'True Detective' Finally Reveals Caspere's Killer

The final episode of True Detective Season 2 wasted no time in revealing one of the biggest mysteries of the season: who killed Vinci City Manager Ben Caspere? Ani and Ray had slowly begun to piece everything together in last week's episode, as they realized that everything tied back to the blue diamonds stolen during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. As it turns out, the set photographer killed Caspere. No clue who I'm talking about? Maybe that's because we only saw him when Ani and Paul visited the movie set way back in Episode 2. Of course, there's more to this story.

As we learned last week, the two kids whose parents were murdered during the jewelry store robbery have slowly been piecing everything together themselves — hey, just like us! The girl, Laura, changed her name to Erica and got a job as Caspere's assistant so she could get closer to him. She has a brother, though, Leonard, and he's in on this too. He's actually the mastermind behind all of this.

After the death of their parents the two were separated, but found each other years later. That's when they hatched a plan to take down Caspere. It sounds like it was all the idea of Leonard, who had a much tougher time growing up than Laura/Erica. He was the one who actually killed Caspere, and then drove him around town in the car, with the bird mask, because of course.

There's also a little more to this, like the fact that Caspere was actually Laura's father. So even during the last episode, True Detective is still throwing twists and turns our way.

This killer twist actually started circulating in the last few weeks. A Reddit thread first started drawing comparison between the set photographer and — Season 1 connection! — the Lawnmower Man who turned out to be the Yellow King. That's all it took for the Internet to catch onto this idea, mentioning that more than likely, the set photographer, Leonard, and Laura are brother and sister, and have been working on something together for a while.

I thought we were going to get a little bit more time with Leonard, to you know, learn his actual motive for everything, rather than just sheer revenge. Considering that his actions are the ones that set off this entire season, I was hoping to get to know him in the end. But then again, as this season unfolded we learned that Caspere's death was merely a tiny little blip in this great, big, confusing season.

This Leonard/Caspere mystery comes to an end at the LA train station (the new one, as its noted). Ray is able to stop Leonard before he begins his original plan of killing Holloway, until the police chief says all the wrong things with Leonard sitting unseen right behind him. When Holloway reveals that Caspere was Laura's biological father, Leonard snaps and begins stabbing him over and over. That's when the police show up, and shoot both Leonard and Holloway.

Is it a satisfying conclusion to this season's main mystery? I still haven't decided. Yes, we got a firm answer as to who killed Caspere, but I feel like Leonard came out of left field. I wish it had been someone a little more familiar to us, if only so I could clearly see how all the dots connected. Then I could look back at this season, and see the big mystery in all it's glory. Oh well. There's always True Detective Season 3, right?

Image: Lacey Terrel/HBO