True Detective returned on Sunday and immediately sent fans theorizing and searching for answers about the first episode of the show’s third season. There’s a lot of show left to unravel here, but one thing that no one may know for certain right now is what the finale looks like. Perhaps not even those who worked on the show itself.
The finale, directed by Daniel Sackheim (who has been involved in a lot of Peak TV and is credited with directing 4 episodes this season), has a scheduled air date: February 24. But what actually airs on HBO seems to be very undecided right now. One of the stars of the season, Stephen Dorff, says that creator Nic Pizzolato is still fighting with HBO about the final cut.
Via Yahoo Movies UK:
I haven’t seen that one yet, as they’re still in flux about the cut of it. There’s a timing issue, I think it runs a little long. I hope Nic gets his way. I think audiences want a little bit of a longer finale. Maybe it’ll screw up the programming for that clean hour thing, but who gives a s***? Come on, give the fans what they want, baby! So I’m hoping he wins that fight. You never know, though.
On the HBO website, they appear to be planning on a 57-minute finale. So is Pizzolatto really fighting for a longer cut? Or is he just keeping the finale episode from Stephen Dorff?
If Pizzolatto is fighting with HBO, you won’t find any evidence of it on Twitter where he hasn’t tweeted since June 2014. Google results just suggests he has a “wild” idea for season 4, but that’s another mystery for another day.
A quick look at IMDB confirms that none of the episodes from the critically acclaimed first season of True Detective ran longer than a hour. In fact, the final two episodes of season 1 clocked in at just 54-minutes each. Conversely, the penultimate episode of season 2 was an hour and 4 minutes and the finale was an hour and 26 minutes. That’s statistical proof, in a way, that True Detective is better off staying under an hour.
