Photo: Steve Granitz/Getty Images

Earlier today, we found out that Vince Vaughn was in talks for season two of True Detective, and now we have another bit of exciting casting news, with The Wrap reporting that Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss is circling the female lead. The article claims that Michelle Forbes (The Killing) is likewise in talks for a key role, and that, as rumored, Colin Farrell and Taylor Kitsch are also nearing deals.

The Wrap has released an apparent plot synopsis, so stop reading if you want to be entirely spoiler-free for season two:

The second season of “True Detective” will follow the death of Ben Caspar, the corrupt city manager of a fictional California city who’s found brutally murdered amid a potentially groundbreaking transportation deal that would forever change freeway gridlock in the state. Three law enforcement officers from different cities and branches of the government are tasked with finding out who did it. They soon discover their investigation has much broader and darker implications than they initially thought. Caspar’s 52-year-old corpse is found on a lonely stretch of Pacific Coast Highway near Big Sur — his eye burned out, genitals cut off and satanic symbols etched on his chest. It turns out he had a penchant for rough sex and may have been involved in the occult.

We also have some new character breakdowns, and true to form, there are more damaged public servants with shady pasts than you can shake a stick at: Vaughn is apparently in talks to play Frank Seymon, a “thug-turned-businessman” attempting to help a local mayor push through a deal for a high-speed railway system, while Moss would play Ani Bezzerides, a “tough, no-nonsense Monterey sheriff” with a troubled upbringing and a penchant for gambling and booze. Farrell would play Ray Velcoro, a tumultuous and “barely functioning coke-head with anger issues” who works for Frank, while Kitsch is in talks to play a military vet turned highway patrol officer — who, yep, also has some issues! — who has been put on leave for soliciting oral sex from a girl he pulls over while on shift.



HBO has yet to comment, but judging by the themes (troubled, loose-cannon types in positions of authority; corruption reaching to the highest levels of government; more than the average number of occult-based murders) it certainly sounds like the True Detective we know and love. See you guys in Carcosa!