True Detective - The Decay of Humanity

Throughout True Detective, season one that is, we constantly see decay. This can be found from the very first episode and the concept is introduced to us when we see the city. Vacant industrial buildings, signs on the side of the road showing off missing people, crime and almost nothing good. But this decay isn't limited to the city, it stretches much further than that, into the people, the culture and ultimately our two protagonists. But True Detective takes it a step further than that, suggesting that everything bad that we see throughout the season is caused from the decay of morality. Of the utmost importance to True Detective is the location. We want to establish this landscape as realistically as we can, not only on its own, but in a background for our We spend almost the entire season in and around rural Louisiana, venturing into swampland and other areas far from society. It creates a timeless feel to the story. Although the narrative unfolds over a period of 17 years with a segment in 1995, 2002 and another in 2012, the world itself feels consistent. Some characters change, Marty gets a new car, but the location always stays the same. More importantly, over the course of the series, the conflict is always the same. Two detectives trying to catch a monster. The show's location stays constant, all the while corrupting people around it. Over the course of the show, we watch as characters slowly lose their morals. Nothing means anything to them anymore, they just start to exist. People turn to crime, to violence, to drugs, anything that will give their life purpose, but ultimately find none. This is reflected in the show's opening title sequence. We watch as the swamplands and rough looking industrial buildings melt into the protagonists and other characters, ultimately corrupting them. I think what True Detective does best, and what it is able to do so well because of its 8 hour runtime, is to render and develop two broken protagonists who we as the audience are able to relate to and care for despite their flaws. I want to start off by looking at Marty. Of what we see from him in the first few episodes, he looks like, well, he can say it better than I can. He is hardworking, loves his wife, is at times overprotective of his daughters, is religious and hates the way the world is. He tries to help an underage prostitute by giving her money to start a new life. Even though he does all these good things, he still does his fair share of bad things. He is an adulterer, he doesn't pay his wife and daughters the attention they need or deserve, and can be a violent alcoholic. He is someone who doesn't have a full understanding of the world around him, nor does he understand who he really is. Despite both of these, he still tries to change the world and to make it a better place, when he really should at least at first be focusing on himself and his family and what is really important. In this scene, he walks in on his daughters playing with dolls in a rather suggestive way. Instead of confronting the problem, he chooses to walk away. Later, after his daughter Audrey draws a series of sexual pictures in school, he again chooses not to confront the problem. Soon this problem starts to escalate, and years later when Audrey has a less than ideal sexual encounter, he becomes violent and upset with her, even though he's part of the problem for not doing anything earlier. This storyline with his daughter acts as a great microcosm of his entire character. He's willing to do the least amount of work required to get something done. He never looks closer into anything, he just accepts what is presented to him. That changes when he is taken out of his comfort zone. Once his wife leaves him and once he leaves the force, he stops seeing everything so cut and dry. He starts to look closer and explores more, but most importantly, he finds out who he really is. Early on he made excuses. He lies to others, but most importantly, he lied to himself. He told himself that he was a good person. It's only when he's able to realize that he's not, is he able to find out who he really is, and set out to improve his life. Sometime between 2002 and 12 after his wife left him, he was finally able to change. He found a new purpose in life trying to make the world a better place. His change started back in 1995 when he executed Reggie Ledoux. Rust commends him because for the first time, he did something good, finally starting to realize who he really is, and this pattern only continued when he was taken out of his comfort zone. Comparatively, Rust is someone who always knew who he was. Cole has a much more clear sense of his place in the world and what he doesn't want to do. He has an understanding of the purpose of life, to combat evil. Whereas there are two conflicting stages of Marty pre and post 2002, there are three stages of Rust, and in the 17 years of the show, we only see one, the other two being his time with his daughter and his time working in narcotics. We don't learn too much about who he was when his daughter Sophia was still alive. I don't want to dive too far into speculation, but I think it's safe to infer that he had a positive outlook on life, or at the very least, more positive than when we meet him. He was able to stay in a committed relationship and was happy with his wife and daughter, until... We had a baby girl, she died. Car accident, she was two years old. Upon losing his daughter, he also lost himself. And his faith that there is anything right in the world. I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware. During that time, he loses faith in everything good. He starts to think that people were just put on the world to suffer. This is when he is working narcotics and is brought into the company of some of the worst people imaginable and sees some truly horrific deeds. Somewhere in there, I emptied a nine too. And this changes him. During this period, it was safe to say that he walked around without any real purpose in life. And after a few years of this, he broke down having found nothing to live for. Eventually, he did find a purpose in life. When he switched from narcotics to homicide, he began to gain a better appreciation of life. He is making the world a better place day by day by taking bad people off the streets and doing his fair share of good. He is great at detective work. We see this in all the interrogation scenes and even the moment he arrives on the first crime scene and he's able to piece together everything. It's fantasy enactment. Ritual. If you want a perfect visual metaphor from the first crime scene, pay attention to how Marty looks down, whereas Rust looks up. He has seen the very darkest that humanity has to offer and through working to take monsters off the streets, he is able to do good. At the end of the show, he discusses the battle between good and evil. This perfectly encapsulates who he is. At one point, his entire existence was darkness. But after working, he started to make it bright. And through his work, continues to every day. At first glance, it may appear as though he eventually became broken again. His messy hair, uneven mustache and drinking habit we see when in conversation with the other detectives leads us to believe that he fell off the wagon. But that isn't true. He may drink to drown out his pains, but he stays focused. He continues to look for answers until he's able to bring down the Yellow King. Ultimately, True Detective reveals to us how deep the problems facing this area of Louisiana go. We learn about corrupt politicians, a self-serving state, and how all of these are the root of the problem. However, there are also the roots of poverty, crime and violence. It's a problem that is institutionalized. And doesn't stop at an individual level. Instead, it extends itself into every part of society. In my discussion of Zodiac, I mentioned that it acts as a monster movie. We watch characters trying to hunt down something that they are incapable of understanding. I think True Detective acts as a monster story, but in a different way. Because the monster isn't Errol Childress. He's just one of the many tentacles of a much bigger, much more menacing force of evil. And the only way to combat that bigger monster is to bring a little bit of good into the world every single day. Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed. I think True Detective really is something special. To truly understand the far-reaching references, you would at the very least need to have a good reference and a good understanding of Nietzsche, Jung and the Bible. Without a real substantial knowledge on any of those, I hope I was able to shed some light on some of the bigger issues and characters, provide a good enough breakdown of some of the themes and ideas. Like many, I wasn't too big on the second season. There are too many characters and didn't have the uniformity that made the first so great. With that in mind, I'm really excited for the third season. Hopefully whoever ends up scripting it can learn from the past two seasons and make it the best that it can be. I know Mahershala Ali is on board who, as far as I'm concerned, can do no wrong. So needless to say, I'm very excited for that. In the meantime, be sure to check out my last video that broke down the assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford and hit that subscribe button. Thanks for watching and I will see you next week.