While not super original, I really like the structure of the show. Maybe they should have put the ellipsis after 3 episodes instead of 4, but maybe they didn't have 5 episodes worth of investigation. The lines are still problematic though...
What noble savage said about the different storyline he does not care about is interesting. I feel they are doing something pretty clever with the scenario here, but that is detrimental to many people's enjoyment of the show. In season 1, we start with ritualistic murders of innocent young women, so there is naturally from the audience a strong desire to see the crime solved and the murderer arrested. Here, the dead men are an old crook and a gangster, so at first glance it feels like a "who cares?" situation. It's criminals killing criminals. But that's the writers playing tricks on us, because they just don't emphasis the number of innocent victims: farmers who got their land poisoned, bystanders killed in the shootout, missing girls...
Even Bezzerides kinda forgot the missing girl before the sister contacted her, but she is the one who told Ray (and all of us, including noble savage): you should care.
Writing this, I realize I like the missing girl for Birdman in a kind of "since nobody cared, the exploited went and killed the exploiter" story.