Yesterday at the Television Critics Association summer press tour, HBO president of programming Casey Bloys confirmed that Mahershala Ali was set to star in the upcoming season of True Detective.
Bloys went on to say that he had read five of the scripts for Season 3 of the non-linear show and he’s pumped. He said of the scripts,
“They are terrific… I was very impressed and excited. We are talking to directors, and when we have a director we want to hire, it will be a go.”
True Detective made a massive imprint on the television world in its first season.
The troubled buddy cop duo of Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson lit up television screens as creator Nic Pizzolatto took viewers into a dark underworld of the Louisiana Bayou.
Season 2, on the other hand, was… interesting. Colin Farrell and Rachel McAdams delivered solid performances despite a rather, eh, not great script.
We don’t really need to talk about Vince Vaughn’s performance.
Anyone who has followed Mahershala Ali’s moves over the last couple years will be ecstatic about the actor’s presence on True Detective.
He’s fresh off an Oscar-winning role in the transcendent film Moonlight as well as the villainous Cottonmouth in Season 1 of Netflix’s Luke Cage.
The first couple seasons of True Detective have been pretty whitewashed, so it’s promising to see them cast Ali in a leading role, perhaps it points to a more diverse cast and plot for the third season.
Pizzolatto is reportedly teaming up with Deadwood creator David Milch to work on the scripts, which is a good sign as the True Detective creator refused any input during Season 2 when he probably could have used it.
It’s safe to say people were pretty excited about the Mahershala Ali announcement.
Mahershala Ali is starring in True Detective season 3. They haven't even started shooting it and it's already better than season 2.
— Dan Why-Ner IS FREE (@DanWeiner) July 26, 2017
Me, yesterday: "LMAO YOU COULDN'T PAY ME TO WATCH TRUE DETECTIVE SEASON 3"
Me, today: "I CAN'T WAIT UNTIL TRUE DETECTIVE SEASON 3!!!"— Renato Pagnani (@rennavate) July 26, 2017
When you weren't sure about #TrueDetective season 3, but then Mahershala Ali joins… https://t.co/iOAh0AeOMT pic.twitter.com/G190qds9qo
— Samantha Highfill (@samhighfill) July 26, 2017
https://twitter.com/JayJazzi/status/890370145029427204
In other HBO-related news, Bloys also spoke about their new show Confederate, ideated by Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, which imagines a world in which the Southern states won the Civil War.
Bloys said he regretted HBO’s rollout of the new series, but thought perhaps their intentions were misunderstood,
“We assumed it’d be controversial. I think we could have done a better job with the press rollout… What we realized in retrospect is people don’t have the benefit of having the context of the conversations with the producers that we had.”
Yeah, that show sounds pretty trash.
Regardless, we’re hype to see Mahershala killing it in True Detective.