True Detective

            On True Detective, Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey), an alcohol riddled ex-detective, likes to muse about the nature of existence. Borrowing from Nietzsche, he explains that “Time is a flat circle.” Cohle believes that people and their lives repeat on an infinite loop. As the series nears it conclusion, Cohle stresses to his ex-partner, Marty Harris (Woody Harelson) of his need to complete the loop—solving a seventeen year old murder case that has defined his and Harris’s careers.  In exploring this idea, known as “eternal return,” True Detective raises questions about identity. The contrasting characters of Cohle and Harris and its setting in rural Louisiana allow showrunner Nic Pizzolatto and director Cary Joji Fukunaga to investigate these philosophical questions.

            Rust Cohle differs from the typical Matthew McConaughey role. In Dallas Buyers Club, McConaughey’s undeniable charm and charisma won over audiences and Oscar voters. In True Detective, he dominates the screen with an understated delivery of Cohle’s philosophical monologues. He lures in, rather than bludgeons, the audience with his performance. Additionally McConaughey’s trademark handsomeness is largely absent. Cohle’s nickname, “The Tax Man,” reveals his character and identity. Cohle never hides who he is. He studies his giant case ledger, mediates upon it, and sketches the world around him. Cohle is certain in his beliefs, denigrating organized religion and most conventions of human behavior. This leads to conflict with Harris almost immediately when the two investigate the murder of a young prostitute in rural Louisiana. Pizzolatto provides Cohle a tragic history, mainly the death of his daughter and dissolution of his marriage. The trauma in Cohle’s life doesn’t dismiss or diminish his beliefs, rather it helps explain him. Ultimately, his abrasiveness, determination, and philosophical beliefs drive the plot of the series.

            Harrelson’s Marty Harris is very much the opposite of Cohle. Harris constructed his identity out of contradicting words and actions. He shrouds his hypocrisies in masculine platitudes about family, children, and work. After the revelation of his affair with a younger women, Harris blames his mistress. He lies to his family, his partner, and ultimately himself. These lies weigh down Harris until it boils over at inopportune moments, including after an encounter with his mistress’s new boyfriend. Harrelson displays this internal tension through Harris’s jaw. The perpetually clenched jaw seems ready to snap Harris’s head in a million pieces at any moment. Harris’s entire life is a performance. In front of his daughters, he acts as a father should without ever actually raising his children. At the end of series, he admits he hasn’t seen them in two years. As a cop, Harris carries himself with authority and conviction and tries (and fails) to hide his true feelings and hypocrisies. By the end of the series, he finally breaks down in tears in front of his family, offering a glimpse of the damaged man inside.

            Writer Nic Pizzolatto and director Cary Joji Fukunaga also used the rural setting of Louisiana to explore these questions of identity. Over the course of the series, from 1995-2012, they show the ever changing nature of Louisiana’s coastline. The bayous and swamps hide evidence. This poor, rural, and neglected area allows crime to flourish. As Cohle notes, children can disappear into the bayou and no one in New Orleans or Baton Rouge will ever notice. The perpetrators of the murders that Cohle and Harris investigate wear masks and hide their true identities. They dwell on the margins, reveling in shifting Cajun and Vodun traditions, where identities come and go. By relying solely on Pizzolatto and Fukunaga, True Detective also maintains a consistency of voice and visuals. Pizzolatto’s writing delves deeply into the contrasting characters of Cohle and Harris, their differing characters evident in their widely different names. Fukunaga provides the show a visual language. He explores Cohle’s drug riddled past, the expansive and emptiness of rural Louisiana, and the unrelenting interviews of Harris and Cohle. He also offers something extraordinary, a six minute long tracking shot that ends episode four, Who Goes There, that can’t be captured in words.

            Ultimately True Detective begins as murder investigation and offers a philosophical investigation into humanity and who we are.