I think there are definitely some valid complaints about this season (I have a few myself), but it's nowhere near as bad as you've made it out to be.
Again, for reference, no one is putting it anywhere close to S1 either. Literally a tier or two down not even sniffing that level. But it's not horrible by any stretch.
A tier or two down from season 1? How many tiers? Really, where would you rank season two of True Detective? We've got people saying it's better than anything else on TV right now. What about compared to fall shows? What about historically?
And the way some people defend this season makes me think they don't consider it a tier or two below season 1. Especially when they defend season 2 by criticizing the first (ironically after freaking the fuck out on anyone doing the opposite in criticizing season 2 by comparing/defending the first). I don't recall if any dumb fuck has said season 2 is better yet, but it wouldn't surprise me.
I mean, here are some of the shows biggest supporters saying things early on that are fucking retarded now that we have more content to judge:
This Nic Pizzolatto has some secret sauce that no other writer has. No one writes shit this good for TV.
which got this response:
The biggest thing he has going is complete final say on production and script. Goes along way.
Yeah, Nic and his final say secret sauce is like blue balls in his best-worst self. I think anyone with any level of objectivity can admit the biggest mistake with this season is that Nic's arrogance led him to think he could go it alone and it would be pure gold simply because he's just that great. And I don't think a single person, even detractors, would say no one else is writing anything this good for television at this point.
Early issues in the show that people too exception to:
You don't think almost killing a guy with a pair of brass knuckles and nothing at all happens to him is not a legit complaint? How fucking stupid are you?
were dismissed by saying things like:
You're comments have been pretty retarded but how do you know nothing will happen? It's been a few hours its not fucking magic.
And it's been how many months in the show? Turns out, the scene was there for pure shock value and started a tangent that would have been pretty cool as sub-story, but led to nothing.
And how many scenes have we subsequently gotten that were exactly like that? Velcro gets shot, turns out to be a [poorly executed] shock-value crock of shit that really leads nowhere. Actual story was ignored/diverted by that crock of shit shootout with the Mexes. The car involved in the murder gets blown up and a suspect gets chased, and it's just crock-of-shit action that leads the story nowhere. They could have been working the actual case and evidence, but instead of even discussing it they go illegally undercover to the most boring orgy ever that only seemed to exist for the purpose of shock value and more random coincidences:
People early complained about the awful random coincidences and why these true detective weren't picking up on anything at all and working the case, and the defenders of the show did so with more bullshit excuses (it's only the second episode, it's only halfway done, it's only episode 7!), and in the end a major flaw of the show has been that things are introduced, ignored, then brought back into the show dues ex machina style.... when they could have just worked the fucking case all along, which would have probably been a more interesting and cohesive story than the ton of pointless back-story we got masquerading as character development:
People complained about the early scenes that were just showing seemingly pointless back-story for characters that really didn't even show much character depth or history, and of course the defenders of the show screamed about it, just wait, it's building character, but did it really? For fuck sake we never even got anything on how/why Paul has his burns until Taylor did an interview after his character died.
Pretty much all the early complaints were not only valid at the time, but re-exposed again and again as huge flaws in the show. And while some things have improved (hey, we at least have them talking about things they should have been acting on all along!), those early flaws were still a microcosm of the overall quality of the show. The only thing that has changed is a LOT of people who were hopeful early on have gone pretty silent, and there is a small group of people that hilariously went all-in supporting this show right from the start who have had no other option than sticking to that defense now matter how much absurdity and ignorance it requires.
