True Detective Season 2 Premiere Recap With Spoilers: The Western Book of the Dead

The second season of True Detective begins, in the present day, with Detective Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell) trying to get expanded visitation rights to be with his son. He and the lawyer discuss Ray’s ex-wife, who was pregnant with their son when she was attacked and raped. Ray offers her a stack of cash to speed up the process, but she turns it down.

Then in a flashback, Ray is seen in his old sheriff’s uniform. He meets Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn) at a bar, though it’s clear Frank is from the other side of the tracks. Regardless, he reveals the identity of Ray’s wife’s rapist, and asks for nothing in return. “Maybe we’ll talk sometime, maybe not,” he says.

Back in the present, Frank either owns or has a huge stake in a popular casino. He learns of some sort of an upcoming newspaper series that aims to expose corruption, and tells his guy to “put Velcoro on it.” Later, at a gala-like event, Frank discusses the news series with guests, who are wondering what happened to City Manager Ben Caspere.

After the arrival of the mysterious Osip (Timothy V. Murphy), Frank begins his presentation on an enormous new city development, for which the “feds have guaranteed cost coverages.” Frank has a private conversation with Osip later, who is reluctant to close on their previously agreed-upon deal in Caspere’s absence.

At Ray’s office, his co-workers are concerned about both the news series and the disappearance of Caspere as well. Ray goes to Caspere’s enormous, eclectically decorated home, to find it ransacked, with Caspere’s computer and Caspere himself nowhere to be found. Ray tells his partner that they’ll have to report a kidnapping.

Elsewhere, Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams) is in a brief dispute with a lover over something unspecified that just went wrong in the bedroom. She kicks him out, and then heads to work, a sheriff herself. Ani leads a group in a sort of brothel bust – only to find her sister working there. The girls in the house perform for webcams and all appear to be legal Americans, so the bust is null.

Ani pulls her sister Athena (Leven Rambin) aside, furious with her over her latest life decisions. Athena claims to be “totally clean,” but Ani thinks she should change that, by getting back on her prescription meds.

Sometime later, Ani and her partner are sent to deliver foreclosure papers to a homeowner nearby, who is annoyed to find police officers working as deliverymen instead of searching for her missing sister, who was last seen working for “some religious thing” – the Panticapaeum Institute.

Ani goes to the Institute and asks around about the missing woman, but doesn’t learn much. Her father (David Morse) is a religious leader there, and they argue about Athena, with Ani wanting him to take more responsibility. He believes that Ani’s life is full of choices made to defy him.

Also, in an unrelated flashback – Officer Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch) is patrolling the roads on motorcycle, when he pulls over a swerving driver, a beautiful young woman with an ankle monitor. She offers to “trade” him something in order to be let off the hook. He declines, but the woman later files a claim that he solicited a sex act from her. The surrounding scandal causes Paul’s boss to put him on administrative leave.

Back in the present that afternoon, we see Ray parked outside the home of the man who raped his wife many years ago, drinking. He puts on a cliché robber’s mask, and breaks into the apartment. From a wide view, all we see is the outside of the building, as a serious beating is heard. Next, Ray goes to his son’s school to give him a present and is furious to learn that his son is being bullied. He harasses his son until he reveals the name of the tormenter.

He uses his work connections to track down the bully’s home. There, he convinces the boy’s father at the door that he just wants to talk to the bully about a misunderstanding. Then, he grips the kid in a headlock, while pummeling the father with brass knuckles. He threatens to violently kill both parents if the kid ever bullies anyone ever again.

That night, Paul returns to his girlfriend’s place to find her waiting for him in the bedroom. He begs her to let him take a shower first, where he takes a pill and a very long shower before returning to her. Afterwards, he leaves, doing his best to convince her that he’s not messing around with another girl. He gets on his motorcycle, and proceeds to drive faster and faster down the highway.

All the while – throughout the entire episode – a vehicle is periodically shown on the highway, with a propped up corpse of a man in sunglasses in the back seat. Paul exceeds 100 mph before eventually swerving off the road, right where the body has been propped up again, this time on a bench. He calls it in to the authorities.

Meanwhile, Ray and Frank meet at a bar together to exchange their Caspere updates. Frank thinks Ray needs to find a woman, and shares that he and his wife are about to try in vitro fertilization. Ray continues to get drunk after Frank leaves, ultimately falling asleep at the bar – until he gets a call about Caspere’s found body.

Ani, having just been kicked out of the closing casino after a similar night of drinking, gets a call about Caspere as well. She, Ray, and Paul all ultimately meet at the site of Caspere’s body, where it’s clear that his body was bled out somehow – in addition to his eyes being burned away. The three of them list their titles and look at each other suspiciously.