Pizzolatto tried to shove a David Lynch movie into a crime novel and adapt it into an eight-episode prestige cable show that was often paced like a 22-episode network television show and performed like a screwed and chopped soap opera.

This. How unsatisfying the conclusion to this show was. Decisions made at the end made no sense, and characters who should have been smarter acted against their own self-interests. I hung in until the end, and it was a letdown.