True Detective - Haunted Houses

2002 is the year most focused about in this episode of "True Detective" as we see not only the marriage of Mary and Maggie implode but the partnership of Hart/Cohle as well (primarily because of Maggie's getting even with her husband for fucking another young beauty he actually stood up for in 1995 when she was a teenager being used as a prostitute!). Lili Simmons (she’s in everything television these days, especially premium networks like HBO, Cinemax, and Showtime, not to mention, recently on the USA Network with “The Purge”) is the new lay in Marty Hart’s life, having found him in a bar, actually sort of serving as more of the aggressor than him, the two ending up not long after in her bed. She even sends him nudes and calls him up with plans to let her perform anal on her. Maggie finds his phone while he’s busy in the shower, locating Simmons’ Beth, and her fuming eventually leads to seducing Cohle (after a suspension because he continued to work an angle involving missing kids and investigating Billy Lee Tuttle, a powerful evangelist and essentially a Christian institution whose authority is well respected and influential) just to get back at her husband. As had been mentioned in earlier episodes, Rust attacks Cohle outside the department over Maggie, resulting in bloody faces, hurt bodies, and damaged relationship. Whether visiting a father about his missing son (reeling, as the police felt a gator got the kid due to a ripped-apart boat in the Bayou, and his wife’s inability to recover quite evident on his face) who has a hard time even talking about it to Joel Theriot’s (Shea Wigham) ex-minister who left preaching due to God’s “silence” with a memory of finding little child sleeping pics supposedly in a file in Tuttle’s office; Cohle feels he’s onto something, but his boss, Salter (Paul-Ben Victor) tells him to stop. Cohle quitting makes sense when you see the resistance (Hart dismissed by Cohle as ineffective, just sloughing off of Cohle’s skills in order to remain a departmental success, just further distances them) of his boss and partner (and those further up the chain), not adhering to his theories and mission. Cohle was still getting confessions, as we see him break down a mother responsible for three child murders due to Munchausen by Proxy, while Marty’s marriage (and parenting) was deteriorating. His daughters clearly are tired of him (his absence is clearly noticeable) and his wife just looks fed up. Papania and Gilbough bring in Maggie to try and get a better read on Cohle (to see what he was doing in 2002, whether to determine if he might have vandalized Tuttle’s homes or might have been responsible for his “overdose”), but she’s no help…and she pretends she didn’t know what ultimately led to Cohle and Hart’s dissolution. Tuttle’s keen ability and mastery of skirting any ties to wrong-doing while answering questions from Cohle (his second in command was removed from Tuttle’s organization due to “embezzling”) and evasively escaping any possible ethical and moral quandary. But the way Tuttle cheerily and comfortably agrees to help Cohle out through the use of the organization’s archives regarding closed schools and later the police department scolding Cohle for his interview (not sanctioned by Salter or known by Hart) show us that the deep dive can suffer its interference and setbacks. Cohle and Hart reuniting in 2012, though, promises to further the missing persons investigation, perhaps even helping Papania and Gilbough in the process. The visit to the little girl held captive by the Ledoux cretins, coming out of her catatonia screaming once the memories of what they did to the boy return thanks to Cohle’s “delicate coaxing” is haunting. Marty using violence and intimidation to “encourage” the boys who were in the car with his daughter when interrupted by the deputy shows the lengths he’ll go when enraged. Nearly choking Maggie before backing away once she purposely provokes him through the revelation of sex with Cohle is a BIG GULP that is diffused by his release of built up animosity when she brings up the girls. Important episode in the series definitely addresses the Tuttle ministry’s corruption, mentions a “giant with a scar” when the little girl recalls her horrors at the Ledoux compound, and Hart does display some loyalty to his former partner by removing himself from further interview with Gilbough and Papania.

4.5/5