![]() Instead, we got the deconstruction of hipster/pulp cynicism that says heroism is a crock and the recovery of old school virtue we got Casablanca.īut the intelligence behind those masks did fancy itself something monstrous. I thought we would get a grim and gritty climax that affirmed a gloomy worldview we thought we would get Chinatown. Still, in this moment, we truly saw Cohle for the first time: He shed his last layer to reveal the profound grief that drove him. He wanted to sink and dissipate into that deep: “I said, ‘Darkness, yeah! And then I woke up,” said Cohle, despairing that what felt so metaphysically real was only a dream. Rust found some catharsis for the past, triggered by a near-death experience as his sense of self was becoming incoherent and fading away: A feeling of love and connection with his dead daughter and his beloved father. Marty found a little redemption - but not too much - and reconciliation he thought beyond him. Or maybe I’m just, like, a really hideous person.Īnd so instead of losing their lives, Cohle and Hart were rewarded with new life. What does say that about me? Perhaps a lifetime spent consuming stories has shaped my imagination to assume the worst. If you had told me four episodes ago, after Rust’s ugly Crash digression and Marty’s complete unraveling, that we’d get a happy ending in which they’d be laughing and hugging and telling stories about the stars - like myth-making bards of antiquity - I would have thought you were a sauce-knackered tent preacher. Cohle and Hart, flawed heroes and failed men, expected to be destroyed by their bid to pay the debt they owed the world, and so did I. They were as stunned by this turn of events as we were. Cohle and Hart slayed the decadently dandy slumdog (schizo?) psycho at dream’s end, spent a good chunk of time processing their feelings and baring their souls, then exited, stage right, to star in The Odd Couple sitcom we’ll never get to see. The twist ending of True Detective’s bleak first season: a bracing refutation of its baroque pessimism. Together.What happened after Rust’s gutting exposes us as well: the final 15 minutes of “Form and Void” struck me as a Rorschach test for what you want from stories like this, for what we’ve come to call “resolution,” And boy, did we get a lot of it, both implied and explicitly stated, no more so during the last scene, with all of its mansplaining and bromantic uplift. Looking to the night sky for cosmic truths, Hart (Harrelson) and Cohle (McConaughey) again slip away from the authority figures (this time, it’s the hospital) to go it alone. The final scenes, with McConaughey dressed, positioned and coiffed to look like Jesus Christ, suggested more profundity than the show actually offered. Green ears? Green paint? A painter! The sudden rush of clues, leading neatly to the serial killer via work permits and job orders via computer, felt a bit pat after all the soul-searching, existential doubt and flashback interviewing. Much of the gumshoes’ discovery happened by luck and chance rather than logic. The misdirection concerning the suspected pedophile priest, the Rev. But storywise, the eight episodes of this anthology series involved too many leaps and loopholes. ![]() ![]() Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey deserve applause, the creepy littered overgrown and horrific compound where the endgame played out deserves a nod for set design T Bone Burnett deserves praise for the moody, even otherworldly music. But women didn’t figure in, except as a plot twist to establish the two detectives’ antipathy. The mission involved saving little girls, balancing the loss of one of the detective’s little girl. But that’s not what “True Detective” was intended to do.Īt its heart, this was a story of male friendship, transcending macho rivalry and frat boy cavorting to ultimately be about guys saving each other.Ī mystery wrapped in a religious cult conspiracy, slowly unfolded by two antiheroes - one a lying adulterer, the other an addict with pretentious theories about the meaning of life - ultimately was a male drama. Yes, it would be nice to see more top-notch hour-long dramas created by women and concerning women, particularly more women of color. In the end, the naysayers who accused HBO’s “True Detective” of being sexist seem mostly irrelevant. Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close Menu ![]()
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