In Which At Last Rust Smells The Psychosphere

The Yellow King

by DICK CHENEY

True Detective
creator Nic Pizzolatto

Despite taking place in Louisiana, there were no non-drug dealer, non-minister African-American characters in True Detective until last night, which I regard as quite a feat. Perhaps predictably, this auspicious debut included an old woman's wacky, spiritual wanderings of color as she explained that after death, time goes on. Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) started in disbelief at the old black woman's exhortations, which was more than a small irony. We can't rule out the possibility that McConaughey died in 1997 and James Cameron has been digitally reconstructing every single one of his roles.

in the bloopers they trade wigs

It is downright chivalrous of the Yellow King to target only white women and children. The erstwhile serial killer has been the focus of Rust's obsession, even after he quit the police force as a result of being goaded into a two minute sex scene with the wife of partner Marty Hart, portrayed by a downright luminous Michelle Monaghan. Marty (Woody Harrelson) had other fish to fry. His by far favorite thing to do besides hunt serial killers is to recreate the wonder of the first years of his marriage by pursuing mistresses who resemble his wife at a much younger age. There is actually a name for this practice, it is called nostalgcourse.

if you're going to have sex outside your marriage, make sure a vanity mirror is nowhere nearby

One such conquest, Beth, is suitably impressed by Marty's role in the investigation. She calls him to tell him that all week she has been thinking about letting him fuck her in the ass. "Oh Beth," Marty responds while licking his lips, one of the only times he is guilty of understatement.

To someone who is never really offered anything by the world, one super sweet invitation to an evening of anal sex and recrimination feels like a vacation in the Bahamas. We should thank God for such things, True Detective implies, since they are most definitely temporary. Twenty years later we see Marty eating TV dinners and surfing match.com. There is justice, but only the small kind.

reggie ledoux was a bit of a dick in hindsight

True Detective's most exciting scene came at the end of its fourth episode. A six minute orgy of places and events involved Rust infiltrating a biker gang robbing drug dealers in the projects. The exhilaration of the scene, how everything went bad at once and Rust was at his absolute best, led us to admire the sort of dedication such a person must have for his job, to go to a place so chaotic and horrible it overwhelms every part of the soul. It must be how the people who work in Joe Biden's office feel every single fucking morning.

rust's den reminds me of a room I once had entirely dedicated to gerald ford's pubic hair

Some of the writing on True Detective is maybe a bit heavy-handed, such as when Rust starts to whine about how time is a circle with the same things happening again and again. In one of the show's best scenes he interviews the slimy head of a local ministry. (Did you know a group of ferrets is called a business, and a group of ministries is called a porridge?) Rust is the well-known master of interrogation, as his partner Marty opines to everyone who will listen at any given moment by beginning half of his sentences with the phrase, "Say what you want about Rust..." which is incidentally the same way domestic abuse is often described by the victims, or being with Angelina Jolie is often described by Brad Pitt.

the tuttle ministries may have some dark secrets, but they damn sure know how to feng shui an office

This creepy minister, however, takes Rust's measure in a mere moment, suggesting that it's hard to trust a man who can't trust himself in the same room as a drink. Rust sort of blanches before accepting this faithful appraisal of himself, and we are disappointed, watching our nihilistic detective-hero. Even he must bow down to someone.

Recently God gave me a mission. (It was to find a way to coat David Axelrod's glove compartment with the semen of a stag, and I declined.) I asked if I was to receive help in my task. God explained I was the help.

Just so.

if you're going to craft statues to a pagan god, make ones that look vaguely like Taylor Swift imo

Most disturbing and unusual in the serial killer mythology of True Detective are the small wooden art projects the killer leaves at the scene of his crimes. I think it gave God an idea to try to get me to leave a Lego version of the Constitution in the backseat of David Axelrod's car, but if I listened to every single voice in my head, I guess I'd be Ezra Klein.

spaghetti monster jokes are so 2002

There is something aggressive and domineering about crafting superstition and hate into a tactile form. It is ironic that True Detective replaced the most racially diverse show on television, Treme, although it is no surprise that audiences did not fully take to a drama in which nearly half the cast seemed to be perishing of cancer or Katrina at any given moment. The hurricane's effects are given short shrift in True Detective; Rust explains that it must have been fantastic cover for the killers to take children, and everyone moves on.

Treme was actually quite a hopeful story, in the end, even though that white woman did not get to keep the name of her restaurant and everyone that had cancer died, and the after-school music program got cut for budgetary reasons. OK, actually, the non-saxophone parts of Treme were a bit dispiriting, but at least there was a lively, vivid, fully realized world at its center. True Detective, as Rust says of a parish he visits in the show's pilot, is just someone's memory of a place rather than the thing itself.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording. He is a writer residing for the most part in the spirit world, the rest of the time you may contact his wife Lynne for his exact whereabouts. You can find an archive of his writing on This Recording here.

"The Well of Youth" - Alasdair Roberts & Robin Robertson (mp3)

"A Fall of Sleet" - Alasdair Roberts & Robin Robertson (mp3)

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)