True Detective ended pretty much exactly how I thought it was going to end. Except for that optimistic bent. That was probably the show's only real surprise. Nic Pizzolatto said in an interview that he had no desire to pull a fast one over on his audience and that the show wasn't "trying to outsmart you." I wonder to what degree director Cari Joji Fukunaga agreed with that sentiment, since most of the "clues" fans were so focused on were visual, all of the little details that were meant to catch your eye and make you think. But the story, as written, never promised us any more than what we got. Personally, it felt like too much of the punch of this story landed in episode six. It was never really interested in the mystery, so the last two episodes feel like a couple of guys cleaning up after the party was over.

Everything I want to say's in that hulk piece. Dude's unreasonably articulate. The mystery and the procedure was always a fun device, but was never what the show was about.

It's not beholden to a conditioned audience that assumed it was all for some other end. Deserves it's own merits.

The time jumps did nothing for me, one way or another.  Didn't NOT like them but they seemed the least important aspect of the show to me.

Yeah, leaving stuff unanswered bothers me a lot. I hate how the show can be like, "LOL fuck you it was never about the answers!" after spending several weeks building up how mysterious and complex the answers were.

For a show whose apologists have decided was "never interested" in being a procedural/mystery, it sure spent a goddamn lot of time focusing on the procedure and mystery.

I like how everyone's (not just here) wondering why the internet decided there must be some significance to the clues, as if every episode they didn't keep harping on the clues, adding a new one, stepping back and inviting us to try to suss out the big picture with them. Still, I wonder how much it sucked to be the filmmakers and see the internet hyping themselves up in a way you knew you weren't going to pay off.

At any rate, I thought it was fine since it did lead to a solved case, albeit an ultimately fairly straightforward one. I'm a little disappointed they didn't push the weird tales aspect more (and/or that they introduced it at all if they didn't care to actually do it), but maybe the next season will explore that more. And maybe not. I thought it was well made and I liked the performances and their relationship, and I didn't really think about it in the intervening weeks so I hadn't built up too much expectation, so, meh. I'll watch season two.

EDIT: Honestly, it's the Yellow King business that screwed things up. Take that out and you've got a show that lives up to its title -- true detective work is messy, can take decades to solve a case if you manage to solve it at all, and it often doesn't give all the answers or give you what you need to take down all the bad guys. On that level, I like it a lot. It was just the ill-advised introduction of a very particular type of occultism that confused the issue, and got the audience thinking (and excited) about what else the show could be doing instead of enjoying it for what it was.