I’m burned out on news after last week and feel like I owe you an occasional grumble thread for TV shows that are more ambitious than “The Walking Dead.” Analyzing “Walking Dead” episodes for their dramatic content is like analyzing “Three Stooges” episodes for their social commentary. It can be done, but you shouldn’t exert yourself trying to squeeze blood out of a stone that dense unless you’re momentarily out of other options.

I’d like to think all of our readers are smart enough not to need a warning that there might be spoilers in a post recapping a mystery series, but there you go, in case you’re that one guy. Anyway: Is Velcoro dead or not? After watching him take two close-range shotgun blasts to the chest, one point blank, the answer has to be … yes, right? That was the consensus last night on Twitter. “True Detective just turned into Game of Thrones!” people said, alluding to that other show’s habit of killing off its leading men. I think there’s a fair chance he really is dead, as killing off core characters has become more common on prestige dramas lately (and highly rated but less prestigious ones, like TWD). Maybe True Detective’s producers wanted to show the HBO audience that they could be even bolder than GoT. The TD cast is much smaller than the latter show’s is so Colin Farrell’s loss would be felt more deeply, and not even GoT thought to dispatch an ostensibly major character after just two episodes, let alone one played by a movie star. It’d be an all-time TV mind-fark if the show was done with Farrell already.

On the other hand, skip to 0:39 of the trailer for the series below, released a few months ago online. That’s Farrell behind Rachel McAdams leading the phalanx of cops, right? And I’m 95 percent sure that scene hasn’t aired yet. Either Velcoro’s destined to make a miraculous recovery or he’s dead and the scene in the trailer was from episode two but ended up being cut before last night’s show aired. Hmmmm. Ironically, I think it’ll be more of a problem for the show if he survives now than if they just pull the plug on Farrell and send him off. If he survives via some cheesy “he was wearing a bulletproof vest!” deus ex machina, it’ll make last night’s ending seem like cheap manipulation rather than a bold GoT-style plot twist. The rules for TV nowadays are different than they used to be: If you’re going to shock your viewers by presuming to torch their investment in the hero (or antihero) before they’re ready to part with him, you’ve got to follow through. The whole point of the TD universe is that it’s bleak, gritty, perverted, and cosmically unfair, with animalistic people battling to prey on each other. People like Velcoro should be getting shotgunned to death all the time. If he bounces back, it’ll feel less like True Detective season one than like an Adam-West-era “Batman” cliffhanger in which Batman’s being slowly lowered into the Joker’s pool of man-eating sharks or whatever. I wonder if he’ll make it.

Here’s your thread to place your bets on whether Velcoro will live to see next week — same Bat time, same Bat channel. (For what it’s worth, the Internet Movie Database lists Farrell as a member of the cast in all eight episodes this season, although whether that’s based on actually viewing the show in advance or just a deceptive HBO press release is unclear.) A few random thoughts. One: Vince Vaughn should not, repeat not, be given any more heart-tugging monologues. He’s a good comic actor. He’s a decent dramatic actor in this sort of corrupt-yet-world-weary role, the weight of existence almost physically dragging those huge bags under his eyes down. He’s not a guy who’s going to give you emotional feelz. Let’s watch out with the “daddy trapped me in the basement” speeches going forward, producers. Two: McAdams’s character is a total zero so far. I realize this is supposed to noir-y pulp on some level and therefore we should expect her character to have daddy issues and sex issues and a gambling problem and be the dead-inside hardened detective on top of all that — she’s damaged, damaged, damaged! — but she’s cartoonish even by pulp standards. Even Velcoro, the cop gone wrong, has had a few real-ish moments with his son. Three: I’ve got a basic handle on the plot by now but for about the first 45 minutes of episode one, I was staring down the barrel of Phantom-Menace-level despair. Good lord. What a relief it was to get a few minutes’ respite from Vaughn mumbling about holding companies to watch the gay cop popping Viagra to try to perform for his super-hot girlfriend. If anyone starts talking about tariffs going forward, I bail.