I really enjoyed this show and thought it was very good. However, I'm kind of puzzled at all the OMG BEST SHOW EVERZ it's getting. I don't see it on the top rung of TV dramas along with Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, etc. It's just a very good show. It's too flawed to be great.
I really enjoyed eps 1-7, but for me the finale was a massive letdown. After episode 7, I was thinking that there was too much unresolved to have only one hour left, and I was right. There were so many hints dropped, plots started, and questions asked that just never had any resolution. I get Poindexter's and Ivy's point that those things aren't the point of the show, but I don't agree. It's one thing for a show to be endlessly debated online with people going down rabbit holes and creating meaning and narrative out of thin air that don't wind up being a part of the show, creating disappointment. That's not fair - but I don't think that's what this is. The creators of TD
dug those rabbit holes, and then never went down them. To me, that's an entirely different thing.
Further explanation:
You can say that the show is about darkness and light, good and evil. But that's subtext. The text is the detective story. And sloppy plotting in the text lessens the impact of the subtext. I've read a bit about the creator, Nic Pizzolatto. He has taken great pains to point out that he is not a fan of
Law & Order and police procedurals like it. He says (with no lack of self-satisfaction) he's trying to tell a more philosophical story. But you have to serve the text better than this if you want that to shine through. I feel like McConaughey and Harrelson were so transcendently good and the photography so beautiful and perfect that they covered up a lot of the narrative sins of the show. I mean, I'll say it again - I really liked this show. But I feel like the last episode betrayed expectations, and not expectations crazy fans cooked up; expectations the show explicitly set. I fear that without the kismet of such great performances, season 2 might show a lot more of the cracks.