[Spoilers] True Detective VIII - Without Ginger There is No You

[Mark Antony]

I though MM was brilliant

[Kat]

I want to watch this so badly that I've been refreshing HBOGO for 3.5 hours trying to get through. Ugh. Managed to watch the GoT preview on YouTube but HBO seems to be overloaded tonight. I hope it's worth it.

[Space Bandito]

Great ending. When they pulled into the house I had to pause and check my coffee table for any debris I might kick in excitement/nervousness.

The lack of closure just sets the internet investigators on a new path. Favorite quote from Reddit - Errol was both literally and figuratively the groundskeeper. He wasn't the Yellow King at all, he just watched over Carcosa in his absence.

Correction this quote is even better -- All the black star allusions finally make sense after the final scene. Light versus dark struggling in the night sky

[Nictarion]

Here it is, from Alan Moore's Top Ten:

"Existence is a great simplicity. There is black and there is white...Just look above you. Do you see? That is called the immense board of Lights. And there is the great Black. And, strewn accross it, small and surrounded and vulnerable and brave... There is the great White."

"There's so much more black. Are-are we losing?"

"No. Once there was only black. We are winning. All is right."

I guess Nic Pizzolatto is an Alan Moore fan.

[Sci-2]

I guess Nic Pizzolatto is an Alan Moore fan.

I think so long as he acknowledges the source material it's cool. Moore has cribbed from other writers as well so he may have gotten it from somewhere as well.

Just hope that happens in the interviews NP does following the finale.

[Commodore]

the narrative resolution was at best incomplete, and at worst unsatisfying

just the black cop in the hospital room making a hand waving reference to "voodoo shit"

[UVA]

Just a few of thoughts on the finale, fwiw and for me it all was distilled in the last five minutes or so:

• Cohle's being ripped back into life was not happy for him
  
• Yet this reality manages to be so brutal and so uplifting without once being on the nose
  
• The gentle uplift that Marty introduces in both accepting the horror and shattered quality of Cohle, while trying to make him focus on something positive
  
• But it's also the first time the two of them were wholly reliable narrators, and that's part of what makes it so perfect
  

ETA: the Onion had a funny bit skewering TD fans earlier this week.

[Q the Cat]

And thus the beginning of a beautiful friendship...

I loved it. I was crying so much when Rust was being held in the air while stabbed. I thought he was done and waited for him to die there, die at the hospital, die in the wheelchair, just die. I'm glad it got existential and that he felt his daughter and father's love. MM's acting was unbelievable, right until the end. I love this character. He saw the light as winning even after seeing all he had seen. I loved this show. Wow. Thank you HBO. Wow.

The showdown in Carcosa had my pulse racing as much as "One Minute" did on Breaking Bad.

I fucking loved it. Still processing. MM and WH were AMAZING.

Yes. Yes. And yes.

Bai: you summed up my feelings precisely.

Mya: "One Minute" is a good episode to compare the levels of tension.

I was so wound up that when they drove in to Errol's driveway, I had to pause and get up and walk around a bit. I had to brace myself for the potential of losing Rust or Marty or both. I thought for sure that Rust was going to die and I was crying, too.

MM's speech about the light vs dark was beautiful and made me cry again.

Love it!!!!!

[Q the Cat]

Here it is, from Alan Moore's Top Ten:

"Existence is a great simplicity. There is black and there is white...Just look above you. Do you see? That is called the immense board of Lights. And there is the great Black. And, strewn accross it, small and surrounded and vulnerable and brave... There is the great White."

"There's so much more black. Are-are we losing?"

"No. Once there was only black. We are winning. All is right."

Thank you for posting this. All is right.

[Battle Kitten]

the narrative resolution was at best incomplete, and at worst unsatisfying

just the black cop in the hospital room making a hand waving reference to "voodoo shit"

I think that was the point. I enjoyed it. There wasn't a neat tidy ending. They solved their case but the biggest case was left open and the Tuttles involvement covered up.

[Ramsay Gimp]

the narrative resolution was at best incomplete, and at worst unsatisfying

just the black cop in the hospital room making a hand waving reference to "voodoo shit"

I guess I can see why Marty would be ready to move on after all they'd been through, but I was somewhat surprised he cut them off before they could share more details

I'm glad that they used Rust's established drug hallucinations to allude to the supernatural in Caracosa, as I speculated they would

[Jabronius Maximus]

Well now the Emmys will be a showcase of just two shows. BB and TD will likely win almost everything in the Drama and Miniseries categories, respectively. And if they don't, that just means it was a damn good year in TV.

[Kalbear]

"What's scented meat?"

Yeah, that had me laughing. Good bit of levity, that.

I felt like the ending went a bit too much Return of the King. I didn't need a 2 minute flyby of where we've seen before, for instance. A bit more into what was found would have been more satisfying closure for me - more of the mythos.

But otherwise wow. The feels, they were great.

[Kalbear]

Penny Arcade is topical, as always

[cade]

I felt a little underwhelmed by the previous two episodes (still liked them a lot, just not as much as the first five) and the first half of this finale, then bam, suddenly I'm on the edge of my seat and then in tears. Tears of sadness because I thought Rust was dying, then tears of empathy and finally, tears of joy. Very few shows have ever moved me this much.

I'm optimistic they'll have a long lasting friendship and continue to solve crimes together. That's how it's ending in my mind and that's that.

Same here. They are going to fight the darkness but not forget the light. I think Marty will build a good relationship with his daughters. And I don't care if that sounds too cheesy for some.

[dooog]

just the black cop in the hospital room making a hand waving reference to "voodoo shit"

Yeah this annoyed me. Constant talk of yellow king, black stars, the ceremonial nature of the murders etc through 8 episodes and this is the only explanation offered, far from satisfying. Was Reggie LeDoux just off his face on drugs muttering those things before his death or is there some genuine belief behind it. Fans will probably make allowances and insist that it's intended, my own thought is that NP simply didn't know how to elaborate on it while doing the whole thing justice, so what we're left with is just smoke and mirrors, or to put it another way, drugged up rambling inbreds.

[The Drunkard]

I thought that ending was great. That whole Carcosa bit was really atmospheric, and that giant pile of little kids' clothes... :crying:

[red snow]

Maybe not next season, or even the one after it but, somewhere down the line - Rust and Hart need to have a second season of True Detective. We just have to wait for the schedules to align (I'd probably even settle for a novel).

I also think it would be nice to see a case that the black detectives can work on.

As for the finale itself, I think it revealed that NP was only ever interested in these two characters. It was about them and the case wound up just being a back-drop, Carcossa and the killer's house were extremely atmospheric though. A lot of design work must have went into the house especially, I wonder if Carcossa was an actual building or just a set? What could that build have been originally? Some old fort?

There was a fair bit of dead-ends with the cult and the daughters. Maybe the daughter thing was accidental and the internet just made it something it never was? I know for the next season, I won't bother pouring over every detail of the show and just enjoy the ride.

The opening act (1-3) was where I felt the show was strongest. The rest was very strong but there was something so gripping about the interview/start of the case format.

Can't wait to find out details about season 2 and just how long we'll have to wait for it

[Warg Arry]

Yeah this annoyed me. Constant talk of yellow king, black stars, the ceremonial nature of the murders etc through 8 episodes and this is the only explanation offered, far from satisfying. Was Reggie LeDoux just off his face on drugs muttering those things before his death or is there some genuine belief behind it. Fans will probably make allowances and insist that it's intended, my own thought is that NP simply didn't know how to elaborate on it while doing the whole thing justice, so what we're left with is just smoke and mirrors, or to put it another way, drugged up rambling inbreds.

When Rust is moving through Carcosa. Errol is talking to him. Calling Rust 'priest'.

He says "you know what they did to me?" "Mmm hmm." "What I would do to all the sons and daughters of man."

"You blessed Reggie. Dewall" "Acolytes" "Witnesses to my journey."

To me that says that the two guys Marty and Rust killed were apart of it all. That they had seen and done things along with Lawnmower man.

It was something done to all of them and they paid it forward. Through their brokenness. Their beliefs. Through their actions.

The half sister/lover said Errol was the worst of all of them.

I didn't have subtitles on so it may not be accurate quotes. That's what I heard being said.

[Tellus Explorer]

I'm about to watch the whole series all over again (love you on demand)

Because I know the answers are right under our noses! There is a big chunk of puzzle missing that I think will lead us right to the climax of everything. Just have to find it