HBO’s Michael Lombardo takes the blame for True Detective’s second season

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

The first season of HBO's True Detective was a great feat of television in which the visuals, acting, and storytelling melded together perfectly to create something very special; the second season of True Detective, not so much. To be fair, it was still better than a lot of the stuff we see on TV, but, coming after that excellent first season, it just couldn't compare. HBO president of programming Michael Lombardo spoke with The Frame (via ScreenCrush) about the lessons learned from the "failure" of the show's second season.

I’ll tell you something. Our biggest failures — and I don’t know if I would consider “True Detective 2” — but when we tell somebody to hit an air date as opposed to allowing the writing to find its own natural resting place, when it’s ready, when it’s baked — we’ve failed. And I think in this particular case, the first season of “True Detective” was something that Nic Pizzolatto had been thinking about, gestating, for a long period of time. He’s a soulful writer. I think what we did was go, “Great.” And I take the blame. I became too much of a network executive at that point. We had huge success. “Gee, I’d love to repeat that next year.”

Well, you know what? I set him up. To deliver, in a very short time frame, something that became very challenging to deliver. That’s not what that show is. He had to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. Find his muse. And so I think that’s what I learned from it. Don’t do that anymore. And I’d love to have the enviable certainty of knowing what my next year looks like. I could pencil things in. But I’m not going to start betting on them until the scripts are done.

A third season of True Detective isn't in the cards at the moment, but True Detective creator/writer Nic Pizzolatto signed a new deal with HBO just last year which will see him developing new programming for the next several years, including a possible third season. The second season of True Detective was just released on Blu-ray/DVD, so if you were one of the fans who enjoyed this past season, you can pick that up right here!