re: Re watching True Detective S1 for the first time (Spoilers)

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As I recall there were basically 2 camps of people that were disappointed:

1. People who saw the supernatural elements and cult shite and wanted it to take a supernatural horror turn into something more like a dark fantasy that instead saw it turn into more generic police procedural.

2. People who were upset that the grand conspiracy is exposed mostly off-screen (Rev Tuttle killed, videotape found, all the connections between the Church and missing kids, etc) and that the actual masterminds completely escape detection, let alone punishment.

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it was more that the show sucked people in based on the presentation of the mystery and everyone was invested in discussing that as part of the investigation in the show, and then it all was meaningless. then a great % of people who were previously invested in the mystery didn't want to admit they were let down and diverted that investment to the show in general and started using comments like "character study" to excuse the show's failed payoff

if you told people in episode 3 that the mystery would not pay off and it would be largely ignored, you'd have lost the majority of the support. i was telling people in real time around episodes 4-5 that there wasn't enough time to wrap up the story and people said i was crazy. then it wasn't wrapped up and they completely changed their commentary about the show. it was a crazy event to watch unfold in real time