Ani and Ray are opening up to each other about their formative traumas. When better to do this than after sex? Ani’s abuse is like a “black hole” in her memory, but she remembers getting into the van voluntarily, because the man called her pretty and she liked it. She felt proud, and now whenever she feels like that, she feels sick. Ray again recounts how he got the wrong guy. Both absolve the other. Morning comes and Ray calls Paul. Burris answers, much to Ray’s surprise. Ray admits he knows about the diamonds, which scares Burris. He plays cool, and offers to work it out. Ray will meet him at the police department, but Burris wants to stop by to see him, figure this out now. Ray hangs up and tells Ani about Paul. The two plot their next move and conclude (somewhat randomly) that Laura’s brother, Len, was the set photographer. They think the kids have the hard drive.
The pair sneak into Len’s yard and through the window they see the crow mask. They enter and find photos of Burris and Holloway in a makeshift dark room. A female calls for Len and the detectives find Laura handcuffed to the wall. They unchain her and she shares her whole, sad story. She and Len were separated, went to various group homes and foster homes. She ran away when she was 16, worked the streets, and met Tony Chessani through Tasha, who also told her about the diamonds. Laura found Len a few years back. She went to Caspere’s house and slipped a pill into his drink and left the door unlocked. Len was just supposed to get Caspere to tell them who killed their parents, but he got carried away and killed him. The crow mask, disappointingly, was just one of Caspere’s sex toys. Len’s plan now is to meet Holloway and swap the hard drive for the diamonds. The hard drive is blank – it wiped itself as a security feature. Laura fears that Len will kill Holloway. Ray leaves Laura with Ani and goes to the meet.
Ray has to be careful as he is wanted for Paul’s murder, and there is a state-wide manhunt for him. He slips into the massive transportation depot (which looks more like LAX than a train station) and accosts Len. He insists that the better way to handle this is not to kill Holloway outright, but drag his misdeeds out into the light. So Ray meets Holloway and offers him the hard drive and the land documents in exchange for the diamonds. Ray promises that copies of everything will become public if he is killed, and he also wants his name cleared. Holloway admits that the shootout was a setup, and that he works not for Austin Chessani, but Tony Chessani. He also reveals that Laura was Caspere’s illegitimate daughter, and that mom didn’t want either of her kids. This is when Len goes apesh*t and attacks Holloway with a knife. Burris steps out and starts shooting and the whole place goes crazy. Ani, who was there putting Laura on a train to Seattle, rushes Ray out of the hot zone as cops spill into the station. Both Len and Holloway are shot dead.
Frank is saying goodbye to Jordan. He insists that he can’t do what needs to be done if he is worrying about her. Jordan refuses, so Frank tries to pretend that he doesn’t love her, that he was using her. She doesn’t buy it. The scene seems to go on forever, but he finally gets her to leave with Nails, who will get her set up in Venezuela, and Frank promises to meet her there in two weeks or less.
With the dame no longer around to worry about, Frank goes to the Chessani mansion and finds Austin dead in the pool, a poorly staged suicide. He finds Austin’s mail order bride looking for Tony, mentions in her drugged stupor that she was Tony’s “friend” first. When pressed, she says that Betty was there at some point but doesn’t know where she is now. This entire scene was virtually pointless, other than setting up Austin’s death. The audience is left to assume that Austin was killed by Tony, but none of the Chessanis are ever mentioned again. After a brief, angry call with Osip, Ray calls and sets things up with Frank.
Ray and Ani meet Frank and Felicia at the Black Rose. Felicia has a secret upstairs room where she hides immigrants being smuggled into the country. Right now it is empty, so it will act as a safe house. Frank wants Felicia to get the detectives out to Venezuela, and he wants Ani to give a message to Jordan, how he wanted to be there. He knows he isn’t making it out of here alive, but he’s going to try. Frank assures Ray that Blake was the one who set him up and he took care of him. Ani and Ray say their goodbyes and she cautiously takes his hand. It is Ani’s most intimate gesture this entire season, and seems to be their way of saying “I love you.”
Frank and Ray head up to the hooker cabin and enter with shock and awe. They are fully armed and mow down at least a dozen guys – including Osip, who begs for his life. Frank does not spare him. With everyone dead, the men load enormous stacks of cash into bags. They drive out to where a pair of empty cars are waiting for them. The men split the money and shake hands, promising to meet up down south.. Frank sets the hit car on fire, and the two leave separately. During this time, Ani makes a run out to visit the shrink. She finds him suicided in his desk chair, likely a staged suicide, because all his files are missing.
Ani fills in Ray as he rushes to pick her up. They both seem cautiously happy about starting their lives together anew. He is “only” 40 miles away, which means, in Los Angeles, it will take him a minimum hour and a half, likely two hours to get to Ani. But in True Detective, there is no traffic, and he decides he needs to stop and see Chad one last time. Chad is in school, and when Ray can’t see him from his car, a block away, he gets out and salutes Chad from behind the fence. Chad salutes back, and seems to know he will never see his father again. Ray heads back to the car, and notices the ground beneath it is wet, and there is a little red dot on the ground. At first I thought this was an explosive; it was just a tracking device. Ray can’t remove it, so he has a cigarette while he thinks. Finally, he gets in. As he leaves, a big black SUV follows.
Ray calls Ani again and tells her he picked up a tail and begs her to get on the boat, that he will meet her in Venezuela. He promises her he can lose the tail, doesn’t want to lead them to her, and will meet her down south. Separately, he tells Felicia to make sure Ani gets on the boat – he’s probably not going to make it. Ray then records a final voice message to Chad, telling him how proud he is of his son, that he hopes he never doubted how much Ray loved him, etc. He tries desperately to upload the message to the cloud as he drives, but by now he is in the forest, where signal is spotty at best. Ray finally pulls the car over and grabs his bag. He trips, spilling the money, so he grabs the guns and makes a run for it.
Frank takes his money and changes much of it for diamonds. He picks up his fake passport and is getting ready to get the hell out of Dodge when two cars full of Mexican gangbangers attack him. They carjack him and drive him out to the middle of the desert to meet with the boss: Gonzalez. They are mad that his clubs burned down; now they have no place to run girls and drugs through. Frank offers them $1 million to make things right. They take it, and Frank asks for a ride back to the city. Instead, one of the thugs decides he wants Frank’s suit. Frank acts like he is getting undressed, but instead clobbers the gangster. The other gangsters swarm him, and one knifes him. They leave Frank bleeding into the dry desert sand.
Ray is still being chased through the forest by Burris and four military-looking goons. He manages to take down two of them, and keeps running.
Frank is not dead. He is determined to make it back to Jordan. He stumbles across the desert, desperately trying to ignore the hallucinations that plague him: his abusive father, schoolyard bullies, his first kill. He has to keep going, determined to stay strong.
Ray is hunkered down behind a tree. He checks his phone again, hoping the voice memo was uploaded. He stares up at the branches, and a sudden peace comes over him. He jumps up and gives the firefight one final try. It is a suicide mission, and Burris and his remaining men kill Ray before he can even level his gun. Behind the tree, his cell phone reveals that the memo never was uploaded.
Ani has made it onto the boat. Felicia is with her. Suddenly she doubles over, losing a battle to fight back tears. She knows Ray isn’t coming. It is a ridiculous, cheesy moment that doesn’t seem appropriate for this show or these characters.
Frank is still fighting. His next hallucination is of Jordan, so we all know what this means. Jordan assures him he made it, that he can rest now. “No rest,” Frank insists. “Never stop moving.” “You stopped moving way back there,” Jordan points out and Frank looks back. His body is crumpled on the ground a few meters back. Hallucination-Frank collapses as well.
By way of wrap-up, we see that Ray was blamed for the casino arsons as well as Paul’s death. Paul gets a memorial highway named after him. The paternity test comes back – Ray was Chad’s biological father. Tony Chessani is mayor. Geldof is at the rail authority ribbon cutting. We see nothing more of Burris, and we don’t learn what happened to Betty. Not that she really mattered to me, but she was mentioned several times in this episode so I expected her to have some part.
In Venezuela, Ani meets with a reporter and turns over all the evidence to him. He wants her to come testify, but Ani is done. “It’s your story now.” She owes him that, his sons that. (Yup.) She makes him promise not to leave the room for at least one hour. Ani meets Jordan in another room in the hotel. Jordan is holding a baby, but Ani takes him from her. This is Ray and Ani’s baby. She and Jordan don big floppy hats and Nails helps move them through a throng of partygoers as they relocate.
There is no doubt that there were some wonderfully tense moments in tonight’s episode, and a really beautiful edit job done telling the three remaining stories, but this was just not a satisfying ending. Sure, we know whodunnit, but that’s not what “True Detective” is about. There were all sorts of red herrings throughout this season that never went anywhere. There was the whole thing with Betty Chessani, Austin’s mail order bride, and Austin’s first wife. Enough time was devoted to these topics with no payoff. And quite frankly, the escort party angle felt like an excuse to have naked chicks on the show.
I was also dissatisfied with Ani’s story. Suddenly she gets a good lay and she is just another girl, waiting for her man to come back, then raising his baby when he dies? I know, it goes deeper than that, but I feel that we needed more than a few hours to buy Ani’s change. Not so much with the baby, but more the girl-waiting-for-her-man feel.
And, of course, I am furious with this crow mask. It could have been a brilliantly bizarre story feature; instead it was just a kinky sex toy that the killer put on on a whim.
All in all, season two of “True Detective” was uneven at best. A few great scenes, some great performances, but a story that was flat and unfocused.
