LOS ANGELES -- "We were being played all along."
Yes, Ani Bezzerides. Yes we were. Right up to the point where HBO boss Michael Lombardo said last week that "the show ends with as satisfying an end as any show I've seen."
We wanted to believe that HBO and Nic Pizzolatto would hold up their end of the deal. That some sense would be made of all of this. That we wouldn't be shot with riot pellets and have acid poured in our eyes and be dragged out into the desert and stabbed in the kidney and left to bleed out.
But we were being played all along.
Things started to go haywire during the utterly ridiculous shootout of Episode 4. By Episode 5, I declared that I'd had it with this damn show.
But we all hung in there, perhaps out of deference to the deeply compelling Season 1. Or maybe marveling at the astonishing hubris of this debacle was its own kind of entertainment.
Was the finale disappointing? Enormously. Which is to say, it did not disappoint. Because by this point, nothing but a toxin-belching smokestack of a finish would do.
What exactly happened? I couldn't possibly tell you. Like many I read Slate TV critic Willa Paskin's lucidly detailed accounting of the story thus far. Though I applaud her tenacious sifting through this wreckage to trace its steps, it didn't help one bit. I know virtually nothing.
Here's what I do know: It ended on Sunday night. And when the music finally stopped, every character was someplace.
That's all I've got. And here it is, to the best of my feeble understanding:
Ray Velcoro
Dead. Shot full of holes in a forest of ancient redwoods somewhere.
The episode opens with Velcoro and brand-new-bed-partner Bezzerides scheming an international getaway as a lark, but then later it gets serious. First he's got to deal with Ben Caspere's murderer, some kid who watched the city manager and his goons kill his parents and turn out his sister.
Velcoro hears the kid -- who we've never seen before -- is going to be in a train station. For anyone who still gives a damn about who killed Caspere, it was this kid. His name was "Len" or something:
Whatever Velcoro did to put himself in this situation, it's made him a wanted man. Before he flees to Venezuela with Bezzerides, he wants to see his boy Chad, who he's still not sure is his kid. He stops off at Chad's school so they can salute each other from over a fence. It was awful.
As he's leaving the school, Velcoro spots a transponder attached to the bottom of his car and knows that he's screwed. He tries to record one last voicemail for Chad before he's hunted down like a dog. It doesn't go well.
Eh, whatever, True Detective. Ray Velcoro was a terrible person, and we all know he wasn't Chad's real dad anywa -- WHAAAAA?
Frank Semyon
Dead. Stabbed and left to bleed in a desert somewhere.
I have no idea who these guys are who picked up Frank and took him to the desert. The one guy is sort of familiar, maybe from the meeting where the girl had the slashed neck. I don't care and it's not worth looking up. But they shivved Frank in the kidney and left him to bleed to death while he walked and encountered a bunch of people from his past, including, but not limited to:
His father, who we are meeting for the first time
Some gang of bullies, who we are meeting for the first time
An old Frank victim, who we are meeting for the first time
Jordan, who -- wait we know! We know her! She's his wife!
Jordan was the only character who ever spoke truth to Frank's power -- and she does it one last time, telling him that he stopped moving a ways back. Which is to say that this long, Dickensian shuffle through Frank's past is finally over.
So is this utterly pointless character. Lay down, Frank.
Woodrugh
Shot dead in the penultimate episode. Not forgotten in the finale -- they gave him a sign.
Paul Woodrugh -- putting the "ugh" in the Los Angeles freeway system since 2015.
Bezzerides
Well, at least someone came out of this alive. Might as well have been Ani Bezzerides.
Bezzerides was probably the least guilty of the True Detectives, with only a couple of creepy orgy-goers in her body count. Thanks to Velcoro's sacrifice play, Bezzerides did a Gone Girl number to her hair and got on the boat to Venezuela with no resistance.
She's there, she's apparently safe ... and she's not alone.
To close out the show, we see that Jordan is there with her -- along with one of Frank's henchmen -- and Jordan has a baby. How is this possible? Jordan had just told Frank that she couldn't even get pregnant, and waaaaait a minute ...
Jordan was just holding the baby, and hands it to Bezzerides ...
Aw, Ray Velcoro and Ani Bezzerides had a baby after having sex just once?!
Chad Velcoro has a half-brother who's not red-headed?!!!
Fine, we're satisfied with that.
Bring on Season 3.