True Detective (here be SPOILERS)

[RainDog]

4. episode six guessing game

...even if I'm the only one playing. lol.

okay, now that Pizzolato talked about the story as a referential and meta-story within a story (using the Carcosa story as the basis, which, others have noted, was a riff on Ambrose Bierce long ago. via wiki:

"An Inhabitant of Carcosa" (also printed as part of “Can Such Things Be?” in the San Francisco Newsletter of December 25, 1886)[1] is a short story by 19th-century journalist, short-story writer and occasional horror-story author, Ambrose Bierce.
The story concerns a man from the ancient city of Carcosa who awakens from a sickness-induced sleep to find himself lost in an unfamiliar wilderness.

Carcosa was subsequently borrowed by Robert W. Chambers as the setting of his fictional play, The King in Yellow, and features heavily in many of the stories in the book of the same name. These concepts were further expanded upon by H. P. Lovecraft in his Cthulhu Mythos stories.

The influence of Bierce's short story is still felt today as modern authors continue to contribute to the Cthulhu Mythos. The story is told in first-person narrative, and includes a rather interesting footnote at the end.

Synopsis of Bierce's story

A man from the city of Carcosa, contemplating the words of the philosopher "Hali" concerning the nature of death, wanders through an unfamiliar wilderness. He knows not how he came there, but recalls that he was sick in bed. He worries that he has wandered out of doors in a state of insensibility. He calms himself as he surveys his surroundings. He is aware that it is cold, though he does not exactly feel cold. He comes across a lynx, an owl, and a strange man dressed in skins and carrying a torch. For the first time, the man becomes aware that it must be night, though he can see as clear as day. Exploring further, he discovers a copse that was evidently a graveyard of several centuries past. Looking at the stones that once marked graves, he sees his name, the date of his birth, and the date of his death. He then realizes that he is dead, and is amidst the ruins of the "ancient and famous city of Carcosa." A footnote at the end of the story states, "Such are the facts imparted to the medium Bayrolles by the spirit Hoseib Alar Robardin."

I don't think this story is meant to be a supernatural horror story - I think the writer made it clear the horror is existential - even if the pov of Coehle, no matter what he says as his perception, includes the other part of existential thought, which is this: the meaning of life is the meaning you give it and that's expressed in the way you live... i.e. we're all gonna die, so live life in the best way possible till then because it takes courage, some times, to do so.

But I think Bierce's version of the story gets to the meta narrative of Coehle talking about his existence as a character in a story - and the audience listening in. When LeDoux said "He sees you" - was he talking about the audience viewing what was about to happen, or, both that idea and the idea that the Yellow King had surveillance at the ranch and knows what actually happened?

...which could be used against Hart or Coehle if any further investigations were to take place, esp. after they had hero welcomes after the fact. If someone had been taping the event, that, too, could be a situation in which their interaction takes place over and over and over, same kids, etc. as Coehle noted.

Then there's The King in Yellow, from Robert Chambers. That book, like this season of TD, takes place over different time periods (and with different characters. The thing that unites them is the play within these stories, which is another play about The Yellow King. No one is supposed to be able to read the thing without going mad - over decades, in different countries and cities. I wonder if this will be the overarching set for TD beyond this season?

Hart's daughter, who repeated his actions, with variations, herself, and his repetition of his f-i-l's pov as Hart gets older and cranky about the generation coming up - and his reaction extends to violence against his daughter for being as sexually reckless as he was - which someone wrote about before - his reaction to his daughter is another example of his double standards. She's in the next ep, too, and, my guess is that she runs away after he goes after another boyfriend. Maybe she winds up as another victim - or maybe she just disappears and he never knows otherwise.

Hart's wife, Maggie, is back, too. I wonder if Hart got jealous again when Maggie just never quite wants to be with him, even if she tried. Maybe she flirts with Coehle and Hart thinks his partner is really trying to "mow the lawn" and that causes their breakup. If that's what happened, that could lead to speculation that Marty is trying to set up Rust to take the fall. But that seems too convoluted, maybe. More likely, they will resolve their past differences because of their loyalty to one another, in that meta tropie buddy cop kinda way with a splash of nihilism and bitters.