'True Detective' Season 2 Recap [SPOILERS] Episode 1, 2015 Premiere 'Western Book of the Dead'

After last year's critically acclaimed hit HBO crime drama series True Detective came to a conclusion, we learned that creator Nic Pizzolatto would start anew with season two. Just a little past halfway through 2015, we got our first taste of the new direction, storyline and characters thanks to the premiere episode, entitled "The Western Book of the Dead," directed by Justin Lin. Starring Vince Vaughn, Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, Taylor Kitsch and an impressive lineup of supporting actors, season two is very different from season one-but is that good or bad? Check out our recap of episode one right here.

You can check out more TV news coverage from MStars News right here!

The new title song is "Nevermind" by Leonard Cohen, featuring similar visuals to the previous season, obviously with different imagery and actors. This is a good start!

Ray Velcoro (Farrell) has a pretty messed up story. We meet his son, who definitely doesn't resemble him, and then learn, in an interview that his wife was raped and had this boy nine months later. He's pretty adamant that the child is his, though we see in a flashback that he got his revenge on the rapist thanks to Frank Semyon (Vaughn), a gangster that believes this "filth" should pay for the rape.

We're assuming this relationship will come into play throughout the season, but we soon learn that Semyon has gone straight; he's left crime for a more legitimate career in constructing a high-speed train and railway. Unfortunately, it looks like he's more stressed in the normal world than the crime world. There's going to be an investigation into the city council of Vinci, CA. Luckily for Frank, Ray is put on the case.

We meet Ani Bezzerides (McAdams) in an awkward moment with a lover, Steve, after some strange play in the bedroom that made him uncomfortable. Ani is all business though, not addressing whatever just happened and kicking the guy out so that she can get to work. She's a Sheriff's deputy that, in the next scene, busts up some sort of webcam house. Sadly, she finds her own sister there! Their relationship is clearly complicated.

Paul Woodrugh (Kitsch) is introduced with an unfortunate exchange on his highway patrol route in which he gets in trouble for letting a celebrity off the hook after she offers him oral sex in exchange. Later on it the episode, we see that he's covered in a bunch of scars and needs Cialis/Viagra in order to get in the mood for his girlfriend.

Meanwhile, Frank and Ray are both trying to figure out where councilman Casper disappeared to after not showing up to work in two days. Partnered with the rough and tumble Teague Dixon (W. Earl Brown), Ray investigates Casper's home and finds a lot of weird sexual items and a wreckage. It looks like a kidnapping, which Ray and Teague shouldn't be involved in.

Ray's the man in the balaclava that we saw in the teaser trailer, shushing a resident crack smoker before attacking Dan Howser, the journalist who published the story on Frank's project, thus causing plenty of commotion. He had to get pretty drunk to do this, so when he shows up unannounced at his son's school, it gets super inappropriate.

Ani's father (played by David Morse) is some sort of religious leader who happens to give lectures at an organization that is involved in a missing person case. We see some strange family dialogue that further explains how messed up Ani's life truly is. She is also very into knives!

Throughout the episode, we see Casper traveling in a car with some sort of a raven or crow mask in the passenger seat. He's clearly dead and we don't see the driver.

Ray and Frank meet up in a seedy bar with singer-songwriter Lera Lynn performing the haunting song "My Least Favorite Life." It's a wild scene: a former gangster that is clearly getting his life together sitting across from a cop that is slowly but surely falling apart.

The same goes for Paul, who happens upon Casper's body one night after almost killing himself while riding his motorcycle at an excessive speed with no lights on. He calls it in, thus starting the main story of the season because Ani and Ray are called in to take the homicide case.

Casper's eyes are missing, but he "bled out somewhere else ... severe pelvic wound." At least we know why the character posters don't show the stars' eyes!

As you can tell, this episode was a bit all over the place, but isn't that what we were expecting? There's still a flare of bizarreness that was present last season, though clearly not as much so this time around.

Overall, you can tell that Lin directed the episode thanks to the action movie shots, which is a good support for the heavy Pizzolatto story development. Vaughn is by far the star of this episode and probably the entire season. Expect more praise as the episodes progress. The other actors are sure to give great performances, but we'll have to wait and see.

What did you think of "The Western Book of the Dead," the premiere episode of the highly anticipated second season of True Detective? Let us know in the comments section below!