At one look, True Detective is little more than a series of random lectures on nihilism and moral insecurity, but the climax brings forth a lesson worth contemplating upon. As Rust remarks in the end- Rajit Roy
HBO’s hard hitting crime drama True Detective became one of those Television shows that redefined the conventional theme of TV viewership. Unlike The Game of Thrones obsession, which thrived on George RR Martin’s already acclaimed literary genius, True Detective came as an original screenplay from its creator Nic Pizzolato. However, one essentially common theme that the two visual renditions constantly contend with is darkness. Nevertheless, no other TV show has dealt so intensely with the subject of nihilism and human fallacy as True Detective. The story begins with the lead character Rust Cohle’s verbal porn on human existence, drawing parallels from Max Stirner’s The Ego and Its Own- “I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware...We are creatures that should not exist by natural laws.” The plot seems like an eternal swirl into the dark alleys of manhood- greed, envy, sexual obsessions, and Cohle looks like an anarchist fucking up everything with his philosophy of denial. Time is a flat circle reminds one of Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence- “Everything has returned. Sirius, and the spider, and thy thoughts at this moment, and this last thought of thine that all things will return." Drawing inspiration from Thomas Ligotti’s The Conspiracy against the Human Race, True Detective’s underlying theme is one that portrays human existence as a ceaseless cycle of futility and as an illusion of identity. Each still body so certain that they were more than a biological puppet. Death becomes a liberation in a worldview that abhors consciousness and ego. The truth wheels out and everybody sees, how easy it was to just let go. To finally realize that you didn’t have to hold on so tight. Moreover, the portrayal of sex in the show dwells into the very core of human nature. The eternal drive for lust overpowers the social temper of love and affection, bringing chaos into the architecture of this whole man-woman drama, as Rust puts it. Religion too is a recurring theme of Rust Cohle’s verbally weighty philosophy. Faith and God survive on man’s fallacy, as he explains- The ontological fallacy of expecting light at the end of the tunnel- that’s what the preacher tells. He encourages your capacity for illusion, and tells you it’s a fucking virtue. You see, everybody wants confession. Everybody wants some cathartic narrative-the guilty especially. But everybody’s guilty. At one look, True Detective is little more than a series of random lectures on nihilism and moral insecurity, but the climax brings forth a lesson worth contemplating upon. As Rust remarks in the end- “It’s just one story. The oldest. Light vs dark.” “Once there was only dark. If you ask me, the light’s winning.”
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Rajit Roy
An existential romantic, an agnostic and a prospective biologist. Archives
September 2018
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