How many times am I going to write this same True Detective article?

Well, who knows? You can’t remember your past ramblings. You can’t change your obsession. That is the terrible and the secret fate of all True Detective fans. We’re trapped by the same nightmare we keep waking up into. The finale isn’t going to change. Those last three episodes won’t be getting any better. The light lost.

Yet despite struggling down the stretch, True Detective remains a mental Carcosa, an ever-deepening rabbit hole worth exploring. But before venturing into the abyss, one must recognize truth: the series is flawed. Really, really flawed. Marty couldn’t miss these signs of abuse.

I’ve selected the Top 11 True Detective problems. And remember, this is only an exhibition. This is not a competition. So please, as always, no wagering.

11. Expository Dialogue at the Beginning of Episode 5

After his arranged meeting with Dewall falls through, Rust throws Ginger in the truck and hits the highway. He radios ahead to Marty, who had been waiting in the weeds to tail Dewall. Rust delivers a legit line or two and then tells Marty, “That’s Reggie Ledoux’s cook partner. Dewall. Birddog him, Marty.”

So Rust and Marty concoct this intricate undercover scheme to track Dewall back to Reggie Ledoux without ever discussing the suspect’s identity? That line isn’t there for Marty; it’s there for the audience, specifically viewers too stupid to follow the story. Dialogue is a two-way street between characters. Never include the audience in the conversation.

When watching the scene, it’s pretty clear someone added the line in post-production, because Rust isn’t on screen when he speaks the words. Still, it’s a testament to the show’s greatness that it took until the fifth episode to write down to the audience. And the rest of the episode is so strong, the lone clunker is easy to overlook if not forget.

10. Cliche Angry Boss

Yes, numerous critics have pointed out True Detective’s many cop show cliches, from the mismatched partners to the creepy serial killer leaving deliberate clues and even the inevitable love triangle that destroys the partnership. But some cliches are worse than others, particularly when the writer fails to breathe new life into the moribund device.

Episode 6 brings us Major Leroy Salter, Rust and Marty’s commanding officer in 2002. Every cop show apparently needs an angry boss to derail investigations and to make life miserable for the protagonists. Salter does just that in the most blatant way possible, first threatening Rust to quit asking questions about old cases and then eventually suspending him for refusing orders. The paint-by-numbers portrayal culminates with the standard “badge and gun” scene that mars most procedural dramas.

Major Ken Quesada, Rust and Marty’s boss in 1995, hardly broke new ground, but he at least had more colors in his bastard rainbow. Salter is difficult simply to be difficult. I imagine when his scenes are over, Salter just stores away in the nearest closet until the next time the script requires him to chew scenery.

9. Ripped Off Alan Moore

At the end of Episode 8, Marty and Rust share a touching moment under the stars. Rust tells Marty about his emotional near-death experience, and Marty consoles his troubled pal by getting him to remember his Alaskan childhood when he used to make up stories about the night sky. Rust says there is only one story: light versus dark. Marty can’t help but notice there’s a lot more darkness than light. As Marty is helping him to the car, Rust reveals a newfound optimism, stating, “Once there was only dark. Ya ask me, the light’s winning.”

How sweet.

Know what would make it sweeter? If the show’s creator/writer Nic Pizzolatto hadn’t stolen the exchange from Alan Moore. That’s not an homage. That’s theft. Looks like Pizzolatto even lifted Rust’s “L’chaim, fatass” farewell to Steve Geraci from a Daredevil comic.

What gives? Listen, it’s one thing for a hack like me to “borrow” Letterman’s Stupid Pet Tricks disclaimer, but Pizzolatto can’t end the series with another writer’s idea. Inexcusable.

8. Flat Maggie

Unlike most critics, I never had a problem with True Detective’s flimsy female characters. The show’s theme is how men neglect and abuse women and children. Pizzolatto tells the story from two extremely masculine point-of-view characters within the Louisiana police department’s male-dominated world. Neglecting the female characters is kind of the point. At least until episode 6.

Action is character. And Maggie Hart, Marty’s wife, becomes a living, breathing, three-dimensional being when she chooses to seduce Rust, deliberately victimizing him in her desperate attempt to hurt Marty. That act, that one choice, makes Maggie a fascinating character. I couldn’t wait to see how her story would end. But when episode 7 rolled around, Maggie was once more wafer thin and barely registered a pulse in her two scenes. She remained an afterthought in episode 8, showing up in Marty’s hospital room like the ghost of a former friend. Except ghosts carry more weight.

7. The Geraci Affair

Marty and Rust spend a good portion of episode 7 trying to get information regarding Marie Fontenot out of former colleague Steve Geraci, who had served under Sheriff Ted Childress when the Fontenots filed the original missing persons report. Marty works the soft play only to realize Geraci is lying about his past ivolvement. This leads to a second scene, one in which Marty and Rust lure Geraci onto a fishing boat and threaten him at gunpoint. The storyline stretches into episode 8, culminating with Rust’s sniper pal sending Geraci a message.

Perhaps swept up in the kidnapping and bully tactics, viewers may miss Marty and Rust learn nothing — not a single damn thing — that advances the plot. Geraci pleads “chain of command” and pins the blame on Sheriff Childress and other higher-ups. Marty and Rust had learned in episode 2 Sheriff Childress was in charge during the Fontenot disappearance. In episode 5, Rust had learned an officer Childress was on duty when Guy Francis committed suicide. And in episode 7, Miss Delores, the Tuttle family’s former maid, told our heroes Sam Tuttle fathered a brood of illegitimate kids, leading to a grandson named Errol Childress who had scars on his face. Geraci provided nothing new.

All told, we spend approximately 10 minutes with Geraci over the two episodes. May not sound like much, but when the entire series runs about 440 minutes, every second counts. We also get treated to Geraci’s unintentionally hilarious scream when he’s forced to watch the Fontenot tape and a shockingly similar sniper gambit to the one Walt played in the Breaking Bad finale. The misguided Geraci Affair did nothing but waste valuable screen time and further diminish the show’s reputation.

6. Unresolved Audrey

The only thing more baffling than Audrey Hart’s apparent sexual abuse going unresolved is director Cary Fukunaga’s insistence no such storyline had ever been intended. Hey, Cary, we’re not gonna give you the Oscar no matter how hard you try. But let’s review.

* In episode 2, Audrey positions her dolls in a most unusual way, placing five male figures around a naked, prone female. The arrangement proves to be a precise recreation of the Fontenot tape.

* In episode 3, Audrey gets in trouble for making sexually explicit drawings. One image features a man in a mask, making it eerily similar to the ritualistic abuse photos Rust shows Marty in episode 7.

* In episode 5, Audrey swipes a toy crown from her younger sister Maisie, places it on her own head, and then tosses it into a tree in the Hart family’s front yard. The crown, complete with paper streamers, is similar to the one Dora Lange had worn at her murder scene.

* Later in that same episode, a teenage Audrey continues to act out sexually and gets caught making three with some older boys.

* In episode 7, we learn Audrey is now an aspiring artist and requires meds. Attentive viewers will notice a picture of Audrey standing next to one of her paintings, an abstract subject decorated with black stars and a yellow crown.

Viewers with apparently far more experience in the mystery genre than the show’s creators interpreted these clues to mean Audrey had been sexually abused. Suspicion settled upon Maggie’s father Jack, a wealthy white man who would seem to go for this cult stuff in a big way. In his lone on-screen appearance, Jack emphasized the importance of family sticking together and rails against youth culture with its sexual promiscuity and complicated shoes, prompting Marty to basically call him an old man whose time has passed. Meanwhile, Maggie’s mother criticizes her for always fighting against what she can’t control, hinting abuse may be a family tradition. The aforementioned episode 5 scene could even be viewed as Audrey implicating her grandfather by throwing the Dora Lange crown he had given Maisie into the literal and figurative family tree. And if you’re scoring at home, the actress who played the teenage Audrey worked under the assumption her character had been abused or had at least been exposed to the cult practices.

But nope. According to Fukunaga, it was all one big happy accident. Oopsie.

5. Cliche Final Fight

What better way to end a philosophical treatise on human nature than with a fight scene straight out of the worst Frank Stallone action flick?

I didn’t have a problem with Rust following Errol into the murderous labyrinth. Rust had a death wish, and everyone realizes he might be a wee bit obsessive, so his actions make perfect sense for the character. What doesn’t make sense is Rust somehow surviving after getting stabbed in the gut, lifted off the ground by said knife in gut, being suspended in the air for several seconds, managing to headbutt his assailant not once but four times, and later removing the knife in question without bleeding to death before help arrived. Not to be outdone, Marty catches a hatchet with his chest and lives to tell the tale. Pizzolatto and Fukunaga also grant viewers the once dramatic but now overused “last-second, surprise kill shot from off screen,” with Errol’s head bursting courtesy of ol’ deadeye Rust. By the time Marty crawls over to cradle Rust in his arms and cry for help, True Detective’s transformation into CSI: Louisiana is complete.

Like most viewers, I expected one or both of our heroes to perish, so having them survive was genuinely surprising and not necessarily a bad thing. What they survived — standard buddy cop film bullshit — was the problem. I didn’t invest eight weeks of my life for… that. And if some marketing wizard isn’t working on a Rust Cohle headbutting nutcracker, I’ve lost all faith in America.

4. Green Paint

Coming up empty with Geraci and not being able to track the Childress clan through official sources, Marty and Rust decide to go over old evidence. Rust says they have to come at it with fresh eyes like “they’re totally green.”

Wait. Did you hear that? Rust said “green.” Marty just happens to be looking at a canvassing photo of a green house. Back in 1995, a little girl said she had been chased through the woods by a green-eared spaghetti monster. Hey, green house paint is green! And didn’t that house have a fresh coat of paint in 1995? I’m just glad Marty doesn’t eat a lot of broccoli, or the investigation could have gone a whole different direction.

Marty theorizes the killer painted the house and got sloppy. This leads our truest of true detectives to track down the former homeowner, an elderly woman who just happens to remember that, yes, a man with scars on his face did paint her house 17 years ago. And, better yet, her husband itemized their tax returns, providing Rust “Tax Man” Cohle a way to track the painting company. New IRS slogan: Itemize… in case there’s a monster at the end of it. We were one 1040EZ away from this thing never getting solved.

Keep in mind, a terrified little girl provided the initial green-eared spaghetti monster description. That doesn’t mean Errol’s ears were literally solid green. But it’s difficult to imagine a professional getting that much paint on his ears, especially when the gig didn’t require ceilings. When episode 3 first aired, viewers speculated Errol (known then as only the lawnmower man) was guilty and that noise-canceling headphones could easily explain the green ears. Certainly seems like a far more logical progression than, “Whoa, green paint is green.”

The show could have avoided the foolishness any number of ways. For instance, episode 8 includes a pretty worthless scene of Errol painting one of the local schools. Show him being sloppy. Show him standing too close to the wall while using a sprayer. When the teacher interrupts to ask if he would like some lunch, Errol could remove safety goggles or some other facial protection that had left his ears exposed, and viewers could see how it could happen. Or maybe when he gets near kids he has a nervous habit of rubbing his ears. Do something, anything.

Of course, simply changing the initial description to a green-spotted spaghetti monster or a green-freckled spaghetti monster eliminates all such complaints.

Yet even if they had been looking for a green-spotted killer, Marty and Rust still can’t pull the decisive clue out of thin air without earning it. Green house paint was green in 1995. Something must change or some new evidence must be introduced between 1995 and 2012 to trigger Marty’s epiphany, otherwise the 17-year journey was a waste of time. Yes, I realize the show beat us over the head with the Detective’s Curse, but having everything right under your nose is different than lazy writing. There is always another way to do it. And in this instance, every other way would have been better.

3. Posers

Why was Dora Lange posed and the surrounding area set ablaze to draw attention to her body? Rust even makes a point of stressing the question’s importance. We never get an answer.

At the start of episode 8, Errol hints he posed the Lake Charles victim because he wanted the police to find him (“It’s been weeks since I left my mark, would they have eyes to see”) and that he is ready to die (“Some mornings, I can see the infernal plane”). That still doesn’t explain why he posed Dora 17 years earlier. He obviously didn’t want to get caught back then, because he sure as hell had his chance when Rust stopped him in the schoolyard. Or does he simply pose a body once every 17 years like clockwork?

Humble viewers could speculate Errol posed Dora and set the fire to draw attention to the Tuttle cult, hoping the cops would discover the child rapists who had abused him and so many other innocent children, who had created the monster he became. Because Errol is surely an outsider. He’s not rubbing elbows with Senator Tuttle and the boys. No, Errol is just another Tuttle castoff, a bastard child whose father burned his face and scarred him for life, both physically and emotionally. Errol finds friendship in the cult’s other throwaway victims like Reggie Ledoux. Together, they form their own sect, becoming lost in a drug-fuelled, sex-crazed insanity. They hope to transcend, passing from our world to the next through the same ritualistic sacrifices and occult symbols they had witnessed as children. And they intend to tear down the Tuttle dynasty before they go. Dora Lange’s body was a shot across the bow. Billie Lee Tuttle recognized the warning; that’s why he pushed for the task force, to make certain the killer was found without any trails leading back to the family.

Makes sense, right? Too bad the show never bothered to offer an explanation.

The entire cult goes undefined. Who were the men in the Fontenot video? Was Errol even one of them? Was Reggie? Taking down a conspiracy that has spanned generations and involves religious leaders and wealthy politicians is damn near impossible, and the show had already established “nothing gets solved,” so leaving unanswered questions is understandable. But if that’s how you’re going to end the series, don’t spend episode 7 having Rust tell viewers he won’t avert his eyes again, that he hopes death is the end, and that he’s ready to tie things off. We also can’t have Marty going on a farewell tour and Maggie vocalizing concern for his safety in two different scenes. Making those promises to the viewer and then having Marty and Rust simply shrug their shoulders and say “we got ours” isn’t good enough.

2. Errol’s POV

Episode 7’s closing scene foreshadowed the impending debacle to come. As soon as Errol stepped off the riding mower and uttered his now infamous line to no one in particular, the show had purchased a one-way ticket to terrible. But that scene also marked a break from the established narrative structure. Until then, viewers had experienced the story through only Marty and Rust’s points of view.

Well, we had a few scenes from Maggie’s POV, like when she discovered Marty’s clothes in the washing machine and when she considered a revenge fling, but we had spent so much time with Maggie those moments felt like natural extensions of Marty’s world. That scene in episode 7, which started with detectives Gilbough and Papania and ended with Errol, was jarring, possessing all the charm of a microwaved baby.

From a technical standpoint, the scene also meant the series switched from a mystery to a thriller. The two genres share similar elements but are distinctly different. In a mystery, neither the protagonist nor the viewer know the killer, enabling the viewer to try and beat the protagonist to the solution. In a thriller, the protagonist may or may not know the killer, but the viewer does. The question is no longer who did it but whether the protagonist will figure it out in time to prevent the killer from striking again. Mysteries engage viewers mentally, while thrillers tend to be more emotional experiences.

True Detective made its bones as a mystery. Viewers lost themselves in analyzing every minute detail, never knowing which clue would be key to unlocking Dora Lange’s murder. Nothing went unnoticed. That’s what made the show so glorious. Everything — from spiral drawings in Marty’s kitchen to hospital murals and nifty beer can men — had colossal significance, serving to only complicate the riddle. And it all went away when Gilbough and Papania asked Errol for directions.

Episode 8 opened in full thriller mode, showing Errol at home in the worst episode of Cribs ever. Pizzolatto said he felt the audience “deserved a close point of view on the monster.” Wrong. The audience deserved, and expected, a mystery. The show tore up its contract with viewers and then pissed on the shredded remains, force feeding us more cliche serial killer nonsense. It was like watching eight innings of baseball and then having the two teams decide to play football instead.

Showing us Errol’s POV eliminated doubt. The monster under the bed isn’t scary if you know he likes to watch James Mason flicks and diddle his sister. Less is always more. Allow the viewer’s imagination to script its own nightmares. Watch episode 8 without Errol’s two POV scenes. Better, no?

Indulging in Errol’s POV also validated every criticism about the show’s weak female characters. Pizzolatto could no longer hide behind wanting to remain within Marty and Rust’s intense points of view. Errol killed that excuse and put antlers on its head. This is no longer a question of theme. Pizzolatto broke the rules for Errol but refused to do it for the women.

The show had poorly written female characters. Period. End of discussion.

1. The Scars

I still recall watching episode 3 and thinking, “That lawnmower dude is being introduced for a reason. But he can’t be the killer. No scars.” Rust must have felt the same way. Because he stood three feet from Errol on a bright, sunny day and engaged in conversation without noticing scars. And this is after Rust had made a connection to the Tuttle schools and had learned one of the prime suspects was a tall man with scars on his face. Scars so noticeable, mind you, one of the girls at the revival meeting said she noticed them from across a field and that the elderly woman who owned the green house remembered them 17 years later.

Yet I can’t blame Rust, because I didn’t see scars either. Can you? Compare the episode 3 scene with Errol in episodes 7 and 8. The scars are clearly far more noticeable in the later episodes. Errol’s face wasn’t dirty. His beard was a rumor at best. The show’s makeup department pulled some monkeyshines.

Even if one wants to argue the scars are exactly the same in all three episodes, having the protagonist stare right at the man’s face and not notice scarring, particularly when he knows he is looking for a scarred man, is unforgivable. Viewers shouldn’t have to question whether a scarred man is scarred. This is just another example of Pizzolatto playing fast and loose with the mystery genre’s rules of fair play.

Interestingly enough, there is a deleted scene that could have offered an explanation for Rust’s oversight. The scene in question depicts a pivotal moment in Rust and Laurie’s doomed relationship. We learn the reason for their breakup was Rust’s refusal to have children. And since it has to do with characters and not mystery elements, the scene is swell, producing more Pizzolatto gems like this exchange:

LAURIE: I don’t know if you’re mostly good and a coward, or you’re just an asshole who’s a little smarter than most.

RUST: I’d hate to make that call.

So good.

But Laurie delivers an essential line a few seconds earlier when she says, “You have such good eyes for details, Rust. The seams and everything and all the cracks. But you miss a shit ton of what’s obvious.” Boom. He misses the obvious. Had that scene remained, viewers would at least have those words in mind when trying to reconcile Rust not seeing the scars. Granted, it would have helped if the scars had actually been there, but the point remains. Cutting that scene hurts Rust’s cause.

Pizzolatto is a spectacular scribe. His dialogue crackles, and he’s marvelous at characterization and pacing. But he’s a lousy mystery writer. His inexperience within the genre proved devastating. If you favor characters at the expense of plot, don’t write a mystery. Make Marty and Rust parking lot attendants. Because even if you don’t care about the mystery, viewers do. Respect the genre.

NOTE: My next True Detective article will be a spirited defense of the show. After repeated viewings and excessive scrutiny, I have found an interpretation that renders most of the aforementioned complaints strengths, not weaknesses. A slight change in perspective restores the show to its rightful place amongst our culture’s greatest literary achievements.

And all I had to do was start asking the right fucking questions.