10 biggest TV returns of 2019 you need to watch out for

True Detective

It’s hard to think of a bigger success story turned massive disappointment than HBO’s crime anthology, True Detective. The series’ first season, which starred Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson was pretty close to perfect, a water-cooler smash that was nominated for a dozen Emmys and launched even more “time is a flat circle” memes.

It was such a pop culture phenomenon it had everyone overanalyzing tiny details and reading barely referenced secondary materials. (For what it’s worth? The Yellow King is pretty good. Just saying.)

But True Detective’s second season was such a disaster that most people were (rightly) worried the show wouldn’t return for a third at all. It featured four leads – Vince Vaughn, Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, and Taylor Kitsch – and a messy story that was deeply unfun to watch.

Luckily, however, since this show is an anthology, we can all happily pretend that season 2 was nothing more than a collective fever dream. (And, honestly, it’ll just be better if we do.)

The show is finally back for a third season – several years after its horrible second outing – and things are certainly looking up for the franchise. Not for the least of which reason is that season 3 stars Oscar winner Mahershala Ali in the lead role, and he’ll be playing the same tortured cop over three different decades, with plenty of the time jumping and long-winded interviews that fueled so many obsessions in season 1. If time really is a flat circle, maybe True Detective can recapture its former magic once more.