True Detective Season 1 Episode 8 First of all, I want to backtrack to why I started watching this in the first place. I thought True Detective was going to be fun. Matthew McConaughy and Woody Harrelson, veteran actors, veteran stoners, kicking back and having fun chasing demons in the woods and swamps. I thought it was going to be a blast. Maltese Falcon on the bayou. Mio mayo. I get a steady kick out of both of these actors, I figured, cool. Sit back, get bent and enjoy the ride. read more: True Detective Season 3 Review So, I thought, wow, what fun. I never expected it to be this much fun. Sure, Zombieland is a rollercoaster breaking at forty five laughs per second, but True Detective was a full on immersion into everything I love in film or on TV. Fuck the acting. Fuck the technique. It was spooky shit with a truly dark harrowing core. I laughed a lot. Not just at the intended timing or lines, but at the brilliance of the darkness. Out loud I laughed. Inappropriate belly laughs at the most horrific of moments. Not because I’m a sadist, but because of the art that went behind them. The venom of the lingering camera after a devastating epiphany. The rattlesnake unfolds in the deep woods. The lawnmower man and his dogs, his sister and his daddy, waiting for his daily water, if he’s good. We don’t have to see the old man on the bed to know, he probably doesn’t need water. Maybe watering, maybe a hosing down, but not water. There’s something painful and twisted going on. But True Detective, they delivered on that monster. Errol Childress joins the ranks of legends like Hannibal Lecter and Leather Face in horror history. Kids should fear him more than Freddy, Jason and Mike Myers, even if he is playing the Cat in the Hat. Childress was conjuring something in that cavelike temple, Carcosa, the one that comes after the drive past a forest of what looked like little Jesuses (Jesii?) on trees, petrified, just off Highway 287 South. The Childress Monster, the man with the scars, the spaghetti monster, The Yellow King, he taunted and he teased before he came at Cohle like mommy’s dearest in Psycho. He is a sadistic sorcerer who can conjure interdimensional storm clouds for a flashback visionary, but he’s also a sick serial killer who’s really good with a knife. If only we had the eyes to see what he’s up to, he’d be past us and onto something else with a knife in our gut and a hot poker up our ass. Evil geniuses, and the half-sisters who love them. Diabolical denizens of the bayou swamp. An invocation to below with the power of innocent blood behind it. read more: HBO’s Michael Lombardo Takes the Blame for True Detective Season 2 Just as much as True Detective reveals the possibilities of power from below, the show gives one of the most realistic depictions of power from above crushing whatever gets underfoot. The conspiracy theory nut in me was cheering as True Detective entered Parallax View territory, the conspiracy genre. I don’t believe most conspiracy theories, but I am a fan. Here is a conspiracy that is being solved right before us. It’s as ugly as anything that’s rumored to be out there and it can only be accomplished by people who are in power. Who stay in power because of these kinds of conspiracies. True Detective gives the most compelling arguments for lying. Because everything is a conspiracy. That psycho bit that Cohle puts on may not scare the Sheriff of nothingman, but the Breaking Bad sniper dude in the woods knows how to make a point. You kind of hope the Sherriff is going to come on board the plan when the detectives show him the videotape on the boat, but he’s still an arrogant bully cop who doesn’t want to get wet. That tape moved him, but there was still something missing. He is aware of the conspiracy, even with whatever he saw on that tape, he’s still hiding something. He is still wearing a mask. He is still answering to something bigger. The detectives who are interviewing Cohle and Hart, (Michael Potts as Det. Maynard Gilbough and Tory Kittles as Det. Thomas Papania, or “suck and fuck” which I’ll never get out of my head), are toes in the foot in the boot on the throat of discovery. When Hart reaches out, he is just as likely to be grabbing at a cinderblock as a lifesaver. These guys are still going on the theory that Cohle might be the killer. The reason they think that is because it might behoove their superiors to kill two birds with one nest, or of course devil trap. Pizzollato does look away. When the new detectives are telling about Childress’ family history, that the woman was at least his half-sister, about the DNA, Marty doesn’t want to hear it. You know why? Pizzolatto didn’t want to write it. He didn’t want all that shit to have to come out of Hart’s mouth. You know it’s disgusting. You know it makes “sordid” look like a trip to Disneyland. You don’t really need to hear the rest. Why go into details you can fill in with your own imagination? Pizzollatto lets you fill in a lot on your own. That is his brilliance. And it’s not like these are written to spare expense. This ain’t Joe Papp. Everything is laid out with elaborate extravagance. The stages are set with wonderfully horrible images and backgrounds. The atmospheres are nightmarish and full. You feel the presence of evil. You smell the stench. True Detective paves it, pays for it and dresses it, but they still take the time to look away at exactly the right moment for you to fill it in. read more: True Detective Season 3: Can David Milch Fix This? As usual, the performances were real, riveting and witty. Acting can be nothing more than delivery. Cohle’s “fuck you man” is a complement purely because of intent. The words obviously don’t say it, but coming out of McConaughey, it’s impossible to misunderstand. Harrelson probably has the bigger arc, in the end. Cohle broke down, but Hart saw the stars. Hart’s “never change” is a full on embrace of pure love. Love saves all. In the end, there’s something past death, a murky substance of loving nothingness you can disappear into. True Detective’s final episode, “Form and Void,” was directed by Cary Fukunaga and written by Nic Pizzolatto. They are a great team. This is going to be hard to beat. I hope HBO lets them do whatever they want in the next season. Whatever.
