All of a sudden I don't want to watch this show anymore.
That's the thing w/ this show - there's just so much going on here. You either want to hack it and stick with it...or not.
I don't know what it is about TD S2 here, but I still want to keep watching - and this isn't anywhere as great as Season 1. Season 1 was close to perfection - new TV show freshness, the casting, the writing, the dialogue, direction, & everything else you can think of. S2, on the other hand - eh, not so much. Like Batman: AK (game) - it just feels like TD S2 is trying to go for, aim, + do so much on an epic-level, it just all ain't sticking together for so many reasons that...I don't even know where to begin here.
I think it could be b/c in S2: there's so many characters + so much going on, I still have to see where the hell all of these characters, stories + threads go...even despite some dialogue & characters feeling off to me. Namely, a lot of the dialogue feels even forced and/or stilted - often to sum things up; spit philosophy; and other things that make me say, "Characters don't really talk like this to each other!" It sounds more like the writer talking (Nic P.) and less of what the actual characters would say to another. Plus, too many characters feel like Rusty Cohle (Matthew M. from S1) and don't need to be - especially since many are not portrayed as bat-crap crazy; aren't in the Bayou (which was just an odd and interesting setting, so it fit for Rusty's characters); + b/c he don't even have a foil to his character to balance the madness out (which Woody Harrelson was in S1).
Regardless, I think S2E5 last night was one of the better episodes this season. It feels like this show is getting better with each episode (I think S2E1 was the real low-point of the season) - but it just ain't ever going to be on S1's near-perfection level of execution.