“Think of the hubris it must take to yank a soul out of nonexistence into this... meat. To force a life into this... thresher…
…So my daughter, she
spared me the sin of being a father “
“Sometimes I think I'm
just not good for people, that it's not good for them to be around me. I wear
'em down. They... they get unhappy.”
– Rust Cohle
What really hits home with me as I watch the first season of
True Detective is McConaughey’s wear and tear, especially during the interviews
with Detectives Maynard Gilbough (Michael Potts) and Thomas Papania (Tory
Kittles) in 2012. Seeing the years of drug use, self-destruction, alcoholism,
and bleak worldview, McConaughey’s Rust Cohle looks as if he bottomed out,
admittedly living in a room in a bar. The dead daughter, difficult marriage
that dissolved into divorce, descent into “narco duty” (where he cops to
killing drug scum, redacted by the “Feds”) and drug abuse, trip to a psychiatric
hospital in Lubbock, and transfer to Louisiana where he has “visions” (because
of his use of drugs, such as Quaaludes, Cohle sometimes experiences the world
around him “altered” and “askew”). The visions can be such as the sky “lighting
up” bright or a flock of birds forming a spiral similar to what was seen on the
victim, whose case Cohle and Hart are investigating, Doris, a young woman found
in the first episode, mutilated and presented with antlers. A burn-gutted
church found just distance from a bridge has a lady with antlers painted on a
wall…a flier potentially for that church is found in Doris’ diary. Cohle and
Hart wonder if she was being drugged and what she was hallucinating explains
why she writes in such outré prose in the pages of her tome.
I simply find McConaughey mesmerizing. He really takes his
Rust Cohle’s unique form of speak, applying a grim darkness, his tenor and
countenance quite methodical, reflective, analytical, contemplative, and
warts-and-all honest. What I like about his Cohle in 2012 is that there is
nothing he feels the need to keep behind the veil of silence. He doesn’t seem
to have any qualms in protecting himself. There’s no attachment to introverting
the past, concealing it, walling it up out of fear of repercussions. Their 1995
case, a case as recognized in a twist in the previous episode as being solved
with a murderer captured, is certainly of significance because in 2012 Gilbough
and Papania have a [quite eerily] similar murder.
While the investigation is a crucial part of this HBO
series, there is so much more here. Hart, a detective having an affair with a
clerk at a courthouse (Alexandra Daddario, providing a nude scene), tells
Gilbough and Papania that a cop, because of what he sees (the cesspool,
humanity at its worst), must unwind, needing to release tensions. This is
essentially his excuse for having an affair with Lisa (Daddario), later at odds
with his wife, Audrey (Michelle Monaghan), over suspicious behavior. Audrey
senses something’s wrong. She’s no idiot. Of course, Hart can use the “new case”
as an excuse to come home late or work his angle of coming and going at odd
hours. When Cohle later calls him on a certain “pussy scent”, Hart crashes him
against his locker, believing he is “badmouthing” his wife. Cohle knows he
could “snap the wrists”, clutching Hart’s hands in a way as to loosen the grip
if need-be. The “no change in clothes” is what Cohle had identified, as Hart
eventually exhales from his rage. This clearly is a sign of things to come.
These two are bound to combust. Cohle is just too confrontational in certain
aspects of speech and personality. No one wants to work with him, and the boss
(Kevin Dunn) is fed up with his passing comments towards a task force interested
in “exchanging notes” in order to determine if Doris’ murder is in relation to
a spate of “Devil Worship activity”, a
cause/mission ongoing, started by the mayor who is also a very religious man.
Cohle just can’t help himself. If he feels strongly about something, especially
if it contradicts his own views or theories, Cohle has a hard time just keeping
mum. But his way of dismissing others, his fellow cops, is in such an off-hand
disregard, it is severely off-putting. So he doesn’t have any friends. There is
a moment, though, where Cohle and Hart discuss Hart’s family, with Cohle
realizing he likes being in their presence. He isn’t often without discord,
tormented or free from the black cloud.
It goes on like that,
you know the job. you're looking for narrative... uh... interrogate
witnesses... parcel evidence... establish a timeline... build story... day
after day.
-Martin Hart
Hart’s infidelity does appear to be a development certain to
reach a boil. After some drinking at a poolhall, he calls up Lisa, wondering if
he can come over. She agrees, flirtatiously, and he soon arrives, with
handcuffs. Clearly this is important to Hart, the availability of such a young
beauty, willing to play along. Certain to remain a delightful memory for many,
the sexy Daddario removes her shirt and eventually shorts with no bra or
panties. She does so alluringly, nice and slow for Harrelson’s lust-drunk
detective, their naughty back-and-forth, the banter of naughty acceptance
revealing a playful voluntary affair giving both “something to do” until Lisa
can find a meaningful relationship. Lisa says this as much, disavowing Hart’s
concerns about her “going out” because having an affair with a married man isn’t
much of a future. When the conversation gets serious like that, you can see the
displeasure for Hart because he enjoys his visits with her (obviously, few
wouldn’t). The idea that this will eventually end is not a topic Hart wants to
even configure.
There is an interesting scene where Hart, his wife and
daughters, are visiting her parents. Audrey’s father goes on about society’s
collapse to Hart while Audrey continues to grow infuriated and frustrated with
her mother about her marriage. When Hart talks of needing to return to the “new
case” that suspicion falls all over Audrey, later the two of them arguing about
each other’s attitude. You can see the fractures. He appeals to her to give him
peace and calm at home due to the stress of his job. But she wants him to be
completely honest with her and not keep things from her. She just isn’t going
to be the wife who doesn’t say anything when bothered by the prospects of
possible misbehavior. Hart has another moment when he and Cohle visit a “bunny
ranch”, located in the backwoods at a trailer park as a “hillbilly madam” seems
to pimp underage girls to the local clientele. Hart takes the madam to task for
using teenage girls for her trailer park brothel while Cohle secures Doris’
diary from another hooker she was friends with. Hart is passionate about those
girls as the madam retorts that it was because they are given a choice about
providing services for money instead of some guy having their bodies for free.
Cohle, who doesn’t seem to have any moral disturbance about this whole
situation, later visits an older hooker (he met at a bar, acquiring the ‘ludes
from her), with bruises all over. She offers her own sexual services to Cohle,
who isn’t interested. He does tell her that cops can be quite dangerous…without
impunity. This hooker has sure seen the worst of mankind, seemingly experienced
cops just taking from her body without care. Conversations on True Detective
always speak about the dark side of humankind…the black soul of the underbelly.
5/5
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