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Mahershala Ali Is Confirmed For True Detective Season 3

(Source)Moonlight actor Mahershala Ali could be making his way back to television. The Academy Award-winner closed a deal to star in HBO’s third season of the crime anthology series True Detective, the network’s president of programming, Casey Bloys, said at a Television Critics Associations’ presentation Wednesday, according to Entertainment Weekly. The third season of the Emmy-nominated show is not completely guaranteed, however. HBO is still deciding whether or not to officially greenlight new episodes, but Bloys sounded optimistic about the series’ future. “They are terrific,” Bloys said of the five finished scripts he’s read thus far. “We are talking to directors, and when we have a director we want to hire, it will be a go.”

Not only do we officially have our star, or one of them, I’m pretty sure this is the first actual confirmation that TD3 is gonna happen? There have been tons of rumors for quite some time now but they’ve been just that, people whispering and Pizzolatto saying he’d be down for it, today we learn that there are already five episodes written and they are “terrific.”

Of course the president of programming at HBO is gonna say they’re terrific but I believe him. Why? Primarily because I’m an idiot. But I also believe him because True Detective s1 was so good that it can easily inspire that belief. No matter how bad s2 was, s1 is always there proving that there’s still a chance for it to be great. It’s still there to offer evidence that Pizzolatto absolutely is not a bad show writer and is likely to barrel a ball again and knock it out of the park. The thing I always try to remember is that Pizzolatto had years to write s1, which he clearly wrote as a one off, and it was such a smash hit that it was immediately greenlit and he had to rush s2 together in mere months. Of course the writing is gonna suffer there. Now he’s had years again so I hope/wouldn’t be shocked if it comes back with a vengeance.

As for Mahershala Ali, he’s a fucking monster. Acting was never the problem in season 2 outside of Vince Vaughn (though some critics still maintain he was actually good), Farrell, McAdams, and Kitsch were all really fucking good. Ali is gonna continue that trend. He crushes everything he’s been in. He got his Oscar in Moonlight, he was the best character in an otherwise “eh” Luke Cage, he was great in House of Cards, and he was a beast in Free State of Jones even though that movie was absolutely terrible. I’ve never seen Mahershala Ali bad in anything and it’s not about to start now.

So I’m excited for TD3. Perhaps I’m a fool buying into hype, but it won’t be my first time and it won’t be my last time doing that. Between Ali and an extended script writing time I’ve got faith that this will be great again. I just hope Pizolatto offers some comedic relief aside his character who says crazy shit. That was the most glaring difference between Rust Chole and Vince Vaughn’s roles: Chole had Marty to say “you’re fucking nuts” after he went on a weird rant, and it gave the audience opportunity to not take it too seriously, Vaughn just had his wife acting like he was the smartest man to ever live.