True Detective - Recap: The Separation of Church and State

Recap and review of True Detective - Episode 2 - Seeing Things:

Now that the tone and atmosphere of True Detective has been established, the series can get into a more incisive examination not only of the adversarial partnership between Rust (Matthew McConaughey) and Marty (Woody Harrelson), but the show can also explore the politics of the CID and other law enforcement agencies, along with the process of how a crime like this gets solved. Really, that's what the show is building to at a pure plot level: how did these two detectives solve this case, and what oversights did they make that prompted them to get the solution so wrong? "Seeing Things" is a wonderfully involving hour, stuffed with foreboding and barely contained emotions, from rage to despair, from weariness to ennui. And it's anchored by a more even distribution of screentime between its two leads, so that Woody Harrelson gets as much an opportunity to show the nuances of Marty Hart as Matthew McConaughey gets to luxuriate in playing Rust Cohle.

Credit: HBO

"Seeing Things" provides us a more substantial look into the 1995 investigation into the murder of Dora Lange, as Rust and Marty basically hit all the main stops on the Dora Lange history tour: they visit Dora’s mother’s house to learn more about her family, before the heading off to talk with Dora’s friend Carla, learning that she moved down south to what is basically a "redneck bunny ranch," as Rust describes it, housing a bunch of prostitutes in a trailer park on leased land. Some of the prostitutes are even underage, setting off Marty's moral righteousness alarm. But this is burying the lede a bit, as the investigation isn't so much about the evidence that is gathered, but rather how it's gathered, as Rust and Marty display profoundly different investigative techniques in their respective approaches.

Credit: HBO

Rust visits with a contact of his in order to procure quaaludes, but he also is hoping to ascertain the location of the "bunny ranch" from the woman. She mistakes his interest and attempts to come on to him, which Rust puts a stop to almost immediately before heading on his way with the information he learned. Ultimately, Rust and Marty track down an auto repair shop with mechanics who know the location of the compound. In a sudden burst of scarily efficient violence, Rust assaults both of the men and pins one of the mechanics to a work bench, forcing them to reveal the location of the trailer park. And this is where things get interesting, as the owner of the bunny ranch serves as a contrast to Marty. For Marty, this sort of camp is an abomination, a hellhole where young, underage girls sell their bodies and waste away their lives. But the matriarch of the establishment insists the girls come of their own volition, and asserts that she always has the best interest of the girls in mind, since nobody else does. Though the show doesn't necessarily endorse the woman's methods, it does provide her as a contrast to Marty, who moralizes about looking out for young girls, while largely ignoring his own daughters at home. He argues with their mother, Maggie (Michelle Monaghan), in full earshot of the girls' room, and that's when he actually has time enough to be home.

Credit: HBO

In one instance, Marty bails on a family gathering in order to check out a lead in the Lange case (although it mostly plays as an excuse for Marty to escape the "In my day" moralizing of Maggie's father). In another, he's off carousing with Lisa (Alexandra Daddario), a woman he knows from the courthouse. It's been an ongoing affair, and although Lisa chides him about being a married man, Marty doesn't seem to recognize the moral ambiguity of his circumstances. In the present, Marty insists he had the affair for his family's own good, as it cut back on the stress of his job and made home life easier, which sounds like a pretty ridiculous rationale, although Harrelson's performance goes a long way in communicating the extent to which Marty believes his own B.S. Eventually, Marty is overcome by a sense of moral duty and gives one of Dora Lange's friends, a girl named Beth (Lili Simmons), a wad of cash to get started on a new life. However, one has to wonder if that would actually count as helping, given that the girl likely lacks any demonstrable skills or work experience outside of the profession to which she's committed herself. But Beth ultimately proves valuable to the investigation, as Marty and Rust acquire Dora’s bag from her, inside which they find a flyer about a mysterious church the late Dora had been attending.

Credit: HBO

Interspersed throughout are some really effective character-building moments. For example, Marty shows genuine sympathy towards Rust when he hears that his daughter died, causing the disintegration of his marriage. Rust recounts the tale in present day, explaining that his daughter was killed while riding her tricycle, and that he and his wife began to resent one another for being alive in the aftermath. But Rust's existentialist leanings come out in full force here, as he waxes philosophical about procreation being an act of hubris. He goes on to talk about the perfect way his daughter left this world, peacefully while in a coma. Rust essentially shows relief at having been unburdened by "the sin of being a father." It's chilling stuff, but McConaughey manages to prevent Rust from coming off in an irredeemable light. Hell, he still doesn't seem like as crummy a guy as Marty, who brags to a bunch of cops in the bar that he once had sex with someone he pulled over. It's one of those weird, incongruous scenes that illustrate the differences between Rust and Marty, and it's really just one of many.

For example, Rust and Marty nearly come to blows when Rust warns his partner that he can smell another woman on him, which causes Marty offense since it implies Rust knows the difference between Maggie's smell and another woman's. But despite Marty's attempts to insist that everything is fine at home, we inevitably see that this isn't the case, as Maggie and Marty lace into one another with accusations of neglect. Maggie is furious with Marty for always putting his job before the family, while Marty feels Maggie is doing her damndest to throw a pity party for herself. It's a scene of domestic discord that feels authentic thanks to the performances of Harrelson and Monaghan, and it's punctuated by a stirring bit in which Marty enters his daughters' room to find that they were playing with action figures and posing them in ritualistic fashion, as if recreating a crime scene. It's part of the grim iconography of the show, and one of several moments of visual insight, like Rust's trippy hallucination with the birds. The show is working at a subtextual level that gives the show far more meaning than it might otherwise have. It's these thematic implementations that are far more interesting than the politics, such as when Major Quesada (Kevin Dunn) chews Rust out for giving the occult unit a hard time. It's all very well done, but it ultimately holds far less import than the show probably thinks. With that said, at least it all builds to a satisfying cliffhanger for next week, as Rust and Marty track down Dora's church, which has been partially torn down. Inside one of the walls, the detectives discover a drawing of a person with antlers on their head, reminiscent of the "crown" found on Dora's corpse. It's a chilling discovery, and a great way to cap off the episode.

Credit: HBO

"Seeing Things" is an insightful episode, where the characters are concerned, but it's also enthralling on a sheer visual and atmospheric level. This goes back and forth between being an authentic take on Louisiana and being someone's idea of what Louisiana would be like, yet the setting is a character unto itself. The swampy, backwoods areas, the decaying towns and churches, the overgrown thickets, and the claustrophobic interrogation room. It all comes together to create a tapestry that provides the story with the grim sense of foreboding that attends it from week to week, and gives the mystery its eerie sensibility. Of course, none of this would work without the uniformly strong performances, but True Detective is a show that is more than the sum of its parts. In many ways, it's unlike any other detective show on television.