True Detective

[lepercolony 275]

aka Matthew McConaughey wins an Emmy.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXwCoNwBSkQ

 

seriously, anyone watching this on HBO?  it's pretty excellent.  if so, check out this link that fleshes out some of the mythology the plot is based on -- made me go back and rewatch the episodes that are out so far:

 

http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2014/02/16/3292391/true-detective-carcosa/#

 

The first five episodes of True Detective have mostly been concerned with the contrasting styles of masculinity that meat-and-potatoes Marty Hart and cracked philosopher king Rust Cohle represent. But lurking around in the background is something stranger than even Rust Cohle’s meditations on the state of the universe: references to Carcosa, and a King in Yellow, and in Sunday’s episode, a meth cook babbling about “black stars” and “twin suns.” These details might seem in keeping with True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto’s literary dialogue. But they actually come from someplace else. And that someplace else suggests something interesting about where True Detective could be going.

 

True Detective, on the surface, seems to be a noir story. But a deeper dive into the references that keep popping up in the show suggest it’s from another place entirely: it’s a horror story dressed up in noir clothing. All these details come from a mythology that writers have been contributing to for more than 120 years: an interlocking set of stories, poems, and even a play about a fictional city called Carcosa, that can never quite be seen directly.

 

Carcosa shows up first in a story by the American writer Ambrose Bierce, “An Inhabitant of Carcosa.” The main character is a nameless resident of the city who wakes up in a place he doesn’t recognize, and desperately tries to find his way home. The landscape he finds himself in is one we might recognize as post-apocalyptic. “Over all the dismal landscape a canopy of low, lead-colored clouds hung like a visible curse,” Bierce’s narrator tells us. “In all this there were a menace and a portent — a hint of evil, an intimation of doom. Bird, beast, or insect there was none. The wind sighed in the bare branches of the dead trees and the gray grass bent to whisper its dread secret to the earth; but no other sound nor motion broke the awful repose of that dismal place.” And in an echo of the tree where Cohle and Hart found Dora Lange, and where Cohle finds the wreath, looking like a portal to another world, “A few blasted trees here and there appeared as leaders in this malevolent conspiracy of silent expectation.”

 

He encounters a man dressed in skins, and asks him for directions back to Carcosa, but doesn’t get an answer in any language that he recognizes. Ultimately, he comes across what appears to be a grave and discovers that it’s his own. “And then,” he tells us, “I knew that these were ruins of the ancient and famous city of Carcosa.”

 

In other words, he’s trapped out of time, the memories of his last life lost to him just in the same way that Cohle describes to the detectives in the contemporary section of the story. Whether that means that True Detective is going to end with some sort of tear in the fabric of our reality, or whether the Carcosa story is simply a way of describing what it means to be trapped in the same stories that you’ve told yourself over and over again, as Rust and Marty are doing now with the investigating detectives, we’ll have to wait and see. But the repeated references to the city, and the fact that Reggie Ledoux and his victims were both obsessed with the story suggests that at least some of the characters are trapped in a terrible desolation.

 

And Reggie Ledoux’s name may have some tie to the references to the “King In Yellow.” That’s a phrase that shows up in Dora’s notebook and in Rust’s interrogation. And it’s also the title of a collection of short stories by Robert Chambers, a play described within those stories, and a man himself, an exiled king for whom Carcosa is meant to be a refuge. The play itself is supposed to be so powerful that it drives the reader insane, and Chambers includes only fragments of it in his collection. Those fragments include something called “Cassilda’s Song,” from which Ledoux’s ramblings appear to be drawn:

 

Along the shore the cloud waves break,
The twin suns sink behind the lake,
The shadows lengthen
In Carcosa.

Strange is the night where black stars rise,
And strange moons circle through the skies,
But stranger still is
Lost Carcosa.

Songs that the Hyades shall sing,
Where flap the tatters of the King,
Must die unheard in
Dim Carcosa.

Song of my soul, my voice is dead,
Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed
Shall dry and die in
Lost Carcosa.

 

In a sense, Carcosa itself is a disguise–the King is sentenced to “die unheard in / Dim Carcosa.” But what if that’s the point, that by hiding himself, he can avoid whatever forces exiled him. It’s possible that the Carcosa mythos that’s circulating among both suspects and victims in the Dora Lange case functions like “The King In Yellow” is supposed to: entranced the people it’s told to, building up the legend of the King himself, whether he’s Cohle or not, and providing a disguise for him by distorting his image. Reginald Ledoux’s name could be construed to mean the Second King. Whether that means he’s an inheritor of the real King’s practices, or that the contemporary detectives’ theory that he was a decoy is correct, is for the show to reveal in subsequent episodes.

 

A third potential link to the Carcosa mythology is the Yellow Sign that Chambers describes in The King In Yellow. It’s never fully described, though artists have invented versions of it for other Carcosa stories and works of art. But it’s supposed to perform the same entrancing function as the fictional play. And it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the tattoos described on Reggie Ledoux and found on the women who are supposed to be his victims are supposed to be the Yellow Sign, a spiral pulling those who knows its meaning deeper into complicity, and those who don’t into the mystery that will eventually consume them, too.

 

And then, there’s a short story by James Blish called “More Light,” in which a character much like Blish himself visits a critic named Bill Atheling, who’s been seemingly transformed. Much like Rust, Atheling has a beard that’s sitting poorly on him, and “He had lost some twenty or thirty pounds, which he could ill afford…His skin was grey, his neck crepy, his hands trembling, his eyes bleached, his cough tubercular…If he was not seriously ill, then he had taken even more seriously to the bottle.” But the cause of his troubles seems to have been how deeply he’s read into the actual manuscript of “The King In Yellow,” given to him by H.P. Lovecraft (whose real-life writings referenced Carcosa, too)–though he’s been unable to finish it.

 

Blish takes a crack at the play, and gets deeper into the text. A strange figure comes to Cassilda, a queen embroiled in a succession struggle, and confronts her with the Yellow Sign, but promises her that “The Pallid Mask / protects me–as it will protect you.” “How?” she wants to know before agreeing to don the concealment. “It deceives. That is the function of a mask.” But having put it on, Cassilda is condemned to wear the mask forever, and is stripped of her humanity. There’s an interesting detail in the stage directions, which Blish notes, given both Lovecraft and Chambers’ negative opinions of Jews and black people: “N.B. Except for the Stranger and the King, everyone who appears in the play is black.”

 

So what does it all mean? The parallels between the characters of Blish and Atherling, and between Hart and Cohle, both sets of men reunited by interests in a common mystery, are clear. And while Hart and Cohle aren’t the only white characters in a cast that’s otherwise majority-black, they are juxtaposed with the two black detectives who are interrogating their motives. Does that make them the Stranger and the King, at perpetual war with each other? And if so, which one is proffering the mask? Which one will fix it forever on an innocent woman’s face?

 

The answer may be that there’s no answer. Blish and Atherling each read deep into the play, but neither one of them can reach the end: something stops them reading along the way. Maybe True Detective will never tell us the truth after all.

 

But there’s a joke in Blish’s short story, too, a moment when Blish and Atherling talk about why Atherling didn’t show the story to his wife. “Female common sense would blow the whole thing sky-high in a minute,” Blish admits of their obsession. Maybe that’s true of Maggie, too, and she’ll get out of this all right. And maybe it’s true of Hart and Cohle, that they’re caught in an obsession with no answers, at the expense of themselves and everyone else, but that female common sense, so lacking in so much of True Detective, could have cut through with the kind of clarity Hart frequently laments that he lacks. The story of True Detective is structured like the spiral on Dora Lange’s back, both in relation to itself and the larger Carcosa mythology: it goes round and round, but the city itself can never quite be seen clearly, or its power would vanish. Or maybe, like the inhabitant of Carcosa, Hart and Cohle are going to end up staring at their own graves, and taking their secrets with them.

 

 

 

EDIT

[feel free to listen to this song from the end credits of episode one while reading this thread.  because it's awesome.]

 

". . . Then start asking the right fucking questions."  BOOM:

[Baabcat 1,646]

I was thinking of getting this so would be interested in any feedback from anyone who has watched it

[deterioration 443]

2 episodes left! It's a great show.

 

I think Rust is the Yellow King but he doesn’t know it.

 

It's like a no sleep Fight Club or Will Graham in Hannibal Season 1 with his advanced form of Encephalitis deal. Decaying mental state, vivid hallucinations, losing hours at a time… Rust hallucinates(ed) doesn’t sleep then he’s pounding booze and barbiturates.

 

Thinking about the scar face scene in last episode. (Cohle tries to interview Kelly, Ledoux's surviving victim in 1995 and institutionalized with regressive catatonia, to ask her if a third man was involved with her abduction. She describes a giant man with scars, and begins screaming when Cohle asks about the man's face.) When Rust pushes her she goes “that face… THAT FACE” then bam. While she’s looking him in the eyes she realizes the meanie man with the scars is him.

 

The forest face dude could double as a scar faced dude to a LSD & Meth poisoned person.

 

[techno 3,507]

I watched the first one too early to tell but it immediately interested me when I saw it advertised.

[lepercolony 275]

2 episodes left! It's a great show.

 

responding to your spoiler in spoilers for those who still have to (need to?) get into this show:

 

i'm not ruling anything out, but here's why that idea didn't sit well with me when it occurred to me.  obviously the show is positioning Rust as a suspect, if not an unreliable narrator.  but there's two things that don't let me like that direction and hope it's not the case:

 

1)  as you've noted, it's kind of already been done.  and i feel like the show is so dense and meticulous that it wouldn't attempt to suggest the main twist of the series so early on, much less invest so much detail and energy into expanding an existing mythology (see the link i posted above) only to reveal itself at the end to just be "Fight Club in the South."  either way, there's a reason they want you to suspect Rust, and i suspect it's to set up the emotional payoff when they reveal this was just misdirection, and something else happens instead.

 

2)  if Rust were the Yellow King, there would have to be a detailed (and ultimately convoluted) explanation for why two (alleged) eyewitnesses don't necessarily recognize Rust as the Yellow King.  first is the mental ward girl you mentioned, and while that scene dramatically played out in such a way that suggests she saw the Yellow King in Rust somehow, it's left ambiguous (Rust isn't a "giant man" at all) and i still have doubts. 

 

the second was that guy he was interrogating on an unrelated case who claimed to have met the Yellow King (and gave no indication it was the dude standing right in front of his face, Rust). 

 

additionally, there'd have to be some kind of mask or something involved due to the mention of "scars," as well as the creepy illustration you posted.  not that a disguise isn't possible.

 

what may be more likely is that there is a different Yellow King acting as a narrative decoy (which would explain the differences in appearance to Rust's character), and that maybe Rust is the true Yellow King, masterminding everything from behind the scenes without being conscious of that fact, as you said.  this could potentially setup a nice payoff at the end where Rust discovers the truth by virtue of being a . . . WAIT FOR IT . . . True Detective.  i can just picture a scene similar to the climax of the movie Seven, only this time the guy opening the box realizes he's the one who's been putting the heads inside, so to speak.

 

that said, probably the best testament to how good i think this show can be is that i'm not even trying to guess what happens next -- it's like i don't want to ruin the surprises with my own imagination.

[deterioration 443]

responding to your spoiler in spoilers for those who still have to (need to?) get into this show:

 

i'm not ruling anything out, but here's why that idea didn't sit well with me when it occurred to me.  obviously the show is positioning Rust as a suspect, if not at least an unreliable narrator.  but there's two things that don't let me like that direction:

 

1)  as you've noted, it's kind of already been done.  and i feel like the show is so dense and meticulous that it wouldn't attempt to suggest the main twist of the series so early on, much less invest so much detail and energy into expanding an existing mythology (see the link i posted above) only to reveal itself at the end to just be "Fight Club in the South."  either way, there's a reason they want you to suspect Rust, and i suspect it's to set up the emotional payoff when they reveal this was just misdirection, and something else happens instead.

 

2)  if Rust were the Yellow King, there would have to be a detailed (and ultimately convoluted) explanation for why two (alleged) eyewitnesses don't necessarily recognize Rust as the Yellow King.  first is the mental ward girl you mentioned, and while that scene dramatically played out in such a way that suggests she saw the Yellow King in Rust somehow, it's left ambiguous (Rust isn't a "giant man" at all) and i still have doubts. 

 

the second was that guy he was interrogating on an unrelated case who claimed to have met the Yellow King (and gave no indication it was the dude standing right in front of his face, Rust). 

 

additionally, there'd have to be some kind of mask or something involved due to the mention of "scars," as well as the creepy illustration you posted.  not that a disguise isn't possible.

 

what may be more likely is that there is a different Yellow King acting as a narrative decoy (which would explain the differences in appearance to Rust's character), and that maybe Rust is the true Yellow King masterminding everything without being conscious of that fact, as you said.  this could potentially setup a nice payoff at the end where Rust realizes the truth by virtue of being a . . . WAIT FOR IT . . . True Detective.

 

that said, probably the best testament to how good i think this show can be is that i'm not even trying to guess what happens next -- it's like i don't want to ruin the surprises with my own imagination.

 

I'm always throwing hay-makers at shows trying to figure out who it is. I agree with you though. Fun thing is we'll find out soon!

[lepercolony 275]

I was thinking of getting this so would be interested in any feedback from anyone who has watched it

 

I watched the first one too early to tell but it immediately interested me when I saw it advertised.

 

just so everyone knows, it's a mini-series of eight hour-long episodes -- six have premiered so far, with the seventh ep and the finale premiering in the next couple weeks.  plenty of time to get caught up before the end if you're interested.

[Dattebayo 446]

I've heard wonders about this.

I'm a big Woody Harrelson fan, too.

Aww man, I wish I had cable.

[Palle 491]

Awww man, you stole the thread I was going make... lol.

 

Anyway I really like it. Good acting and cool dialogues, Rust Cohle is an interesting character which rminds me a lot about myself in the ways he think about things.

[deterioration 443]

Have to sneak this in even though 'leper' doesn't want to think about it

Throwing wild ideas about Rust being the killer around got me thinking about my original pick for who done it: Reverend Billy Lee Tuttle. Fits the giant man and Rust's theory, that got him yelled at to never say again or peruse, that the killer is intertwined with the religious BS in the area which is protecting him from being caught.

 

And he places his hands in the shape of a devils trap when we meet him in E01.

 

[lepercolony 275]

why did i just read that.

[Palle 491]

My fan art of Rustin Cohle!

 

About the last episode:

 

Did we see the yellow king in the end of the last episode?

 

[deterioration 443]

My fan art of Rustin Cohle!

 

About the last episode:

 

Did we see the yellow king in the end of the last episode?

Good question.

[Palle 491]

Good question.

 

I mean it kind of looked like he had scars under his beard, like stretchmarks. Very difficult to see... Then he said "My family has been here for a long time". Then we saw how he had circled with the lawn mower... Made me think of what Reggie Ledoux said, "Time is a flat circle".

[deterioration 443]

I mean it kind of looked like he had scars under his beard, like stretchmarks. Very difficult to see... Then he said "My family has been here for a long time". Then we saw how he had circled with the lawn mower... Made me think of what Reggie Ledoux said, "Time is a flat circle".

 

I tried not to read about the show but leper inspired me to see what others are speculating and the guy on the mower was one guess as to who is involved. I think he's definitely the giant with the scars. That's why we finally see him stand up. The scars are indeed hard to see but are hidden under his scruff. As far as him being the Yellow King who knows? From the VHS that Rust stole we now know there are at least 5 people involved. Like the 5 beer can people Rust makes and the 5 Ken doll rape scene that Martin's daughter sets up. Which is odd along with the spiral in their house on the wall.

 

 

 

Did I miss the episode with Reverend Billy Lee Tuttle's death or is the viewer supposed to go with the fact that Rust says he was killed before he could run damage control on the images and tape going missing from his house? Getting old; I fall asleep while watching TV sometimes.

 

And doesn't Rust say time is flat?

[Palle 491]

I tried not to read about the show but leper inspired me to see what others are speculating and the guy on the mower was one guess as to who is involved. I think he's definitely the giant with the scars. That's why we finally see him stand up. The scars are indeed hard to see but are hidden under his scruff. As far as him being the Yellow King who knows? From the VHS that Rust stole we now know there are at least 5 people involved. Like the 5 beer can people Rust makes and the 5 Ken doll rape scene that Martin's daughter sets up. Which is odd along with the spiral in their house on the wall.

 

 

 

Did I miss the episode with Reverend Billy Lee Tuttle's death or is the viewer supposed to go with the fact that Rusts says he was killed before he could run damage control on the images and tape going missing from his house? Getting old; I fall asleep while watching TV sometimes.

 

And doesn't Rust say time is flat?

 

Never noticed those things... That's odd I can't remember anything about Billy Lee Tuttle dying either.

 

Reggie Ledoux said "time is a flat circle" before Marty shot him, that's where Cohle got it from

[lepercolony 275]

updated the OP with a "thread soundtrack."  i love me some stoner rock.

 

 

My fan art of Rustin Cohle!

 

pretty cool man, looks just like McConaughey.

 

 

Did we see the yellow king in the end of the last episode?

 

dunno about him being The Yellow King, but that was definitely the man with the scars.  no other possibility . . . the shot was so deliberate (and technically incredible -- what an amazing use of natural light to pull off a major plot reveal.  really makes me appreciate that Fukunaga decided to shoot on film, which is unorthodox for a project like this).  the only downside is that it may have been too subtle, and the effectiveness of the reveal may have been limited by screen resolution -- i watch the show in HD on my iPad, so while the scars weren't necessarily that visually dramatic, you could still definitely tell they were there.  i'm sure there were some people who didn't even notice the scars if they weren't paying attention or happened to be watching on a crappy bootleg version, which sucks, because it's honestly one of the best shots i've ever seen in any medium.  (ok i'll stop now.) 

 

not to mention the fact that Pizzolatto (the writer) specifically says that the villain is finally revealed at the end of this episode during the "behind the scenes" featurette for this ep.

 

anyway, if we can assume all of that is correct, i fucking LOVE the fact that he hides in plain sight.  and i suspect that his slow drawl is deliberate to make him seem dumb, and therefore generally above suspicion for anything.  why?  in the "sneak peek" featurette for the finale, there's an ominous voice that has a distinctly British accent.  i have NO clue how an accent like that fits into this plot, but if it turns out to be the voice of the man with the scars, it makes for a brilliant double identity.

 

 

Then we saw how he had circled with the lawn mower... Made me think of what Reggie Ledoux said, "Time is a flat circle".

 

that.  is.  awesome.  FUCKING SYMBOLISM MANNNNNNNN.

 

@deter:

i too read a "Martin is the killer" theory, but i don't buy it.  i'm not ruling it out completely, because i realized that whatever this occult circle is, it's known they all wear masks, and it's possible that they don't even necessarily know each others' identities (which is why Marty could execute Ledoux without him ever being, like, "oh hey you're the Yellow King."  same goes for Rust.

 

i don't buy it because i think Marty's reactions to seeing the Ledoux's . . . prison, for lack of a better term, as well as his reactions to his daughter getting frisky with those dudes, and the video shown to him by Rust, are all sincere.  and if they're sincere reactions, it'd be extremely difficult to explain how a man like that could participate in the things these fuckers get up to.

 

 

Never noticed those things... That's odd I can't remember anything about Billy Lee Tuttle dying either.

 

Billy Lee Tuttle allegedly dies off-camera -- it was suggested that he was directly involved with this occult organization (i mean he had the video in his safe, so yeah), and once the others found out his video got stolen, he was offed by them before Rust had a chance to do it himself.  (or Rust did it himself and just straight-up lied to Marty.  who the hell knows anymore.)

 

 

ok . . . now for some non-spoilery info, lol.  just learned it's an anthology series like American Horror Story, so it won't be the same cast or the same setting next season.  that's pretty cool.  it also indicates this season will be a self-contained story. 

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/the-dark-thrills-of-true-detective-20140228

 

dunno about you guys but i honestly can't wait to be dissatisfied with how it ends this Sunday.  there's no way they tie up every last loose end at this point -- which was probably always the point.  either way, this will easily have been the best eight-hour movie i've ever seen.

[Palle 491]

dunno about him being The Yellow King, but that was definitely the man with the scars.  no other possibility . . . the shot was so deliberate (and technically incredible -- what an amazing use of natural light to pull off a major plot reveal.  really makes me appreciate that Fukunaga decided to shoot on film, which is unorthodox for a project like this).  the only downside is that it may have been too subtle, and the effectiveness of the reveal may have been limited by screen resolution -- i watch the show in HD on my iPad, so while the scars weren't necessarily that visually dramatic, you could still definitely tell they were there.  i'm sure there were some people who didn't even notice the scars if they weren't paying attention or happened to be watching on a crappy bootleg version, which sucks, because it's honestly one of the best shots i've ever seen in any medium.  (ok i'll stop now.) 

 

anyway, if we can assume all of that is correct, i fucking LOVE the fact that he hides in plain sight.  and i suspect that his slow drawl is deliberate to make him seem dumb, and therefore generally above suspicion for anything. 

 

 

 

 

 

this will easily have been the best eight-hour movie i've ever seen.

 

 

 

I agree with all of this. The scenery was unbelievable in that episode, pretty much all nature scenes are shot in an amazing way.

 

Something that has stuck in my mind is the episode where Cohle goes undercover to trick that meth cooker so they can abduct and interrogate him. From the point they come enter that house and escape through the neighborhood when things go bad and cops swarm they area... Not EVEN ONCE did they change camera/angle   From inside the house, all the way to the awesome helicopter shot.

[lepercolony 275]

@Kent

ok i know i've been nerding out a lot in this thread but i'm glad you brought that up.  to steal what my buddy said about it (we like to think we're film buffs), "if there was ever any remaining doubt that TV can do everything film can and more, True Detective just laid it to rest. but how, you ask? with a high-tension six minute extended take that went through an entire housing project and then over a frickin fence."

 

i'm a big fan of these extended shots.  Kubrick mastered them.  Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron) has a fucking ridiculous extended uncut chase sequence in a car with a 360 degree camera designed specifically for that shot.  more recently, Gravity (Cuaron again) had a lengthy intro shot that was also uncut (although the illusion of no cuts was surely aided by some sly CGI work).  seriously, i'm pretty sure the first, like, ten minutes of that movie is a single unbroken shot, which is why you're just immersed from the get-go.

 

anyway, i lose my shit over sequences like this just thinking about how much rehearsal, technical marksmanship, timing, and general coordination they require with so many different moving parts.  one person fucks up, it's back to a new take.  i just respect the hell out of any director who attempts it, as the results are always really effective.

 

EDIT

just found this: