I thought the finale was fine. The performances made it watchable.
What would have made the series as a whole, storywise, is if the show had acknowledged that in the forty years since the Manson Family, the devil-worshipping trope had finally been exposed as complete bullshit, that the obsession in the 90s South with devil-worshipping boogeymen was a lie. That would have made Rust’s spiritual conversion seem less like the hacky propaganda that it was. When I realized what was happening in Rust’s final speech, I had the horrifying image of what Ross Douthat’s final column on the series would be, figuratively stroking himself to the 19th century glory of it, using the kind of full-throated faw-faw only a Catholic can reach when in lapel-pulling Chesterton mode.
I don’t know that anyone was expecting supernatural per se. But given all the red herrings and intimations of conspiracy littering the entire series, something a little more intricate than the standard battle-the-serial-killer-in-a-scary-dungeon climax we’ve seen a million times before.
Compounded by dismissing the rest of the cult as “just a bunch of pedophiles and whatnot.” If that’s all they were, whence the cover-up, since Childress’ familial connection to Tuttle was tenuous enough to brush off as an unfounded rumor? How come none of these other supposed petty pedophiles ever came up on the radar in the course of the investigation?
On the other hand, if the cop was wrong to dismiss it so blithely and it was a cabal of the wealthy and powerful, then what, these men of prominence were under the sway of a filthy lunatic in a wifebeater and his insane mystical ramblings? This guy is the leader? He can barely keep his dog under control, much less orchestrate a secret society.
I’m assuming there’s a story arc over the following seasons as well that covers much of the stuff that’s been hinted at or just glossed over. It felt absolutely like there was no way any of that was going to be covered by Ep 6, considering there were definitely only two more to go…
It isn’t really an homage. References to the Yellow King play the role of the mythology constructed by a psychopathic cult. They certainly believe them to be real, and it is a credit to the show’s writing that it got you believing them to be real too. You joined the cult.
Probably he picked it up from that vast store of pop media in his decaying house, but in the end a psychopath is just that and why would you expect his ravings to be real?
In the end, this series was about the stories we tell ourselves to guard us from reality – Marty and his happy family life (and angry violence when reality peaks through); Rust and his nihilistic denial of meaning to avoid thinking about his losses; Geraci and his reliance on the chain of authority so he doesn’t have to admit what he allowed to happen to a small girl; and the Lawnmower Man to transcend his life history.
So it was about people and not about Cthulu ascending from the bayou. Which certainly would have been a spectacle, but in the end just stupid and a betrayal of the characters.
Well that was part of the Chambers story “The repairer of reputations.”
And is Rust “the unreliable narrator?” As is typical of that trope, his character was in a mental hospital. But rust had the video tape and photos of victims as proof it wasn’t all his fantasy.
But a lot of that has come true by way of cocaine fueled drug cartels who have their own brand of death worship, which first popped up in the case where college students were being cannibalized just south of the Texas border in the 80s
By the way, the killer was armed with a “lathe hatchet.”
You should try reading The King in Yellow. I began it recently, thanks to this show. The idea that a “deformed invalid” is heading up a cult effort that comprises members of society’s elite is pretty central to the story, from what I can make out several dozen pages in.
I am kind of bummed that the writer of the show definitively stated in the above interview that there is no supernatural element. Rust hallucinating at the end seemed very convenient, it could have just be left a mystery and the writer could have opted to not comment and say it isn’t the main concern of the show. Oh vell…
The hunt was not to find a single serial killer, but to find the conspirators behind the ritual murders. Those questions were never answered. The larger conspiracy was barely even addressed.
The finale was a procedural mixed with the worst of bad horror movies. Where typically smart people do very stupid things, like running into the lair of the monster instead of waiting for backup.Following the horror move silliness, the show finale slowly petered out.
Linking the green house to the man with green ears was such a longshot association, it qualified as lame. It was the lowest moment of the show. House painters with both ears painted? On what planet is that typical?
The finale wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t good. “Meh” describes it completely. It was a pale shadow of the first six episodes. Not bad, but nothing special, done equally as well in an average episodes of any number of police series.
The first episodes of True Detective were special and promised a special ending. The finale was routine TV fare.
See how silly it is to make definitive statements about something that is inherently subjective and involves personal taste, especially when responses are so mixed? Yeeeaaah…
You’re posting in the comments of BoingBoing’s subjective review. You’re clearly not adverse to all subjective reviews, just those with which you disagree. By tacitly disagreeing with my reivew, are you not equally applying your personal taste to an “inherently subjective” product?
I stand by my statement, and from reading other reviews I’m hardly alone. The finale was inherently and definitely mediocre.
Though I can’t dispute that some find mediocrity satisfying,
In other words, though the series was great, the finale was more than a little lacking. It’s probably worth rewatching, though there were too likely a few too many threads to tie up in eight episodes. Though it’s one thing for theories to be wrong – no father-in-law culprit, no “five horsemen” – it’s another for overwrought writing to magically reverse seven hours of entertaining bleakness. The show was fun throughout, but a concern always nagged that it bought a little too much of its own pretensions – that the show didn’t know how to enjoy Rust’s absurdity or Marty’s insecurity. In the end, True Detective finally flipped, and Marty and Rust discovered the good life again. They became the awkward buddy comedy we’d always wanted. I just wish the evidence were a little more convincing.
The war between light and dark fits in thematically at least. In the first or second episode when the Coalition to Investigate Anti-Christian Crime (as opposed to the good old Christian kind) comes to the police station, Rust says something like “Anti-Christian?”. and Tuttle I think says something like, “Don’t you know, there’s a war on?”
So I don’t take it literally (though Tuttle probably does.) It’s a theme, a resonance in the overall story.
Well, my conjecture at this point is that one of the wealthy men, probably the senator Tuttle plays the role of the King in Yellow. The family has nurtured the Carcosa fantasy a long time before Erroll. I consider Errol and the two meth cooks to be more like knights of the realm, and the killed women the sacrificial angels. I don’t have a notion why some of the women victims were put on display.
