Here are my thoughts on the
excellent first season of the TRUE DETECTIVE series. SPOILERS are present of course!
1.) I originally didn’t get into this
series. While it has great performances
and great atmosphere, I found the plot to be not that complicated and a bit pedestrian. Well, after finishing the series, I came
across this quote in Rolling Stone’s review of the series “The journey is more
important than the destination” and that too me is what it’s about. The story
told here is secondary to the people that inhabit it and where they are
operating.
2.) I believe that
distractions play a big part in the story.
The evidence of the recently painted house that is the big discovery
that points them to the killer was there for quite some time but Cohle was wrapped
up in drugs and his own weirdness and Hart with his wife and the cheating and
the fallout from the divorce as well as their dislike for each other. Once they
got back together and got their heads straight, they figured it all out.
3.) What about the
finale? Reading a lot of complaints
today but to me it made perfect sense. Any mystery worth its salt has red
herrings and TD is no exception. Just because
they hinted at something doesn’t mean it has to come true.
4.) In regards to not
catching all the members of the cult, I think Cohle was right when he said they
got the one they’d been chasing. The
murder cult actually broke up sometime in the 90’s but Errol Childress kept on
killing because he enjoyed it. When the
cult was in existence, he was their main servant. He would find the girls, kidnap them and
after the cult had their weird ceremony involving rape and torture, he would
kill them and clean up.
5.) What about Cohle’s
Synaesthesia ? He did say that the hallucinations
he had stopped once he stopped taking drugs but he said that in the present day
to the detectives who suspect him of murder so who knows. I still think that was a delusion at the end,
the otherworldly portal he saw in Carcosa.
I think all the supernatural stuff in this series was a red herring.
6.) Cohle’s appearance before the two detectives
investigating the new case in 2012 in the first four episodes was a performance
of sorts. It reminded me of THE USUAL
SUSPECTS but in this case Cohle was pretending to be a useless drunk and a
weirdo to pump them for info. We see
when he meets up with Hart again that he is still a good detective and has that
storage locker full of investigative material.
7.) Something interesting I
noticed – The drawings Hart’s daughter did in episode 3 (which combined with
some other things made it seems she was a victim of molestation perhaps by the
same cult) don’t look like her having sex, they look like Errol Childress and
his wife/sister/mother/lover
8.) Possible twists that
didn’t happen – One I thought of was that not only is Hart’s creepy
stepfather-in law molesting his granddaughter and is involved in the cult but
Hart’s ex-wife is also in on it. She
murders Hart at the end but Cohle figures her out and get her before she gets
him.
9.) Another great thing worth
noticing was the dialogue especially Cohle’s speeches on human existence. I’ve never seen a detective show or movie
with such great extended conversations
10.) Comparisons with other
shows? Well one I thought of while
watching TD was TWIN PEAKS without the sense of humor but with the odd characters,
the supernatural intruding on a case, and the creative use of natural settings.
11.) The soundtrack by T Bone
Burnett was great especially his opening credits tune. I also liked how music was used in particular
hearing “Did She Jump or Was She Pushed?” by Richard and Linda Thompson in
episode 7 as Cohle meets Maggie in the present day.
12.) This was one of the rare
times when a happy ending made sense
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