True Detective - HBO (2014)

I am happy with where they left the plotline involving Marty’s older daughter. There is no direct resolution, but you see the villain leering at children while painting the schoolhouse, and you hear that he’s had contracts with schools all over the state. It’s easy enough for the viewer to fill in some blanks, if desired. Or, you can consider her story part of the broad background of abuse against women and children. It works well enough either way.

This show was fantastic, every minute of it.
I hear some people complaining about the lack of supernatural elements, and I don´t get that. I think a key part of dialogue in the final episode is the “we didn´t get them all” “we got ours” exchange. There was no way these 2 guys would go against a sitting senator, or uncover a decades long conspiracy.

That those issues were not resolved doesn´t mean they are not in the universe of True Detective and I like it that way. There are things that point to something maybe perhaps being wrong with Marty´s father in law (“everything is sex”), the yellow king might be just the thing in the maze (and man what a wonderful place, that maze, full on Seven and Silence of the lambs vibes) or he might be an actual dude, heading a group of elder god worshipers that allowed themselves to be captured in video.

Both Rust and Marty certainly believe in the conspiracy. That´s the whole point of the “would you do the right thing” exchange. I think the show did great in giving us closure for a 17 year period in which the heroes captured not 1, but 2 monsters, while at the same time implying there are bigger more heinous beings out there. This might in fact pay off in the next installments of the series.

Speaking of which, they have such a tough act to follow…

Edit to add: I also got a heavy Sin City vibe, with Louisiana standing in for the city in the comics.

Pretty much since episode two I’ve been expecting about as much as we got. Russ having a “hallucination” in Carcosa of a giant space spiral came as little surprise to me.

So, here’s the sequence of events for Russ’s epiphany:

  • He has a vision of what looks like a doorway to heaven, or to nothingness – but some sort of opening to something
  • This allows a devil-worshipper to punch a literal hole into Rust’s chest, while saying, “Take off your mask”
  • Rust experiences a deep connection with the universe and everyone he’s ever loved, becoming convinced there is some sort of afterlife
  • His worldview changes utterly: from full-on Ligotti to “I think the light is winning”

It is a sensible progression, and it does look like the universe reached out to him and said “Dude, drop the cynical act (the mask).” The thing that bothers me is that it was so very sudden. Seven and nine-tenths episodes of “realist” Rustin, followed by a last minute conversion. If they were going to redeem him, I wish there had been more foreshadowing or a bit of a gradual process. As is, it felt like the typical Hollywood tendency to turn every ending into a happy one.

By the way, it bothers me that I am criticizing this show. I definitely don’t want to be “that guy” who makes it a point to find fault with anything universally, and correctly acknowledged as great. But this bit bugged me :)

I’m not sure how obvious it was, but the wormhole thing is very much in the shape of the spiral of the cultists.

I wasn’t expecting any supernatural elements, but the final episode was so by the numbers. You’ve got your inbred redneck serial killer, the random solution that’s been there this whole time, the climatic showdown followed by redemption for the protagonists. There’s character development, but none of it felt earned.

I’d still consider it a good show overall, and worth watching, but I don’t really get understand the point of view that considers the final episode a good one.

I disagree. It would only be a very short step beyond what was already shown and implied up till the last episode to flip that switch, imo. It wouldn’t even require additional SFX, honestly. Then again, I’m not sure why even that is such a dealbreaker since, as has been pointed out ad-naseum, whether or not the heroes actually won the day was irrelevant (it’s all about the characters etc.). I don’t think adding an additional layer of unwinnability to the endgame cheapens anything in that regard - with the caveat that it was administered tastefully (and based on what we’ve seen, why wouldn’t it have been?) - and let’s perhaps stop suggesting outright that such an outcome was “unearned” while we’re at it; I’d argue sufficient groundwork was clearly and slavishly crafted from the jump.

Incidentally I liked the ending, and while Cohle first surviving and then having his heart grow three sizes that day was a little jarring to me, I felt that was earned as well.

Yeah, I loved the show we got, but I would also love a show as well made as this one that did go into the supernatural. In fact my ideal Lovecraft-inspired supernatural horror show would basically be identical to this one for the first half.

And I don’t understand the point of view that considers it a bad one. ;)

Though to be fair it didn’t reach the previous high points of the show, but I won’t really hold that against them too much. I liked Rust’s speech and Marty breaking down and crying in front of his family while trying to say he’s fine. I think maybe Marty’s character change at the end is finally realizing that he’s been an asshole and what he lost for the past decade.

My roommate has just started watching. He has a habit of starting a show or movie on the projector in the basement, then just walking upstairs to use the bathroom or get a drink or whatever WITHOUT PAUSING THE SHOW. He does it all the time, but doing it with this show may be my breaking point where I snap and kill him. Nice knowing you all.

Exactly my feelings on the show and this series. So much better than any 2013-14 movie.

It is interesting the perspective we all bring into something like this that ends up forming our interpretation of what has occurred. Such as interpreting Rust’s description of what he felt during the coma as “the afterlife” or “God”. I’m not sure that is what Rust, himself, interpreted it as and it is in no way inconsistent with his previous points of view.

That “warmness” and emotion he experienced is something he always had within. But it was bundled tight and suppressed, as humans tend to do, especially when faced with such trauma as he had. While in his coma he simply let go - no sensory or outside elements to stifle the thoughts and no cognizant will or actions to keep the emotions at bay. Once he let go and allowed it all wash over him and he fully (re-)experienced the moving “light” of love without any outside interference or consciousness to meddle. I didn’t see this as anything metaphysical; it was physical, emotional and gave him a renewed perspective on being human.

Put me in with the crowd that thinks adding an actual supernatural element to this show would have made it considerably less great. Just because a bunch of inbred, criminally insane villains believe in voodoo and evil gods doesn’t mean it has to be true. That would have really cheapened the show. It ended with a satisfying conclusion that gave me everything I needed to let the story go peacefully into my memory as a great show.

Supernatural Elements

[spoiler]I’m not so sure there weren’t any supernatural elements. In a way, they were hand-waved away as Rust’s hallucinations for those who prefer their detective stories without any fantastical elements. But his visions happened, and often tied in directly to what was going on, like the black hole (the “void” of the title) leading to a Lovecraftian other-verse, allowing The Yellow King in to possess Childress. Childress can speak in tongues, like any good devil, with perfect mastery of accents. He is the avatar of the King.

And wasn’t Childress referring to Rust as his “Priest”, recognizing the dark nihilist in him. Of course, at the end, The Yellow King realizes that Rust’s nihilism is a mask, “Take off your mask!” and that he isn’t one of his priests at all, and tries to kill him.

So, in my interpretation, The Yellow King possesses Childress, and influences him through the sacrifices and the disturbing crypt/altar, which creates a direct link to Carcosa. This is only visible to poor, brain-damaged, nihilist Rust. And that’s my story; I’m sticking to it. And the amazing thing is that you can see the story my way and be perfectly satisfied with the Lovercraftian influence, or you can ignore it and be perfectly happy with a well-done noir detective story.[/spoiler]

The “take off your mask” line was another echo from the original Chambers stuff, from the story The Mask:

“Camilla: You, sir, should unmask
Stranger: Indeed?
Cassilda: Indeed it’s time. We have all laid aside disguise but you
Stranger: I wear no mask
Camilla (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No Mask? No Mask!”

I liked the ending. I liked the ambiguity. I didn’t like the dangling plot threads (the daughter, the Tuttles), but eh. Like someone said above, it really was mostly a character study. The mysteries were almost extraneous.

The daughters were only dangling plot threads because we made them into dangling plot threads.

— Alan

Eh, I disagree. And I misspoke- it wasn’t daughter(s), plural, it was just the one. The implications of her being abused were brought up and made the focus of a scene on at least three separate occasions, and in the end didn’t really go anywhere.

So, on rewatch I think I’ve changed my mind regarding Cohle’s final monologue. I should have known better than to wear my reductive hat when watching this show. It has subverted, or at least used, genre conventions/tropes to further its thematic message all along, so why I didn’t I give it the benefit of the doubt at the end? That’s a failing on my part.

As soon as I heard what sounded like Cohle proclaiming the presence of an afterlife I immediately crossed my arms and put on my grumpy face. I knee-jerked into thinking the show was using the played out near-death experience as a way for Rust to “find the light” and embrace the presence of an afterlife, thereby allowing him to shed is nihilistic skin.

But that wasn’t it at all. If our personalities, our identities are just “stories we tell ourselves” Rust’s experience in the darkness, remembering the warmth of his daughters love allowed him to reduce all of existence to the one story: “there is only one story, light versus dark.” He was ready to see that there is light in the world, that there is more than total darkness. He was ready to tell himself a different story.

Strummer said it best:

Sorry if this was already clear to everyone else, I just didn’t see it at first glance, and I needed to work it out. Thank you guys for helping me do that!

EDIT: I suppose this is what Pizzolatto means when he says Rust’s revelation at the end is just physics:

Hart even spent part of the episode digging for the deepest part of Rust, where he clearly suspected warmth/something different existed. He basically stated “you only had sex with maggie because you cared about her”. Rust got snippy there because Hart was right.

So who was the Yellow King? And who was Carcosa?

And what is with the Black Hole / Worm Hole vision that Rust saw in the final episode?

That’s how I see it. Some of us wrote our own stories, but that doesn’t mean they were there.