True Detective - Recap: Suspicious Minds
Recap video and review of True Detective - Episode 5 - The Secret Fate of All Life:
More so than some genre shows dedicated to the supernatural, True Detective is a show about monsters, both big and small. This first half of the season seems to be dealing with the smaller monsters, the racist thugs like last week's biker gang, or the small-time hoods like Charlie Lang, even serial killer Reggie Ledoux (Charles Halford), who exerted his sick will on the weak and the small. But the second half of the season, which kicks off with "The Secret Fate of All Life," seems intent on dealing with the bigger monster, the figure that casts the longer shadow. Because while Ledoux may be dead, and Dora Lange's murder may have been solved, it's becoming apparent that Reggie Ledoux might not have been the biggest monster in the hunt. True Detective is still one of the best character studies on TV, but "The Secret Fate of All Life" reminds us that, even when it isn't as concerned with the bare facts of the case as your standard procedural, it's still a drama with a mystery to solve.
Credit: HBO
Of course, it was only natural that the show would offer Rust (Matthew McConaughey) as a suspect in the 2012 murders, as this felt like a plot point that the show had been building towards since the beginning. It's a reveal that comes a little more than halfway through the episode, as Papania (Tory Kittles) and Gilbough (Michael Potts) explain to Marty (Woody Harrelson) that the reason they're asking him so many questions about Rust is because he's the prime suspect in their investigation. And they have evidence to back up their suspicions, such as Rust's truck being spotted in the vicinity of several of the crime scenes, in addition to photographs that place him in the general area. Much of the episode seems organized to call Rust's character into question. Dewall, a relative of Reggie Ledoux's, refuses to allow him entry into the Ledoux compound because he sense something unsettling: "I can see your soul in the edges of your eyes. It's corrosive. You got a demon, little man. I don't like your face. It makes me want to do things to it. … There's a shadow in you, son."
Rust's mercurial, detached nature makes it equally easy and difficult to believe he might have been involved, particularly after he refuses to allow the detectives access to his storage shed without a warrant. It doesn't help that Rust spent a decade off the grid following his retirement from the force, only just resurfacing now. Rust is someone that not even Marty, with his years of experience as his partner, can figure out. Which is not to say that Marty isn't enigmatic in his own right...
Credit: HBO
The episode takes a curious approach, solving the Dora Lange case within the first fifteen minutes, as we see the silent infiltration of Reggie Ledoux's compound by Marty and Rust. It's an expertly-filmed scene that retains much of the tension of last week's sensational closing moments, even if it isn't as nakedly exciting. Reggie Ledoux has been built up as a monstrous figure for much of the season so far, the formidable head of an equally formidable snake. But even though he's achieved almost mythic significance as a villain, he's no more formidable than your average man, given how easily Marty dispatches with him. In a pulse-poundingly visceral moment, Marty explores Ledoux's compound after he and Rust subdue the man and his cohort, only to discover the bodies of two young children (one dead, one barely alive), prompting Marty to charge outside with grim determination...and shoot Ledoux in the head. It's a gory visual, and one that shows the extent to which Marty has been affected by the case: it's not hard to imagine he views the children as analogues of his own girls, and it's not entirely beyond the realm of belief that Marty would flip his lid in such fashion, shooting Ledoux at point-blank range, and then lying to Internal Affairs about the shooting (Rust corroborates the lie, and the two detectives receive commendations for their work, although Rust reveals the falsehood of the tale to Papania and Gilbough). And so the Dora Lange case is solved, prompting a shift in focus for the narrative.
Credit: HBO
What follows is a recounting of Marty and Rust's respective lives and careers following the Lange case: Marty states that life was good then, even if he didn't know it at the time. He reunites with Maggie (Michelle Monaghan) after giving up drinking (and also nearly being killed in the line of duty), while Rust pursues a relationship with Laurie (Elizabeth Reaser), one of Maggie's friends. Meanwhile, Marty's two daughters grow into strange mirrors of Marty and Rust, with Maisie becoming a more conservative teen, while Aubrey grows into a Rust-like existentialist (except with the fashion sense of a Goth). Marty's unease with his daughter's character grows into outrage when she's discovered having sex in the back of a car with two guys whose age, 19 and 20, makes the act statutory rape.
Credit: HBO
For his part, Rust is no less than what he's always been: an effective cop with unorthodox methods. The scene in which Rust convinces a convicted killer into confessing, only to then flip out when the killer mentions The Yellow King (a figure that keeps popping up in the narrative, owing to Robert W. Chambers' 1895 story "The King In Yellow"), is a thing of absolute beauty. Rust is a figure of irreducible complexity, and McConaughey doesn't portray him as a caricature of a man, but rather as someone who can't entirely be sure of how he'll respond from one moment to the next. It's right there in the conclusion of the episode, as 2002 Rust discovers what looks to be a shrine to the killer inside an abandoned school. He handles each item with delicacy and interest that borders on care, and it's every bit as chilling as it is suspicious when 2012 Rust charges out of the precinct after basically telling the detectives to go to hell. This is a man of changeable temperament, and there are few men more dangerous.
Credit: HBO
With that said, I don't actually buy that Rust is the killer in 2012. But it's a possibility that needed to be addressed. As with any good mystery, there's a seemingly endless array of possibilities; and like any good drama, the ultimate solution doesn't seem to matter as much as the journey. What happened in 2002 that caused a rift between Marty and Rust and prompted Rust to quit the force? We found out next week. Until then, as always, we're left to speculate. But what a show to dig into.