In January 2014, WSJ published this article: http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2014/01/30/the-most-shocking-thing-about-hbos-true-detective/
Evidently, Pizzolato did not really respond until the story was again reported in this article from August 2014: http://lovecraftzine.com/2014/08/04/...ti-and-others/
And then, he responded just to say that, yeah, he had read Ligotti's work, but denied that he plagiarized.
Yes, he did! He mentioned several influences all along, but never mentioned Ligotti until confronted with this outright (and still does not do so in his denial statement). Some of it is verbatim, and some of it is paraphrased. It's plagiarism either way. It's just TOO similar.
The portions in question are Rust Cohle's monologues, those long nihilistic ramblings that made us all go WOW when voiced so superbly by Matthew McConaughey. This formed the whole center, the heart and soul, of Rust's character. To have even done something so simple as to show Rust with a copy of Ligotti's book would have been helpful. It would at least have shown he was aware and would have been an acknowledgment of sorts. But Pizzolato gave Ligotti no credit at all.
I knew S2 was poorly written, but I am even less impressed now. I had liked Season 1. I still like it, but not Pizzolato. This guy is NOT a good writer. Yet HBO is going forward with Season 3. Go figure.
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Oh, and yeah, the baby was Ray and Ani's baby. She says something about doing justice for "Ray's sons," which made me think, "but he only had one son...???" And then, when Jordan handed the baby to Ani, and Ani started putting him into the baby sling, I realized they were saying it was HER baby... with Ray. More importantly, perhaps, what was the POINT of the baby? Did it add anything to the story? For me, no.
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