2012
"Form and Void" takes place entirely in
2012, as we've caught up with all the other timelines. All that is left
is for Rust and Cohle to connect what they have to Lawnmower Man,
finding out exactly who he is.
What we know
The killer is most likely and
illegitimate child from one of the Tuttles, possibly a Childress based
on a common name between their interview with the domestic and tampered
police records. It's apparent the Childress family has connections in
law enforcement as well, just as the Tuttles have connections throughout
the state, with resources to hide this practice that has gone on for,
apparently, generations, by, ostensibly, many men in the Tuttle family
and extended family. The killer likely collected the victims for the
child sacrifices and whatever other unspeakable acts the Tuttles did to
them, and may or may not have participated in the rituals himself.
For
the first time in the series, we know more than Rust and Marty. Until
this point, they've been doling out zero new information to Suck and
Fuck, holding back things like the Ledoux murder and the reason for
their split. Now, we know exactly who the killer is and what he looks
like. We know he does landscape type work by contract for public
entities and schools. It's time for Rust and Marty to catch the
viewers, the Tralfamadorians.
Solving for Childress
The
sheriff turns out to be a giant asshole but not more complicit in the
YK killings than anyone else. He admits his reports were altered by
Sheriff Childress, but Childress' death makes it a dead end for Rust and
Marty.
Back to square one, Marty focuses on the green
ears and notices the freshly painted house from their old casefiles.
Going to the house, then to the grandmother who lived there, they get
enough information to run down the lead. Using tax records again, they
look up the woman's husband's records using his employer, finding the
painters that did the house via the write off, then running down the
painters via business license.
Lo and behold, it's Childress again.
I
assume they get the address from the expired business license. Marty
and Rust go there to apprehend him for the gruesome crime of operating
without a license.
Rust's insurance policy is to mail
his evidence, including copies of the tape, to local and national news
outlets, as well as law enforcement agencies, should anything happen to
him. If you're looking into police corruption, it never hurts to have a
cop hating ex sniper on your side.
The Never Ending Loop
The
raid on the Childress place brings to mind the raid on the Ledoux
place. Again, Marty goes off on his own throughout the house and makes
some gruesome discoveries. Only this time, the suspect makes off,
leading him on a chase into Carcosa, which appears to be their home
field for all the sacrifice. Again, the suspects gets his head blowed
off. Again, they can't find all the answers they need. Again, they
recover prisoners from the compound.
The End
Before
the hand to hand combat in the arena, Childress confirms he was the
ringleader back in 1995 as well with Ledoux and friend learning from
him*. Amazingly, Marty and Rust survive, despite Childress plunging a
knife into Rust and wailing a hatchet into Marty. Marty is even happy
for the first time in the series when he sees his ex wife and daughters
visit him in the hospital.
* I get the sense more
and more that Ledoux was a 'wannabe' or 'poseur' in terms of the Yellow
King worship. He was a meth cook who through his twisted family
connection was brought into the circle as a pawn and bought into it
hard. When he was kneeling on the ground, he spouted the Yellow King
fact sheet and sounded more like a follower than a leader.
Regardless
of how Rust obtained the rest of the evidence, the remains found on
Childress' land, along with his imprisoned and stitched closed father
are enough for the law and the media to close the case on a lot of these
crimes. Unfortunately, the case still is not built out enough to
solidly connect the Tuttles and extended family to these rituals,
despite rumor and circumstantial evidence. Some of the evidence,
obtained illegally and belonging to a dead man, is not enough to condemn
them, and the remaining Tuttles, one as the attorney general, are able
to quash it from at minimum a legal perspective. The birth records are
no help either and were likely altered or destroyed by the Tuttles and
blamed on a hurricane or two.
The Yellow King
It
appears to be part of the ritual these Tuttles participated in,
however, will go unexplained with the participants being dead or
unknown. It's also entirely possible that the remaining Tuttles are far
enough removed from this nonsense that they are not quashing it to save
their hides, but to save the family name, sincerely believing this is
the act of a few mad men tangentially connected to the family.
What
I took it to be is that these guys practice devil worship, only instead
of the devil they direct their worship to the Yellow King, whatever it
is. It's less important to know the details of the ritual or of their
beliefs than to know that they existed and were the impetus for the acts
they committed.
The guy they ultimately get had to be
incredibly creepy, and Childress was no disaapointment in that respect.
With sister-wife living in filth, his father tied to a bed with his
mouth stiched closed, and Chilrdess himself moving in and out of accents
like James Moriarty, I had to brush away the imaginary ants crawling
over my skin.
Reaction
My
prediction was that this will be panned as the "worst" episode of True
Detective. This is a prediction I made before watching a second of the
episode.
I don't think there is a worst episode
however. I think the first episode was the first episode and did what
the first episode was supposed to do...a format that continued all the
way until last night when the eight and final episode did what the
eighth and final episode was meant to do. It is difficult to "grade"
any episode against anything but itself, as each episode had its own
purpose and goals to accomplish. So how anyone could rate and episode
that aims to accomplish one set of performance metrics against an
episode that aims to accomplish a different set of performance metrics
seems unfair. But that is the state of television opinion having.
True
Detective, more than any other show, subscribes to the
beginning-middle-end format. Usually with a season finale, there are
threads raised for where the characters will go in the coming season.
For example, in the waning minutes of Game of Thrones Season One finale,
Tyrion is made (acting) Hand of the King, something that will dominate
not only his story, but much of the story in Kings Landing in Season
Two. Here, the story is close-ened.*
* I would not
be surprised if there are winks and nods to Season One in subsequent
seasons, as a way of acknowledging the stories operate in the same
universe. Stephen King does this throughout his works. For example,
Apt Pupil makes note of an Andy Dufresne.
Much
of the answers about the conspiracy were spelled out in Episode Seven,
and for the finale's benefit. Rather than cram a lot into the final
hour, we were treated to an incredibly suspenseful Buffalo Bill
gladiatorial combat scene in Carcosa. The episode felt well paced, not
feeling like time was wasted or rushed. It allowed viewers to take
everything in, even if you watched certain sequences through your
fingers like I did.
Anytime a show incorporates a
mythology, it leaves itself open to criticism no matter how the series
ends. I think the point of incorporating the Yellow King into True
Detective is both functional and mystical. It is functional from the
point of giving a reason for the killer(s) to commit these acts, and
does it in the name of something besides "devil" worship. It is
mystical in the sense that we don't completely understand it, without it
being a supernatural element. As far as we can tell, the Yellow King
worship is an unreal escape from the world, just as how Rust views
religion in general.
The Yellow King drives readers insane in Chambers' works.
The Carcosa mythology extends decades, across multiple authors, and does not exactly connect. This is an extension of that.
It is going to be a lot of fun to watch these dvd commentaries.
The
Internets love True Detective. (It also hates it, so don't worry,
contrarians.) If you are looking for good sources on the show, read
Andrew Romano of The Daily Beast* and Issac Chotiner of the New Republic
both do deep analysis. Molly Lambert of Grantland does a fine job as
well. I found myself referring to Den of Geek a lot for a lot of the
straight of research involved with actively viewing the show.
Tangentially, there is a lot of information on the Yellow mythology out
there, including a wiki. You can also download Robert Chambers The King
in Yellow for ninety nine cents to your Kindle.
*
All of these are great, but Romano's posts are some seriously excellent
television writing. It brings to mind Todd Vanderwerff's Deadwood
posts.
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