HBO Confirms That ‘Moonlight’ Star Mahershala Ali Will Star in ‘True Detective’ Season Three

HBO’s True Detective wrapped up it’s second season on August 9, 2015 and the general feeling was that it well, it wasn’t that great. Reactions were so negative and so strong in their negativity that it cast doubts as to whether or not the series would even continue. HBO only added fuel to the fire by not picking up a third season or even confirming it’s existence.

That’s all changed for now.

Casey Bloys, HBO’s new head of programming, confirmed on Wednesday that Oscar winner Mahershala Ali has signed on to star in the series’ third season. Bloys was speaking at the Television Critics Association summer press tour and added that he’s read five potential scripts for the season.

https://twitter.com/ChrisHayner/status/890333588859666433

Word of Ali’s involvement in True Detective season three started to make the rounds earlier in the summer and by June had begun to look increasingly likely. Ali’s coming off an Oscar-winning performance in Moonlight, as well as a scene-stealing runs on Luke Cage and House of Cards, and his casting fits the bill of a big name coming in to anchor the crime series. Season one featured Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, while season two starred Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, Vince Vaughn and Taylor Kitsch.

Of course it should be noted that HBO has yet to officially renew True Detective for a third season. That seems like a formality at this point, though. We can now turn our attention to wondering who might be joining Ali in the season three cast and what, if any, lessons the show’s creator Nic Pizzolatto might have learned from the critically-panned second season.

Matthew McConaughey, one of the stars of ‘True Detective’s’ first season

One thing that wasn’t working in Pizzolatto’s favor when it came to putting together the highly-anticipated second season was he had to do it on a time crunch, as HBO was eager to bring the show back after it’s wildly successful first season. Yet with HBO not having announced a return date and nearly two years having passed since the second season wrapped, one would hope that wouldn’t be an issue this time around.