Cohle with a seriousness that signifies he’s done with his box-office-failure romantic comedy days. Cohle, a cerebral loner and a pessimistic nihilist, is the Holmes-like figure of the duo. He’s good at extorting confessions and not so good with dealing with the affable persona of his partner.
He’s like Holmes, but actually closer to a psychopath than a sociopath because, for all the awesomeness that manifests in Benedict Cumberbatch’s Holmes, Cohle has a dark and mysterious past that involves a scarring family death, an alleged murder spree, a tryst with a drug cartel, and a few years in the psych hospital on the side.
Meanwhile, Cohle’s long-term partner, Hart, is a foil to his personality, yet Hart is someone who can make Cohle feel enough to induce a falling out (that they have to reconcile in the first episode). Harrelson’s rendition of Hart doesn’t quite resemble the young, smiling bartender from “Cheers” that the actor played in the ’80s, but in his second major television appearance, Harrelson shows he has range by playing another character who’s likable, yet not naïve.
Hart’s outbursts and emotional bits show he has a complex personality and is prone to violence (even going so far as to severely beat up some boys involved with his daughter). Even though he’s not quite Watson, he and Cohle still have a dynamic reminiscent of the grudgingly affectionate bromance of “Sherlock,” with personalities to match, respectively.
Too bad these two didn’t stay for long. The show has an anthology format, and not one forced down your throat. Creator Nic Pizzolatto has designed the show to have a rotating cast of characters, and so Cohle and Hart said their goodbyes March 9.
But who cares? With how well-done the first season was, it only goes to show it could get even better. Critics at [Entertainment Weekly](http://popwatch.ew.com/2014/03/10/true-detective-finale-review-truth-justice-and-the-satisfying-surprise-of-a-happy-ending/) and [Variety](http://variety.com/2014/tv/news/true-detective-finale-delivers-twists-turns-and-scented-meat-1201128476/) alike have lauded the idea behind “True Detective” being about more than just two grizzled detectives.
It’s about the concept of grizzled detectives, and with a new cast coming in, the show might end up making more of a cultural impact about the business of being — or at least portraying — policemen.
