“True Detective” Season 2 Spotlights LA City Vernon

The industrial area is the visual backdrop for the HBO hit's second go-around

Just about every pop culture fan who resides in the Southern California area can tie a regional city or suburb to a major movie or television series or book. 

Beverly Hills has been the setting for numerous fictional stories – bet "90210" is one that comes to mind. "The L Word" and West Hollywood, "The New Girl" and the Arts District, "Melrose Place" and, well, Melrose -- the list is long and very localized.

Add Vernon to the movie-TV roster. With the June debut of HBO's second season of "True Detective," the industrial stretch south-southeast of downtown Los Angeles gets to play its own starring role on a major television series, one that already gained fame for using a number of Louisiana settings in a highly atmospheric, very visual way.

Rachel McAdams, Vince Vaughn, Taylor Kitsch and Colin Ferrell star in the complex crime drama. Transportation and corrupt and underhanded doings are at the heart of the arc-intense series.

A series that won't call Vernon "Vernon" -- look for the real city, which is full of warehouses and plants, to go by the civic sobriquet of "Vinci."

"Mad Men" and the 1976 horror movie "Carrie" both used Vernon for scenes while the 1983 "Thriller" zombie dance took place just beyond the city's northern edge.

It's also a long-standing tradition, among SoCalers, to brag when a TV series comes calling in one's neighborhood. Vernon has 114 residents, according to the 2013 U.S. Census Bureau, which makes it a city of notably low population density.

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But will that change when fans of the show begin to arrive in LA solely to visit Vernon and look for locations they recognize? It happened to just about every Albuquerque setting seen in "Breaking Bad," as well as the cities featured in other popular hourlongs.

How will Vernon's star moment impact the industrial, railroad-historic city? Stay tuned: "True Detective" only just had its season two debut on HBO on Sunday, 21.

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