Pssh! More like Mellow King

Oh, how I choose the wrong times to watch scary things alone. With Greg traveling this week, I thought, "Sure, I'll definitely watch the finale of True Detective by myself." (Even better idea? Following it with a viewing of Blackfish. I'm an idiot.)

While it was creepy, yes, (just try and get that image out of your head) I couldn't get over the fact that this was just like the ending of any high school horror movie ever made.

1. Marty ran UP the stairs in the creepy, creepy hoarder house.
2. Rust was brutally stabbed three times and lived for no reason whatsoever.
3. There was a chase scene that led into some abandoned maze full of failed attempts at whittling.
4. The Yellow King's voice somehow traveled the length of this scary maze and served as a narrator for Rust's epiphany. (WHICH WAS A VORTEX?!)
5. Rust and Marty are friends! All is well.

I just can't understand how this season opened the flood gates open to some pretty visceral concepts about humanity, religion, murder, women and you know, the whole underbelly of consciousness and then just, well, ended.

Things that never, ever, got tied up:

1. What the hell did the Tuttle's have to do with any of this other than EVERYTHING? Did it really just come down to one insane man? And how the hell did we finally get to see the insane Yellow King only to have him die, like, immediately!
2. Harrelson's family dynamic: they spent an awful lot of time on this subject and I guess we should be happy that his daughters came to see him in the hospital, but honestly it didn't matter at all so why show it?
3. Are the killings really over? Did the Yellow King just carry on the tradition of his family? Why the hell was his dad, (Old Bill) tied up and ready to die in the back shed? What's the point of any of this if it only works to get super creepy?
4. The Yellow King and his sister: What. The. Shit.
5. Good and Evil, Heaven and Hell, Consciousness and whatever... Was this really all summed up because Rust had an acid flashback and felt positive about his dead daughter? Let's look at stars!

If you really want to know what the Yellow King was about, you should probably check this out.

Who Killed Laura Palmer/Dora Lange?

For awhile now I've been trying to come up with a way to describe how I feel about the HBO show, True Detective. I've come to the conclusion that it's a show that I love to hate. But hate really isn't the word I'd use. I don't hate it, I just don't love it.

It's like the eeriness minus the campiness of Twin Peaks plus the forced story lines of The Killing. I love dark shows that reveal slowly, if not painstakingly, the answers to mysteries. You have to be committed and you have to be patient. I'm cool with that. But, True Detective, I just don't know about.

I mean, I'm in it, I'm hooked. But damn if it doesn't infuriate me. McConaughey rules, obviously. Woody Harrelson talks like he's got a mouth full of marbles, but still, he's pretty great. The setting is creepy, (much like I hoped would benefit the story of True Blood, but no, it was just a pretty if not wasted backdrop). But here we are in steamy, dark Louisiana, in and out of the police station as they lazily interview various main characters revealing more about their relationships than the actual case. While I want them to talk about their relationships, do the two current detectives really have to be there for the exposition?

I read an article today on Slate about how True Detective mistreats the idea of women but that how that's the point of the show. It answered my nagging question about why I even choose to watch a show like that, because yeah, it totally does that. I get that there's a much bigger story arch that's about to be unfolded. Perhaps, (hopefully) we'll get to meet the Yellow King. They'll tie the conspiracy between the church, (loved the neon cross!) and the tragic lady victims with the missing children. Perhaps Russ will reveal he's actually part of this too, (not in the way that that sounds), but in the way that he's been hinting at all season. That we have no control over our lives and we shouldn't have evolved into the consciousness of self, instead we should remain cogs in the universe. (Or something like that.)

The show is doing a great job of ringing all of the stereotypical bells and whistles. Let's just hope it actually brings it home in the last two episodes.