True Detective S1E4
WARNING: This review contains spoilers.
After teasing the audience with a tighty-whitey-clad freak in a gas mask and holding a machete, True Detective comes back after a two-week break. And does not pick up back where you would expect. Before we confront the underwear-attired nutjob, we must find out how we found the underwear-attired nutjob. And that is what "Who Goes There" brings to the table. At a faster pace that we have seen thus far.
This episode offers us a quick look at how Hart met his mistress, who turns out to be a court reporter assigned to cases where Hart occasionally is called to testify. After his previous drunken escapades, Hart is trying to ratchet down their relationship, but his spurned mistress does not fade away. Instead, she (off-camera) tells Hart's wife Maggie about the affair. Maggie in turn packs up the kids and goes to stay with her parents. After reading a "I'm outta here" note from Maggie, Hart tries vainly to convince his wife to come home. He tries over the phone, and when that avenue does not work, he decides that a drunken visit to her workplace is a good idea. Luckily, Cohle is called to come get Hart before he gets arrested. So Hart and Cohle are now crashing over at Cohle's unfurnished apartment. The same apartment that Hart chided Cohle about previously.
In the meantime, the two detectives have a lead on an associate of Reggie LeDoux, and Hart gets information that LeDoux is exclusively cooking meth for a biker gang called Iron Crusaders. Cohle happens to have a contact from his old undercover days, so he and Hart formulate an off-the-books takedown operation of Cohle's contact, in hopes of locating LeDoux.
Cohle has to descend back into the underworld, taking drugs, drinking, and generally breaking laws in order to establish bonafides with his old contact and mark, Ginger. Ginger insists that Cohle help him with a drug heist, and Cohle finds himself in a housing project where the only certainty is that the heist will not success, thanks to the lack of planning by Ginger and his associates. A 6 minute tracking shot of Cohle making an escape with Ginger as everything around him crumbles ensues, and offers the viewer likely the best scene that anyone will see on television this year.
In just four episodes, True Detective has delivered the most compelling show currently on television, and may well end up as one of the most exciting seasons of any show in recent history. This is not a television show, but more of an eight-hour film. And its good. Very, very good.
Random Thoughts:
- Cohle, after four episodes, has become more likable, and Hart has become more unlikable. A significant role reversal for these two characters.
- Checking his pulse before the shit hits the fan, Cohle's actions offer great foreshadowing for what's coming.
- As Hart's world collapses, he seems more willing to bend rules and break laws. Interesting to see where this will lead in the second half of the season.
What did you think?
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