True Detective Season 2 Episode 6 Review:The wheels are finally turning

'Church of Ruins' stays true to the title. We get to see the ruins of the system in what is creator Nic Pizzolatto's idea of hell; a place where drugs, prostitution and extortion run amok with corruption as the backbone of the city of Vinci.

As feared, with only three episode left in the series, this chapter of the season sped up things and solved most of the mystery. Now we know all those who were involved in duping Seymon (Vince Vaughn) off his money, the reason why Caspere was holding onto the blue diamonds and how the '92 robbery might be related to the Vinci Mayor's kids.

'Other Lives' gave a new lease to otherwise dull series and 'Church of Ruins' has carried it forward successfully. All the detectives come back to ground zero and get a new direction.

The part that helped in solving the mystery was the orgy in the country house where Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams) went undercover. The scene proved to be better than the shootout from a couple of episodes ago.

We now know that the missing girl from the episode one is alive (though drugged) and it has brought these characters one step closer to finding out what happened to Caspere the night he was killed. Bezzerides has found the girl she originally was sent to look for. She also manages to show her excellent knife-wielding skills under influence. 

Flashbacks reveal what she possibly went through in one of her father's hippie commune. The scene at party combined with her conversation with her sister show why Bezzerides has so many issues when it comes being intimate and is on guard all the time when it comes to her personal life. She cannot even let her sister know what is bothering her.

I expected the conversation between Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell) and Frank Seymon to go the Reservoir Dog way. But the two instead turn it into a confession of friendship. Velcoro tells Seymon that his henchman is in cahoots with Dr Pitlor and Vinci Mayor's son and pimping out girls. Seymon confesses Velcoro is probably the only friend he has now. Emotional? I doubt it. This season has been teasing us with a tense moment one minute and bursting that bubble the next. The result is we are left with a timid scene afterwards. Watching that scene, my feelings were later mirrored in the expressions of Velcoro's son Chad as he comes to visit his father under supervision— not amused and let me eat my pizza in peace.

Colin Farrell does a good job of portraying a broken Velcoro. The subsequent conversation with his ex-wife when he decides to stay away from his kid in order to not have him know about his paternity shows that he never recovered from what he did to the alleged rapist. Like he tells Seymon earlier, he chose to be that guy.

Did you notice that I am not talking about Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch)? That's because there is nothing to talk about. He is there just to nod and contemplate his screwed up life choices as he talks about his baby on the way. He later steal the documents while Bezzerides is at that Eyes Wide Shut like orgy party and then states the obvious about those documents. Woodrugh is doing absolutely, and probably will not be doing, anything to help move the narrative forward, just as I suspected.

There were couple of confusing moments in this episode of True Detective. First, who is Stan to Seymon? Why does Stan's grieving family matter to him? Will he adopt Stan's son? And second, why does Velcoro keep forgiving Seymon? Even after he gave him wrong name and with the possibility that one of Seymon's henchmen could very well be father of his kid, given that the guy he threatens in jail looks nothing like Chad. 

With only two episodes left, I have decided to not compare the show with its season one. There is no point. What Nic Pizzolatto did with this episode should have been done from the beginning. They would have managed to keep the viewership they built with the first season.

The only expectation from the upcoming episodes, 'Black Maps and Motel Rooms', is that they keep up this pace.

True Detective airs every Monday at 6:30 am, with a repeat telecast at 10 pm, on HBO Defined.