The credits also don’t shy away from some of the occasionally ugly man-made portions of the region. There is beautiful rushing white-capped water, some cracked, craggy mountains, and of course the bright red setting sun that leads into the season’s main title card. Tom (Scoot McNairy) is introduced with what appears to be claw marks tearing down his face, as he is surely devastated by what’s to come for him and his family in the story.Īs the credits play on, they revel much more in the Ozarks scenery. Roland has the look of an All-American detective and it’s fitting that he should be introduced with some of the symbols of Americana – happy family, comfy car. We see Roland West (Stephen Dorff) alongside some kids playing around a car.
Amelia (Carmen Ejogo) is shown with an eagle or a hawk, possibly signifying her free spirit. Wayne Hays (Mahershala Ali) is overlaid on the woods, befitting his tracking skills. The credits take that northwest Arkansas scenery and then does the old True Detective trick of superimposing the cast’s orb-like heads over it. “It was one of those places that I thought was beautiful and I knew, but I didn’t think very many people knew about it. When I started thinking about Wayne and the case, it just sort of felt like, ‘Boy, it would be great to set this in northwest Arkansas.’” “I always found it very evocative and very mysterious in very tangible ways,” Pizzolatto told us. Modern listeners may be most familiar with The White Stripes’ rendition. The song is one of the most covered folk songs ever. “Death Letter” (sometimes called “Death Letter Blues”) features a speaker mourning the death of a woman he loves that he learns about via letter. When I got there there he was laying down on the cooling board Packed up my suitcase and took off down the road When I got there was laying on the cooling board I grabbed my suitcase took off down the road It was saying hurry, hurry the man you love is dead. It said hurry, hurry the man you love is dead The iteration is so haunting and so perfectly True Detective that I originally believed it to be commissioned by Burnett for the sole purpose of the show. The slightly altered lyrics that the opening credits version use are: This version is a 1995 recording from Mississippi jazz musician Cassandra Wilson. The song playing over the ethereal picture is a cover of “Death Letter” by early 20th century Mississippi blues musician Son House. And so, it’s been the easiest job I’ve ever had in a lot of ways,” Burnett told Den of Geek.įor the season’s opening theme, he has dug way, way deep into Delta blues history for an appropriate jingle.
“You know, as soon as, the first time I started reading Nic’s stuff, the tone was absolutely clear to me. Still, let’s examine them as though they might or at the very least appreciate their artistry. Like the previous two True Detective opening credits, it’s unlikely that these contain any massive clues.
The credits feature an ominous and haunted-sounding folk song as we are entreated to overlapping, ghostly images of our characters and the Ozark territory they are exploring. True Detective Season 3’s almost exactly 90-second long opening credits are no different as it turns out. As designed by Patrick Clair and his Antibody production studio, the True Detective opening credits have always perfectly established the Southern (and one time Southern California) Gothic tone of the show. Hey…wait a minute…maybe those two facts have something to do with each other!īut regardless of HBO’s anthology true crime series’ other imperfections, there is always something consistently great about each season: the opening credits. The wait between seasons 1 and 2 was a little over a year while the wait between season 2 and 3 was three years. True Detective Season 1 was great, True Detective Season 2 was not.