After weeks of frenzied speculation and argument and, let's face it, temporary insanity, True Detective's debut season finally climaxed last night (for some of us, anyway). Did episode 8, "Form and Void," tie up all the loose ends spun out by writer Nic Pizzolatto's intricate script? Nope. But the finale brought resolution on its own terms, and was satisfying despite (or maybe even because of?) the plot questions it left unanswered.
No, Maggie wasn't involved in the horrifying kidnap pedophilia cult. Neither was her father, which some True Detective theorists were absolutely convinced of. Further, all of Audrey's childhood sexual turmoil apparently had nothing to do with the case, except insofar as her father Marty was a largely absent human tampon. The Five Horsemen theory remains a theory, and the sprawling depth of the conspiracy remains unplumbed. And the painting above Marty and Maggie's bed that matched the mural in the hospital was not as significant as we thought. It wasn't significant at all, in fact. Heh, we kind of lost it back there for a bit, didn't we?
It was a fun way to get lost, though, albeit highly disturbing. I don't think I'll be rewatching episode 8 any time soon—that whole opening sequence with Errol Childress's dead "daddy" chained to a bedframe followed by him fingerbanging his sister on his lap as she recalls the first time their grandfather raped her... yeah, I'm all set on that. I did however savor seeing "that cocksucker" rummy Steve Geraci eat dirt in a barrage of sniper bullets. ("L'chaim fat ass!") And how about that gorgeous exterior shot of that overgrown Civil War-era fort that Childress turned into Carcosa? I've also got no complaints about the harrowing final confrontation between Childress and the detectives, which delivered a terrifying chase through dark tunnels.
And Cohle's last hallucination as he gazes up at a circular opening in the ceiling was breathtaking.
Pizzolatto has said in interviews that he's only interested in the serial killer aspect of True Detective in so far as it illuminates the relationship between Rust and Marty and their flaws, and Form and Void was certainly proof of that. As they pursue their Spaghetti Monster, their begrudging friendship is reestablished, coming full circle and then some with more of their classic carpool banter. (Don't these guys ever want to listen to some Creedence or something?)
Marty: It's hard to find something in a man who rejects people as much as you do, you know that?
Rust: I never told you how to live your life, Marty.
Marty: No, you just sat there and judged me.
Rust: Look, as sentient meat, however illusory our identities are, we craft those identities by making value judgments. Everybody judges, all the time. Now, you got a problem with that, you’re living wrong.
Marty: What's scented meat?
But it's the ending's ending that really delivers, and that I will rewatch. Matthew McConaughey's emotional breakdown outside the hospital is incredibly powerful stuff, and watching him talk about love with such vulnerability after eight episodes of stoic pessimism is astonishing. Rust has touched the darkness, the darkness touched back, and he reemerged transformed. He claims he shouldn't be there, but there he is, staggering away from the hospital with the help of his partner, and now he's the one sounding optimistic. When Marty remarks that the sky's darkness seems to be overwhelming the stars, Rust says, "You're looking at it wrong, the sky thing. Once there was only dark. If you ask me, the light's winning." Light: kicking ass for 14 billion years and counting. It is one hell of a story.
So Marty and Rust hobble off into the sunset together in life-affirming defiance of all our darkest expectations. The monster at the end of their story was not a particularly compelling one in the annals of fictional serial killers, but it was their journey to him—and the intelligent yet passionate way their journey's story was told—that made the show so engrossing. Cary Fukunaga's masterfully sumptuous direction gave Harrelson and McConaughey all the room they needed to untangle Pizzolatto's dense narrative, with a pair of raw, pitch-perfect performances that will no doubt be seen as career peaks.
Pizzolatto's career is just getting started, and while last night marked the end of Marty and Rust's story, we can now start the countdown for True Detective's second season, which Pizzolatto says will concern "hard women, bad men and the secret occult history of the United States transportation system."
