Long Answer, Short Answer: Can Mahershala Ali Save ‘True Detective’?

The Question

Oscar-winning Moonlight star Mahershala Ali is now officially a part of True Detective’s third season. Can his presence on the show bring back its past glory? Can Mahershala Ali save True Detective?

Long Answer

Let’s start with an undeniable fact and work our way into opinion from there: The second season of True Detective was not good. It was just… I don’t know how else to say it. It was not good. Remember Ray’s heavyset son saluting him from the playground? Remember Vince Vaughn stumbling to his death in the desert for like 15 minutes while hallucinating a group of mean teens who roasted him? Remember the weird bird mask sex cult that Colin Farrell investigated without backup and SURPRISE ended up getting shot point-blank by a shotgun-toting man in a bird mask and somehow surviving?

Of course you do. We all had quite a bit of fun with it at the time, as was our right and, some would say, obligation. The whole thing came together like a paint-by-numbers version of mysterious cop show. Hard-drinking cop who hates himself but gets to the bottom of it all for reasons? Check. Secretly gay cop? Check. Vaping ladycop who is sick at knives? Check check check. Also, highways. So many aerial shots of Los Angeles highways. I’m just piling on now. I’ll stop. You get where I’m going.

So there was that. But also: Remember how much fun we had watching the first season? Man oh man, did we ever have fun. Most of this was due to Matthew McConaughey giving his performance as Rust Cohle the full-on McConaughey, to the point that a) it kicked what became known as The McConaissance into high gear and erased his public image as “Kate Hudson’s rascal boyfriend in 40% of all 1997-2006 rom-coms,” and b) he has basically been playing the same role now for years of Lincoln commercials. It was a career-defining performance. I was so moved by it that I created what I still consider to this day my masterwork.

Like I said, it was a whole thing.

So, what lessons can we draw from this? Why did season one succeed and season two just suck? I think I’ve narrowed it down to four things:

One: Writer and creator Nic Pizzolatto — and the higher-ups at HBO — have admitted that season two was rushed a bit in an attempt to ride the wave from the first season’s success. With a longer break and more time to let ideas percolate, maybe he could have created something a little less derivative and stenciled-in. He’s had a longer break now.

Two: Backlash. I’m not here to defend the second season. I think I made that clear. But I can also admit that it never really had all that much of a chance. Between the buzz from season one and the months and months of #TrueDetectiveSeason2 jokes on Twitter, the world was pulled tight like a rubber band ready to snap against the show’s exposed flesh. But do you know the only thing people like more than a public flogging? A redemption story. Something to consider

Three: Director Cary Fukunaga, who directed every episode of season one to give the show its distinctive look and feel, left between seasons. He will not be back, barring some sort of miraculous peace summit between him and Pizzolato. So this is still not ideal.

Four: Star power. Bless the hearts of Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, Taylor Kitsch, and Vince Vaughn, but they never had a chance. You can’t follow up that performance by McConaughey, or even the wildly underrated one by Woody Harrelson, without coming away bruised and beaten a bit. Those were career-defining performances on a show that kind of came out of nowhere. The whole thing was just a phenomenon. Hell, think about it this way: Alexandra Daddario was a mostly unknown actress whose work on the show primarily consisted of a single steamy love scene with Woody Harrelson, and she has since starred in two separate summer blockbusters with The Rock. Lot to unpack there.

This brings us to the recently announced third season, and the recently announced casting of Mahershala Ali. The first three factors I listed above are mostly out of his hands and, as I indicated, you could argue that two of them are trending in the right direction anyway. So, let’s just focus on the fourth. Let’s focus on Mahershala Ali.

Mahershala Ali is awesome. Probably more awesome than Colin Farrell and Vince Vaughn, and if you want to debate that point by shouting things like “B-b-but Farrell was so good in In Bruges,” then fine, I’ll concede that point. He was so good in In Bruges. But let’s also remember what Mahershala Ali did in Moonlight, and the speeches he gave when people gave him awards for his performance. My God, the speeches. Look at this one.

Season three of True Detective could just be 10 hours of Mahershala Ai thanking people and it would already be better than season two.

But, fine. Moonlight was great and he was great in it. We all get that. Now let’s throw it off to the side. Because being great in a great movie is one thing; being great in a mediocre thing is a whole different ballgame. This is where we discuss House of Cards. Yes, again.

House of Cards is not great. It’s, like, fine, but it is also infuriatingly trashy and a mess and not at all the show Emmy voters seem to repeatedly think it is. And still, do you know who ruled in it? Mahershala Ali ruled in it, as lobbyist and slick Beltway operator Remy Danton. Man, he was good in that role. He was so good I remember going to IMDb to look him up, marking the first time I read the name “Mahershala Ali.” And again, I really don’t like that show. The fact that he came away from it smelling like a rose is almost a more impressive achievement to me than winning his Oscar. I’m extremely serious about this.

(He was also, for the record, really freaking great in Marvel’s Netflix series Luke Cage, as Harlem crime boss and night club owner Cottonmouth. The quality of the show went downhill fast after his character’s exit, which could be just as much a lull in Luke Cage’s arc as it was replacing Cottonmouth with a new, less-engaging villain named Diamondback. But why make this hard? It got worse after he left, therefore he was good. Bingo bango.)

What I’m getting at here is pretty simple: Mahershala Ali has proven that he can carry a good story, if the new season of True Detective is up to the caliber of the first. And he’s proven that he’s charismatic and talented enough to come out of lesser projects relatively unscathed, and has sometimes even dragged their quality up a level through sheer force of will. So, will the upcoming third season of True Detective be good? I honestly don’t know. But do I feel better about it now that we know Mahershala Ali is involved? Yes. Yes, I do.

Short Answer

Maaaaan, they could do a whole lot worse.