Just caught the episode. Pretty intense.

Later dude.

Last night was great!

Even though I have absolutely NO CLUE about what's going on I am hyped for next week's finale...

It seems poetic that Taylor Kitsch's character died in the most cliched way possible: shot in the back by a semi major character waiting behind a locked door of one of the MANY exits from the tunnels. At least we wont have that terrible character to bog down the Finale. Seriously, it is like a stereotype and a cliche had a baby.

The rest of the episode was great. This could have been a great 5 episode season. Pretty bad when you can cut 3 episodes worth of stuff from an 8 episode season.

Who shot Riggins?

I don't even know who that was.

Paul Raines

Old dirty cop that was introduced earlier this season. On another note, this whole thing is convoluted as hell. The pieces dont so much fall together as they were melted down and poured into a mold. This is what we learned last night through all that forced exposition:

The whole thing really started back in 1992, when Dixon and Burris killed two people in a jewelry store robbery. Burris and Dixon got away with the blue diamonds from the jewelry store, though the jewelry store owners were killed, leaving their two kids orphaned (the kids were hiding at the time). Burris, Dixon — and their commanding officer at the time, Holloway — teamed up with the city accountant, Ben Caspere, and used those diamonds to work their way into Vinci’s government via the crooked Mayor Chessani. They were rewarded with six-figure salaries.

The existing plot hole here — or at least, a source of confusion — is why Caspere still had the diamonds in his safe deposit box if they supposedly gave them to Chessanni in exchange for jobs in Vinci?

The important thing here is that Caspere did still have the diamonds, which was the only piece of evidence remaining linking Dixon and Burris to the double homicides. Tascha — one of the prostitutes, and Caspere’s supposed girlfriend — knew about the diamonds and was going to use them to blackmail them. The blood of Tascha, in turn, ended up on the walls of that little shack out in the middle of nowhere.

That jumped out at me too. How did the dude know that he was going to come out that particular door? It looked like Woodrue basically chose a random tunnel ladder to climb after the shenanigans in the subway tunnel.

Also, as an utter but indicative nitpick, I just have to say to Rachel McAdams: it's pronounced 'FEEF-dom'.

I caught the Fiefdom flub too.

Great synopsis on the blue diamonds, Raged. I couldn't ever figure out who covered it up or what they have to do with now. I know Caspere had them but why he was killed for them isn't clear. I figured it was solely because he had compromising sex tapes of big wigs.

oh yea! Hahahaha, I knew something was wrong there. But I was way too high to have figured it out at the time.

Yes, they could 'have'. :)

I cannot take credit for it. I copied it from the Uproxx tv section. (I refuse to call it the warming glow as it has been a gawker/buzzfeed knock off for years now.)

What really pisses me off is that the connections are so god damn convoluted, but there is still a gaping plot hole of why the diamonds are still around.

I think Laura killed Caspre and I think Holloway has the diamonds.

Redditor speculates that Burris shot Woodrugh with one of the weapons stolen from Velcoro

I'd say that wasn't a big deal but these "True Detective's" keep breaking the law and making it really hard for everything to just "go away" in the end.

One of the best episodes of season 1 was "the shootout" where Cole instinctively set everything up within seconds of the two cops taking justice into their own hands.

As much as I want to love this show these clowns just don't have to ability to pull you in like McConaughey did.