New 'True Detective' Season 2 Posters and Story Details

It’s hard to believe that True Detective Season 2 will finally arrive in just under two months, given all the secrecy surrounding the HBO followup to 2014's cultural sensation. The world we deserve has been cut in half however, as HBO reveals teasery new characters posters of each lead, while creator Nic Pizzolatto reveals some surprising new details.

Borrowing the same “We Get the World We Deserve” tagline as the previous key art, the new posters for True Detective Season 2 don’t reveal terribly much, but highlight our main four leads (or at least half of their faces), including Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, Taylor Kitsch and Vince Vaughn.

Additionally, HBO has begun a Q&A session with creator Nic Pizzolatto over Medium, in which the showrunner has already dispelled a bit of the “occult history” angle to Season 2:

HBO: Earlier last year, you said that this season was about ‘Bad men, hard women and the secret occult history of the U.S. transportation system.’ Is that still true?
It’s not, I’m afraid. There’s definitely bad men and hard women, but no secret occult history of the U.S. transportation system. 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. The complexity of the historical conspiracy first conceived detracted from the characters and their reality, I felt, and those characters are ultimately what have to shape the world and story. So I moved away from that.

So far as we know, True Detective Season 2 will follow the death of a corrupt city manager in a fictional California city, amid a groundbreaking transportation deal that would drastically change the state. Three law enforcement officers from different cities and branches of the government are tasked with finding the culprit, only to discover the investigation has broader and darker implications than they initially thought.

Colin Farrell will take the role of Ray Velcoro, a compromised detective whose allegiances are torn between his masters in a corrupt police department and the mobster who owns him, while Vince Vaughn will play Frank Semyon, a career criminal in danger of losing his empire when his move into legitimate enterprise is upended by the murder of a business partner. Kelly Reilly will play Jordan, Frank’s wife and a former D-list actress who is a full partner in his enterprises and ambitions.

Additionally, Rachel McAdams will play Ani Bezzerides, a Ventura County sheriff’s detective whose uncompromising ethics put her at odds with others and the system she serves. The Normal Heart star Taylor Kitsch will play Paul Woodrugh, war veteran motorcycle officer for the California Highway Patrol, who is running from a difficult past and the sudden glare of a scandal that never happened.

Supporting cast for True Detective Season 2 has also been said to include Rick Springfield, Dexter star C.S. Lee, Lolita Davidovich and True Blood alum James Frain, Rectify star Abigail Spencer, Almost Human alum Michael Irby and The Hunger Games star Leven Rambin, among others. Fast and Furious franchise helmer Justin Lin will direct the first two episodes, with other directors yet to be announced.

You can check out the posters for yourself above, as well as the ongoing Q&A, and contemplate the world we deserve before True Detective Season 2 hits HBO on June 21.

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