True Detective Season 2 Ending, Explained

True Detective is an anthology series that follows a different set of law enforcement agents, with each season structured as a self-contained narrative. Unlike other crime dramas before it, True Detective fills out its cast with high-profile actors. The first season starred Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey as State Detectives Martin Hart and Rust Cohle. Much to many fans of the first season upset, Harrelson and McConaughey only returned as producers, leaving the leading roles to a new group of Hollywood A-listers.

True Detective season two did step up its game in one way, with three detectives taking center stage rather than two. This time around, fans got to see Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, and Taylor Kitsch in the spotlight, showing audiences a side of them they rarely see. They’re not the only stars to appear in the season, as Vince Vaughn is a mainstay throughout the season. Season two might not have received the same level of acclaim as the first, many citing pacing and less compelling characters as its primary flaws, it does manage to paint a frightening picture about government corruption.

How Did True Detective Season 2 End?

True Detective had a unique approach to the conclusion of the Ben Caspere murder investigation by ending it twice. Ray Velcoro, Ani Bezzerides, and Paul Woodrugh discover that a prostitute, Irina Rulfo, stole Caspere’s belongings, which includes Frank Semyon’s (Vince Vaughn) $5 million. This led them to Rulfo’s pimp, Ledo Amarilla, which led them to a huge shootout in the middle of Vinci City. Several cops die in the process, but it ends when they kill Ledo. Without him alive to question and no further leads on Irina, the joint law enforcement agencies declare that Camarillo killed Caspere and put a lid on the investigation.

Two months later, Detective Velcoro turns in his badge to work for Semyon full-time, Bezzerides receives a demotion that traps her in the evidence locker for Ventura County Sheriff’s, and Woodrugh receives a promotion to a Fraud Detective, which takes him out of the streets. However, the future Attorney General, Katherine Davis (Michael Hyatt), doesn’t believe Amarilla was the murderer and smells a coverup. She enlists the aid of the original three investigators and keeps her investigation off the books.

Semyon, who has lost millions and was forced to downsize his life because of it, makes a deal with a Mexican cartel to find and question Irina Rulfo. They come through in exchange for running drugs through Semyon’s various nightclubs, and Rulfo reveals that a police officer paid her to steal from Caspere. Unfortunately, before Semyon learns who the police officer is, the cartel kills her for working with the police. Meanwhile, Bezzerides infiltrates a sex trafficking party in Central California using her sister’s identity, where the trio witnesses the current Attorney General and Police Chief of Vinci partaking in the event. Furthermore, Velcoro and Woodrugh, while attempting to exfiltrate Bezzerides from the party, find all the documents and plans that lay out the scheming land deal that Semyon was once a part of.

Because Semyon has the worst karma of every character in the series, an old business partner takes over all of the properties Semyon owns behind his back, leaving Semyon with nothing. This motivates the former entrepreneur to burn down every property and plan an escape from the United States to Venezuela. He extends an offer to Velcoro and Bezzerides to join him in exchange for helping him steal money from his former business partner, who has a cash swap on the books for the next day. At this point, Woodrugh met his fate after being ambushed by Velcoro’s former colleague, Detective Burris (James Frain).

Velcoro and Semyon successfully steal $12 million and escape unscathed. Unfortunately, when they split up, everything went upside down. While visiting his son at his school, Burris and his men place a transponder under Velcoro’s car, which he easily discovers before returning to his car. He decides to lead his tail into the Southern California mountains in hopes that he can take them out one by one via guerilla warfare tactics. He manages to take out a few of Burris’s men, but they get him in the end. Frank, on the other hand, while making his way to the rendezvous with Bezzerides and their coyote, is stopped by the Mexican cartel. They hijack his car and drive him out to the middle of the desert to negotiate reparations after all of his properties burned down and left them with no place to sell their drugs, as per their deal.

Frank gives them his duffle bag of millions, and they accept it, but because Frank is too prideful, he gets physical, which leads to one of the gangsters stabbing him and leaving him for dead in the middle of the desert. Bezzerides sails down to Venezuela on her own and meets up with Frank’s wife. Bezzerides meets with a journalist in a hotel room and gives him the whole story, along with all of the documents Woodrugh stole from the party in Central California. The journalist asks for Bezzerides to return to America with her as a witness to the corruption, but she declines, knowing she and her son (presumably Velcoro’s) would never be safe, especially with multiple people involved in the corruption receiving significant promotions to positions of power such as Governor and Mayor.

What was True Detective Season 2 About?

Underneath it all, in the nitty-gritty of it, True Detective’s second season is all about the world being a dog-eat-dog world, not knowing who you can trust, and how power corrupts. The pilot episode introduces the audience to three different police officers who work for different agencies, and they’re all deeply flawed in some way. Vinci Police Department Detective Ray Velcoro barely holds himself together in front of his son, who he isn’t actually sure is his. Years prior to the pilot episode, a man sexually assaulted his wife, and roughly nine months later, she gave birth to her son, Chad. When Ray isn’t around his son, he’s a corrupt police officer on Frank Semyon’s payroll, a career criminal and entrepreneur with large aspirations.

Officer Paul Woodrugh, a California Highway Patrol officer, veteran, and former employee of a private security firm, enjoyed riding patrol along Pacific Coast Highway on his motorcycle during his shift, but that all changed when he pulled over an actress with an ankle monitor. After accusing Woodrugh of sexual misconduct, the department suspended him until the conclusion of an investigation. However, what his colleagues and those close to him don’t know is that Woodrugh is gay, a secret he kept close to his chest out of fear for his life. After the stress of everything got to him, Woodrugh took his motorcycle for a night ride along the coast, where he stumbled across a corpse that plunged him into the case of his life.

Antigone “Ani” Bezzerides is a Ventura County Sheriff’s CID agent who is just as deadly with a knife in her hand as a gun. She has a gambling addiction along with a predilection for self-sabotage. Her mother abandoned the family when Ani was young, leaving her and her sister in her father’s care, who ran the “Good People” commune that accepted a variety of people into its walls. There are gaps in Ani’s childhood memory that start to come to light throughout the season, but they’re never fully realized. She and Detective Velcoro work closely together on the Caspere case, leading them to develop romantic feelings for each other.

The corpse Woodrugh discovered was Ben Caspere, a business partner of Frank Semyon and City Manager for Vinci City, who was the key player in a large land deal that would build a high-speed rail line in California. The three main law enforcement officers were put on the case to uncover Caspere’s murderer each for different reasons. Woodrugh was on the case because he discovered the body and it gave him a means to get off of suspension. Bezzerides’ superiors put her on the case to uncover corruption in Vinci, of which there was plenty. Ray Velcoro found himself on the case because Caspere was a Vinci employee, but mainly to prevent anyone from uncovering Vinci’s corruption.

Caspere’s death proved problematic for many high-ranking officials and businesspeople throughout California. He was part of a major land deal, along with Frank Semyon, that saw the participating parties spread toxic waste across several large parcels of land in order to drive down the price. Frank and everyone involved knew the government wanted to build a high-speed rail line on that land, allowing them to buy the land cheaply and sell it for a much higher price to the government. Unfortunately, Caspere died before he could give Frank’s $5 million to the necessary person, complicating Frank’s position with the land deal. This sent Frank on a mission to find his money by using Velcoro to report what he found throughout the investigation.

More

Matthew McConaughey Stars In This Unpredictable And Underrated Horror Movie

Acclaimed actor Matthew McConaughey isn’t known for appearing in the horror genre, and his performance in this 2000s horror movie is worth watching.