True Detective Pikachu Proves That Sometimes the Internet Can Be Good

True Detective Pikachu: these words just go together. It’s like a Jeopardy Before & After clue custom engineered for extreme virality—guaranteed to get written about by pop culture sites and shared throughout the internet as widely as possible. It’s obvious but it’ll also obviously work as a comedy sketch, especially if it’s fully developed and carefully made and if the people who make it take it as seriously as the best parody is. Fortunately Sam Haft, the director and co-writer of this video, and his partners knew exactly how to mash up True Detective and Pokemon as perfectly as possible. The result is one of the weirdest and funniest videos we’ve seen on the internet in a long time, something that easily transcends the punny, one-off joke nature of its title.

“True Detective Pikachu” simultaneously recreates the look and mood of that first season of True Detective while capturing the inherent absurdity of the upcoming Detective Pikachu movie. Haft’s co-writer Tommy Kang stars as a McConaughfied Pikachu, all gaunt and haggard, and nailing how McConaughey’s typically laidback persona turned ominous and foreboding when delivering Nic Pizzolatto’s pretentious, pseudo-philosophical dialogue. Haft and company really put in the work.

Check out the video below, and for more read Birth Movies Death’s piece from earlier today.