« In Which Woody Harrelson's Toupee Is The Cruelest Animal »

Home Life

by ALEX CARNEVALE

True Detective
creator Nic Pizzolatto

Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson) has a very efficacious mistress. "The key to a healthy marriage," he intones to his partner on the police force Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey), is adultery. Marty's distinctive characteristic is the lack of any dominant aspect in his personality, plus his occupation: a Louisiana homicide detective in the 90s.

Playing against type, Harrelson inserts a markedly different litany of tics and reactions here, embodying a more subdued role; his partner's expression remains unmoved by these toned-down versions of his trademark hysterics. Harrelson appears more youthful by simply not having to give his usual hyperactive line readings. He and McConaughey are a model of the angels that ride men's shoulders, and there is something quite absolute about them both, a solemnity that is only belied by their respective cycling of hairstyles.

The killer ends a woman (a prostitute, how'd you know?) and attaches her, posed, to the antlers of an elk. The detectives find an image of this beast on the walls of a burned down church, and pursue those responsible, while realizing the perpetrator may... strike again. It's supposed to feel familiar.

Thrown together, quietly grateful each is not the other, Harrelson and McConaughey begin to ape their partner's behavior at the strangest times, and their combined hair slowly coalescences into one horrible combover between them, bad enough that it should have itself been a crime worse than murder.

For his part, Rust Cohle is a physical marvel who beats on three men at a time. Rust has a major dark side, sounding like Nietzsche after only one beer. He is also a terrible alcoholic and drug addict dating back to his days catching drug dealers. You could spend a long time searching for wherever the plastic surgeon had to cut to restore MM to his full, robust beauty, but after four years as an undercover cop and/or playing opposite Kate Hudson, he probably deserves it.

Harrelson's wife is portrayed by Michelle Monaghan, a sort of dreary woman of fate who demands too much from all the people around her. Her intimates react to these stipulations by giving her everything except what she actually wants. Michelle's earthy sexuality is deliberately muted so that we may forgive her husband for straying. He wants his home to be a place of peace, and his wife is challenged to fulfill this desire by every aspect of her nature.

It is shortly after this that Marty begins to mirror his more desiccated partner, drinking and wandering off on a lark. Monaghan sometimes shouts at her husband, but this is too direct to get his attention. He responds by lecturing her, the wrong instinct. The drinking worsens, you can guess who he calls:

In contrast to his wife, his mistress Lisa Tragnetti (Alexandra Daddario) is adventurous and carefree. She consistently exceeds Marty's expectations, so much so that he has learned it is most ethical to dial back her ambitions. He does want to leave his wife for her, but he must make sure the grass is really greener.

For obvious reasons, Marty does not feel all that comfortable in a church, although the concept of atheists patrolling the stomping grounds of believers only briefly gets its due in True Detective. For the most part, there is an odd lack of belief in anything even before the horrors of the case unfold.

Louisiana is a terrible site of murder and prostitution, it can no long be glamorized as in the light musicianship of Treme or the sally vampires of yore. Treme took up disappointment as a theme; True Detective hopes for a way to skate above the negativity by ignoring the racial and governmental dilemmas that most likely caused these problems in the first place. Killing can now just be death-making. It is a relief to be anything important in these environs, and minor kings populate the retinue.

Treme contained several positive white characters, a delicate minority. There is not really much in the way of people of color when the investigation into the elk/woman murder begins in 1995, but two black detectives interview the cops long after the events being described.

True Detective falls apart during these cheesy interviews from the Present Day, where the main actors in the drama reveal their opinions about the past. These are far and away the worst parts of the show, both because they endlessly repeat churlish summations of how great a detective Rust is and because such concepts add a campy note absent from the time where Woody will ever be young:

In one scene Marty visits his self-loathing father-in-law, who prowls a lovely estate with a scenic pond, looking like a mongoose in the sunlight. He is unhappy despite all the things he possesses, and in that witnessing that, Marty feels both vindicated and disgusted by how bad we can make our lives. These sorts of dioramas reappear frequently, a familiar trope. True Detective mimics its source material as often as the characters in the milieu seem purposed to repeat something ineffable. We know virtually every serial killer story, although the final catharsis remains unique to its creator. The reflection generally contains the more consummate truth.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording.

"Bitter Sweet" - Alexandra Stan (mp3)

"All My People" - Alexandra Stan (mp3)