'True Detective' Detective: Die Another Day, Ray

Warning: This recap contains storyline and character spoilers for this week’s episode of True Detective.

Previously on True Detective: Sad-sack detective Ray Velcoro got even sadder when he took two shotgun blasts to the chest from some guy in a bird mask, who probably didn’t appreciate Ray investigating the Ben Caspere murder.

Quite a bold stroke of storytelling to kill your lead character just two episodes into the season, right? The only thing that could ruin it is if Ray didn’t really die, and that shocking ending was just a way to jerk the audience around. Yeah, about that…

Yes, it turns out Ray is just fine: He was shot with rubber birdshot, which left him with a few cracked ribs, but nothing life-threatening. So why would Birdman shoot Ray and not kill him? A warning to get off the case? Or does the killer need Ray alive for some reason? It’s all still unclear at this point, and it’s a bit disappointing to see Pizzolatto pull such a blatant bait-and-switch on us. But ultimately, we’re happy Ray’s still around, and episode 3 gave us plenty more to chew on regarding the Caspere murder case.

Related: Get Caught Up With Our ‘True Detective’ Recaps

With Ray still recovering, Ani and Paul do the bulk of the investigating this week, with Ani assigning Paul to talk to hookers and “put those looks to use” — yet another reference to Paul’s hotness, which is almost a running joke at this point. (Literally every woman who comes in contact with Paul bats her eyes at him. Even the hookers!) But as we sensed last week, Paul’s not into girls; a night out with a fellow war veteran confirms our suspicions that Paul is secretly gay, and doesn’t want to be reminded about any intimate man-on-man moments he may or may not have had while stationed overseas.

Plus, Paul and Ani drop in on the decadent Bel Air home of Mayor Chessani, which is basically a trashed party pad for his family. They’re a colorful bunch: Chessani’s Euro-trash wife sucks vaporized weed out of a balloon (“Is medicine, for my eyes”) and flirts with Paul, while his party-planner son throws a naked woman off a balcony into a pool and refuses to cooperate with the cops. We’re kind of surprised this family doesn’t have their own reality show by now. We’re not saying we’d watch… but we’re not saying we wouldn’t.

The mayor is super pissed that Ani (aka “that c–t”) was sniffing around his home, while Ani’s boss makes the very uncomfortable suggestion that Ani put her looks to use and seduce Ray to get info out of him. She even offers Ani a bonus! (Prostitution pays!) Ani mutters to her partner that she’s being treated “like a cheerleader on an oil rig,” right before her f–k buddy from episode 1 comes calling and she coldly cuts him loose. He doesn’t take it well — but knowing what we know about Ani, we’d advise him to tread lightly.

Meanwhile, Frank and his wife are still having trouble conceiving; she tries to, ahem, coax a sperm sample out of him for their IVF treatments, but he’s not into it — and blames her for their reproductive problems. After all, the doctors told Frank that his swimmers exhibit:

Seriously, doesn’t this whole plotline feel more like some forgotten Vince Vaughn-Jessica Alba rom-com than a True Detective storyline? Anyway, it gives Frank a chance to make grandiose proclamations like, “There’s no part of my life that’s not overwrought with live-or-die importance.” We’re still not sure about Vaughn’s performance here; sometimes, we buy it, and others, he seems so miscast, it threatens to derail the whole season.

Fresh out of cash, Frank is forced to strong-arm a construction foreman to scrape up extra money. He also has another hostile meeting with that Russian investor Osip, and suspects he might have something to do with Caspere’s death. And he rounds up the local pimps and orders them to help him find Caspere’s killer — and when one refuses, he and Frank tangle in a vicious fistfight which ends with Frank taking a pair of pliers and forcibly ripping out the pimp’s “F–k You” grill. Score one for manners!

But Ray and Ani finally get a break in the case — quite a break, actually! — when they’re questioning someone and suddenly, the car that drove Caspere along that freeway bursts into flames behind them. They spot a guy in some sort of mask fleeing the scene and chase him through a homeless camp, only to lose him when Ani runs blindly into the street and almost gets hit by a truck.

And the perp wasn’t wearing an animal mask! We never get a great look at it, but based on this image, it kind of looks like a mask worn in traditional Japanese Noh theater:

It also reminds us of No-Face from Miyazaki’s animated film Spirited Away (also Japanese):

So is there some sort of Asian connection to the Caspere murder? (We haven’t heard any mention of any sort of Asian crime syndicate. Yet.) Or did they just run out of animal masks to wear? (There were quite a few left hanging on the wall in the house where Ray was shot.)

Either way, the burnt-out car might offer more clues, as this season’s plot threads continue to get woven together into something resembling a cohesive whole. Nothing as immediately gripping as Season 1, we’ll grant you, but a decent enough diversion to keep us spinning theories during these long summer months.

Loose Clues:

* Speaking of theories: Vox’s Todd VanDerWerff floated an interesting one that maybe the vast conspiracy theories of Season 1 and Season 2 are somehow connected. (Remember, last season Rust and Marty just caught one guy; they never untangled the larger conspiracy.) That would add an extra layer of intrigue to this season, although it might paint Pizzolatto into a corner for future seasons. How many weird underground sex clubs can HBO take us into? Wait… don’t answer that.

* As die-hard Friday Night Lights fans, we got a thrill just hearing Taylor Kitsch say the word “state” again. Texas forever!

* Frank used the words “stridency” and “apoplectic” in the same scene this week. Pretty sure his wife gave him a word-a-day calendar for Christmas.

* Not sure why we’re meeting Ray’s ex-cop dad (Fred Ward), both in Ray’s bizarre near-death fever dream and in a seemingly extraneous scene at his dad’s place. Unless maybe the corruption scandal ties into his dad’s time on the force?

* It looks like Frank’s dead henchman Stan had his eyes burned out with acid, just like Ben Caspere:

Was he involved in kinky sex stuff, too? Is this all the work of a disgruntled sex worker tired of being leered at by gross dudes? (She burns out their eyes so they can never do it again?) In any case, now we know Birdman is coming after Frank, too. Better hope (s)he’s still firing rubber bullets.

True Detective airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO.