Television Review: Maybe Tomorrow (True Detective, S2x03, 2015)

Maybe Tomorrow (S2x03)

Airdate: 5 July 2015

Written by: Nic Pizzolatto
Directed by: Janus Metz

Running Time: 58 minutes

Maybe Tomorrow arrived at a curious inflection point for True Detective's beleaguered second season. Where the first season started as a masterpiece only to face post-hype backlash, Season 2 has traveled the opposite trajectory—beginning as a near-universal disappointment that left viewers wondering whether creator Nic Pizzolato had simply exhausted his creative reservoir. This third episode, however, offers the first tentative signs that the season might yet find its footing, even if it remains shackled to the structural and creative missteps of its opening hours.

The episode's most immediate burden is resolving the previous installment's cliffhanger: Detective Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell) lying on the ground, apparently ventilated by a shotgun blast at point-blank range. The resolution is as predictable as it is deflating—Velcoro survives because his assailant used rubber bullets, the kind police traditionally deploy against violent protesters. This revelation, suggesting the attacker was a fellow officer, at least nudges the conspiracy narrative forward, implicating Velcoro's corrupt colleagues in the assassination attempt.

What saves this from utter narrative bankruptcy is Danish director Janus Metz, who replaces Justin Lin for this episode. Rather than treating Velcoro's survival with grim realism, Metz opens with an elaborate dream sequence: Velcoro, bleeding on the floor, hallucinates a bar where a Conway Twitty impersonator performs while he converses with a vision of his father, a former police officer. For some viewers, this injection of surrealism and fantasy into what has been a crushingly banal quasi-realistic noir represents a breath of fresh air—a stylistic flourish that recalls David Lynch's Twin Peaks, where a nearly identical cliffhanger (protagonist shot at close range) was resolved through dream logic and visions. For others, it merely papers over the cheapness of the storytelling gimmick with directorial sleight-of-hand.

Where Maybe Tomorrow genuinely succeeds is in its belated attempt to give Velcoro something resembling an arc. The episode finally invests in creating sympathy for this broken man—his family lost, his honour compromised, his health deteriorating, his moral principles abandoned. By positioning him at rock bottom, the writers create the possibility for upward trajectory, for redemption. This is reinforced through his developing relationship with Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams), which begins crystallizing into something approaching the dynamic that made Rust Cohle and Martin Hart so compelling in Season 1.

Whether this potential will be squandered remained to be seen—True Detective is hardly the first series to miss opportunities for meaningful character development, and given the season's broader structural problems, optimism felt dangerous.

The episode's handling of Paul Woodrugh's (Taylor Kitsch) sexuality represents everything that has gone wrong with Season 2's writing. Where the first season offered mere hints about orientation, here the suggestions arrive with the subtlety of a bulldozer. A scene with a former war buddy explicitly evokes uncomfortable memories of their relationship being "closer than friendship"—a clumsy, heavy-handed approach that strips away any ambiguity or nuance.

That said, the episode does find an unexpected use for Woodrugh's secret: while his colleagues suggest he use his impressive looks to charm female witnesses, he proves far more effective with unexpectedly cooperative male prostitutes. It's a grimly practical application of his hidden identity, suggesting that in this world of corruption and compromise, even "wrong" sexuality becomes just another tool when combined with adequate pharmaceutical preparations.

Visually, the episode's standout sequences occur at Mayor Austin Chessani's opulent villa, which provides ammunition for viewers arguing that True Detective has abandoned serious crime drama for high-budget camp. Chessani (Richie Coster) embodies corruption not merely through his actions but through his aesthetic—shamelessly demonstrating his moral collapse with the primitive tastelessness of a nouveau riche parvenu. This pathology extends to his family: his vapid, drug-addled trophy wife (Agnes Olech) and his son who literally performs "gangsta" posturing (Vinicius Machado). When investigators visit this monument to grotesque wealth, Chessani expresses his displeasure with such "subtlety" that he makes real-world corrupt politicians look restrained by comparison.

Maybe Tomorrow is not a great episode of television, but it may be the moment when Season 2 stops getting worse and starts, however haltingly, to improve. It cannot undo the damage of its predecessors—the overcrowded narrative, the poorly developed characters, the clichéd subplots, the atrocious dialogue that would plague the season through its disappointing finale. Yet within its 60 minutes, there are hints of what might have been: a surrealist crime drama willing to embrace dream logic, a character study of broken people seeking redemption, a corruption narrative that understands grotesquerie can be as revealing as realism.

For viewers who have stuck with the season this far, it offers just enough promise to justify continuing. But viewed in hindsight, knowing where Season 2 ultimately lands—with a feature-length finale that resolves its mystery in the most straightforward, melodramatic, and unconvincing manner possible—Maybe Tomorrow looks less like a turning point and more like a false summit, a brief elevation before the long descent into one of television's most spectacular failures.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

(Note: The text in the original Croatian version is available here.)

Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com
Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/
InLeo blog https://inleo.io/@drax.leo
Substack https://draxster.substack.com/

LeoDex: https://leodex.io/?ref=drax
Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax
InLeo: https://inleo.io/signup?referral=drax.leo
1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e

BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG
ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7
BCH donations: qpvxw0jax79lhmvlgcldkzpqanf03r9cjv8y6gtmk9