You already know Mahershala Ali invented the color yellow. You already know he’s an Academy Award winner. You already know his laugh is the song of angels (and the soundtrack of so many “Wild Thoughtsâ€). Now you know, for sure, that he will appear in the upcoming third season of HBO’s oft-impenetrable series, True Detective. “I’ve read five scripts for a third season and I think they’re terrific,†said Casey Bloys, HBO’s president of programming. “We have a deal with Mahershala Ali to play lead. So right now we are talking to directors and when we find a director that we want to hire, we’ll be a go for that.†It was announced in March that series creator Nic Pizzolatto was working with David Milch on bringing the show back after its aggressively weird second season, and initial reports started surfacing in June about Ali coming onboard. That casting was confirmed today by HBO at the annual Television Critics Association summer press event. Now two crucial questions remain. Will we get the long ago promised Detective season about “hard women, bad men and the secret occult history of the United States transportation system,†and if so, which hard woman will be paired up with this hard man? Form an orderly queue, ladies.