“Blue balls in your heart” isn’t just a memorable bit of purple prose from last night’s typically terrible Frank Semyon dialogue, it’s a metaphor for this season. Anticipation keeps building that something interesting’s going to happen, but it never does. Maybe next week’s orgy scene at one of Ben Caspere’s secret hooker parties featuring a glammed-up Bezzerides will finally deliver. No one does highbrow porn like HBO.

This is indeed the problem, in one tidy paragraph:

Herein lies the central problem with True Detective season two, which is that huge complex plot points are dispersed in conversation in a matter of seconds, while other matters (the Semyons’ ability to have children, Frank’s money troubles, Ray’s relationship with his son) are essentially beaten to death by Pizzolatto like Rick Springfield delivering unwanted psychological evaluation. Yes, establishing character complexity is important. But would it be worth sacrificing a scene or two of Frank and Jordan discussing their willingness (or not) to adopt in order to explain a little more effectively what’s actually happening? Or are we supposed to just buckle up and ride the metaphorical carriage until it runs off the rails?

The paradox of the show is that the plot is hugely complex and yet … also mostly irrelevant. Who killed Caspere? What’s happening at those parties “up north”? Will we ever find out who the Birdman was who shot Velcoro? Is Bezzerides’s dad involved in any of this? Are any members of the core group of cops actually keeping tabs on the others as a mole for their shady police department/attorney general supervisors? Guess what: It doesn’t matter because this is a character study, involving a group of characters who, frankly, aren’t very dissimilar and don’t require much studying. Critics keep grumbling that they can’t follow what’s going on but it never seems to matter because the show keeps pinballing between melodrama like Velcoro’s custody battle, Frank’s marriage, Woodrugh’s relationship with his mom and girlfriend, etc. I laughed out loud when Velcoro told Dr. Pitlor to spill what he knew about the Chessanis and the hooker parties and Pitlor suddenly spat out a 30-second monologue revealing more about what’s going on with the central mystery of the show than the detective team had found out in five episodes. That’s season two in a nutshell. Tell, don’t show.

I feel like we’re headed for a big final scene in the last episode where nothing’s been resolved and everyone’s confused to the point of rage, whereupon Frank suddenly announces he cracked the case and gives a five-minute speech explaining everything — followed by a 20-minute speech about how much he loves his wife and the glories of IVF. I’m amazed, after all the heat the show took last year for leaving so many loose ends untied, that it looks like they’re going to leave even more untied this season. That’s the one common thread between seasons one and two (apart from the purpleness of the prose to which Frank Semyon and Rust Cohle are both given). For a show that revolves around dark, occultish murder mysteries, you’re not supposed to care much about whether the mystery is solved. To care is almost to miss the point insofar as you’re distracting yourself from all the pseudo-profundity being farted at you by Rust and Frank and Ray. That’s sort of tolerable when you have an interesting character study to compensate, as was the case in season one. When you don’t, as in this season, it’s almost unbearable.

That’s also why, I think, everyone seems so relieved by last night’s (not unexpected) twist in which the deputy AG revealed that the man Velcoro killed for raping his wife wasn’t actually the rapist. Finally, a plot point everyone can easily grasp involving high emotion with which everyone can sympathize. And it’s handed to the best actor on the show, Colin Farrell, who’s spent five episodes building up Velcoro’s volatility, to play it. If we’re going to skimp on scenes explaining, say, why Caspere’s killers would have wanted to burn out his eyes ritualistically in order to focus more on drama, having one main character on the verge of murdering another is the only way to make that trade-off digestible.

My hope/prediction: Somehow, either Velcoro, Bezzerides, or Woodrugh will turn out to have been involved in Caspere’s murder. A big twist transforming the audience’s view of a key player is the only way to atone for all the dullness so far.