True Detective Season 2 Episode 8 Finale Recap

This is it, the final moments of season 2. The finale is one and a half hours and I'm expecting big action and big reveals. Will we finally learn who killed Casper? Will the land deal that is a big part of Casper's murder be revealed as fraudulent? Will Frank escape to Venezuela or will the Russians catch up to him? Is Paul's plot complete? Will Ray and Ani live happily ever after? Wait, if Frank's leaving, Ray is jobless! Oh yeah, and the diamonds, are they still important? What about the crow head?

Check out my previous recaps or keep reading to dive into this episode. Spoilers beware.

Ray and Ani share one last conversation.

I predicted few happy endings and boy did True Detective deliver. It seems the show set out to do the opposite of season one. Season one ended on a happy note, this didn't... at all.

We open the episode of course with a monologue, that is Ray and Ani sharing their secrets, secrets that have made them who they are. It's clear these stories are wrapping, and the sequence had nice editing.

That was a big diamond. -Frank

Frank is sending Jordan ahead of him for safety, but she's not having it. It's a nice move, if not a bit cliche.

The lost orphan Len has been found by cowboy Ray Velcoro.

The camera guy is back. I was wrong on the orphans. The orphans did it.

Mayor Chessani is gone, the son was the mastermind. This comes out of left field for me. The ground work wasn't there to have the son be the real mastermind. In the only scene we see him in, he seems like a spoiled kid.

The crow head. It was all misdirection. The entire thing explained away as a bad joke.

We know who killed Casper, it was a revenge killing by the kid of the family he disrupted. We finally get closure on the crow head and who shot Ray. His sister, the secretary, infiltrated the organization. It turns out the orphan kids were Casper's. Casper wasn't after diamonds, he was putting an end to a relationship with his mistress.

Frank gears up for one last score and recruits Ray to help him, for Paul.

I guess it was today. -Frank
Frank gets his revenge.

I'd call that a plot puddle.

How in the world is there a puddle only under Ray's car? What a helpful puddle. Why doesn't he remove the tracker? Why doesn't he go to a parking garage to ditch the car.? Why go to the woods, where you likely won't have cell service and WILL want it, and in essence making yourself an easy target for commandos? Go to a public place maybe?

The Mexicans apprehend Frank. This can only end wrong.

As soon as they found him, amazingly lucky as that is, it was only a matter of when not if Frank would die. Frank should have known these guys aren't businessman, because I already knew it. Frank's pride is what did him in, but if it wasn't that it would have been the Mexicans.

Frank taking the walk of destiny.

I like Frank's end, him confronting his past and the hurdles that made him successful.

Ray had to see his son one more time.

Ray's love for his son proved to be his undoing. That and picking a terrible location for a last stand.

Ray goes out as murdering, dirty cop, his final message to his son his never sent, he actually is the biological father to his son, and he has a son with Ani. It's insult to injury ten-fold. What was the reasoning for piling it on so thick?

How will the cops explain the bullets from high powered guns in Ray's body? It's not like those guys were cops. Then again, this is Vinci, the law doesn't matter much.

Ani and Jordan make it to Venezuela, apparently teaming up.
I hope this isn't the premise for season three.

It took much longer for us to care about the characters in this season. It started too slow and ended too quickly. We rooted for the characters, perhaps in spite of how terrible their outlooks were. The real criminals, the politicians, weren't stopped. Maybe the story will surface one day, maybe not.
I was kind of hoping for Ani to get in a jeep, buy gas, and then look in the passenger seat at a photo of Ray. Cue music from The Terminator.

I really wish this season had a cult or something supernatural. It was hinted at, but the lack of those elements is why there wasn't fervent fan speculation about what tiny details represented.

I still much prefer season one. The plot device of jumping back in forth in time created a lot of suspense. This season had a lot of characters and didn't add in episodes to really develop their stories. Season one had something supernatural to it, even if it really wasn't. This season felt more like a standard cop story. I wanted something more.

One last highway shot for the road.