Colin Farrell in True Detective season two. Photo: Lacey Terrell/HBO

True Detective writer Nic Pizzolatto has a Q&A with HBO on Medium that’s essentially a press release masquerading as an interview, but there’s still useful info to be gleaned from it nonetheless. Most important, Pizzolatto reveals that his earlier claim that season two would focus on “bad men, hard women, and the secret occult history of the U.S. transportation system,” is now only two thirds true. “There’s definitely bad men and hard women, but no secret occult history of the U.S. transportation system,” Pizzolatto told his employer. “That was a comment from very early in the process, and something I ended up discarding in favor of closer character work and a more grounded crime story.” Season one’s time-jumping narrative is also out, discarded in favor of “a more integrated and linear structure.” Both those changes mean that True Detective season two is unlikely to produce the explosion of fan theories its predecessor inspired, which means we’re going to have to actually experience this thing as a TV show, not a mystery that will reveal the truths of the universe. Crap!