HBO’s True Detective smashed time into a flat circle by its blockbuster first season, but did you know that creator Nic Pizzolatto originally intended the story as his next novel? Or that Matthew McConaughey’s Rustin Cohle only drinks eight beers over the course of the series? These are just some of the case files pulled from the twelfth episode of ‘You Think You Know TV?,’ which investigates the occult drama of of HBO’s True Detective!

In addition to pitching True Detective as a TV series over its original inception, Pizzolatto also wrote upwards of 500 pages for the first season, and all by himself to boot, unheard of by the usual TV writers’ room model. The single season arc also famously allowed such A-listers as McConaughey, Woody Harrelson and Michelle Monaghan, while director Cary Fukunaga also went especially in-depth with his commitment.

‘You Think You Know TV?’ is a ScreenCrush original series that dives deep into the worlds of your favorite TV series and freeze frames a few tidbits you might not have known, as with our other installments for Empire, The Simpsons, Hannibal, Star Wars Rebels, Better Call Saul, The X-Files, The Flash, Arrow, Mad Men, The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. Our companion series ‘You Think You Know Movies?’ has already tackled everything from Star Wars to The Dark Knight Rises to The Avengers, but now it’s time to re-open Dora Lang’s case file with some nihilistic facts from our latest video, True Detective!

Watch TV and movie installments of ‘You Think You Know’ down below, in addition to our True Detective entry above, and let us know what shows we should cover next!

Check Out 100 TV Facts You May Not Know!

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