True Detective: Haunted Houses Rewatch
October 21, 2014 8:52 PM - Season 1, Episode 6 - Subscribe
All the threads through 1995 and into 2002 begin to weave together as we watch the fate of both Marty's marriage and Rust's investigation. Cohle visits the families of missing children and follows up with old leads Joel Theriot and Reverend Tuttle, and realizes that his fears about the scope of the problem might have been an underestimation. Hart makes good on his down payment at the Bunny Ranch, and beats the crap outta pretty much ever'one. And in an oddly empty scene (that is, one with neither Rust or Marty in it) Papania and Gilbough bring in Maggie for some friendly questioning: In a former life I used to exhaust myself navigating crude men who thought they were clever.
Bonus materials at Darkness Becomes You
Interview with Michelle Monaghan.
Music (playlist)
The Handsome Family - Far From Any Road (Titles)
Waylon Jennings - Waymore's Blues
Bobby Charles - Les Champs Élysée (Available to stream at this blog post.)
Father John Misty - Everyman Needs a Companion
Glenn Gould - Goldberg Variations; BWV 988: Aria
Emmy Lou Harris - The Good Book
Ike and Tina Turner - Too Many Tears In My Eyes
Meredith Monk - Core Chant
Bonus materials at Darkness Becomes You
Interview with Michelle Monaghan.
Music (playlist)
The Handsome Family - Far From Any Road (Titles)
Waylon Jennings - Waymore's Blues
Bobby Charles - Les Champs Élysée (Available to stream at this blog post.)
Father John Misty - Everyman Needs a Companion
Glenn Gould - Goldberg Variations; BWV 988: Aria
Emmy Lou Harris - The Good Book
Ike and Tina Turner - Too Many Tears In My Eyes
Meredith Monk - Core Chant
This episode has a couple of my favorite scenes! To wit:
The scene where Rust interrogates the woman who killed her child. I loved that this interrogation was recognizably in the same style of Rust's other interrogations, with Rust acting as a sort of priest-confessor to the suspect, but that if you compare it to the others, there's something hollow and empty in the way Rust acts out this familiar tableau. Rust is going through the motions, ticking the boxes of the things he knows will elicit a confession. But he so obviously hates it, and hates himself, in the moment where he drags out his own pain when he says he lost a child too. This is the moment when I believed that Rust was burned out, that the job was taking things from him he'd never get back. And of course, there's the gut punch that was the end of that scene, delivered in the same even, distant tone as the rest of the interrogation: "If you get the opportunity, you should kill yourself." It startled a laugh out of me the first time, even as it made my blood run cold.
The other scene I loved was the one just after Maggie finds out Rust is cheating on her, and comes downstairs to give Marty his food. It was this scene that convinced me that Pizzolatto knew, a little at least, what he was doing with his portrayal of women. For a series so relentlessly focused on Marty and Rust, this scene where we see Maggie and the girls' palpable disgust and contempt for the caricature of masculinity/fatherhood that he had become seemed to me to place the audience firmly on their side. We're invited to see the whole thing from their perspective, and so in that moment, the audience is disgusted by Marty too. Because there he is, sitting on his recliner having his food brought to him and he's off-handedly mocking the women in his family, and it's clear he has no idea who they really are and that he's totally ignorant of the look of pure contempt Maggie is shooting him.
posted by yasaman at 9:55 AM on October 22, 2014 [8 favorites]
The scene where Rust interrogates the woman who killed her child. I loved that this interrogation was recognizably in the same style of Rust's other interrogations, with Rust acting as a sort of priest-confessor to the suspect, but that if you compare it to the others, there's something hollow and empty in the way Rust acts out this familiar tableau. Rust is going through the motions, ticking the boxes of the things he knows will elicit a confession. But he so obviously hates it, and hates himself, in the moment where he drags out his own pain when he says he lost a child too. This is the moment when I believed that Rust was burned out, that the job was taking things from him he'd never get back. And of course, there's the gut punch that was the end of that scene, delivered in the same even, distant tone as the rest of the interrogation: "If you get the opportunity, you should kill yourself." It startled a laugh out of me the first time, even as it made my blood run cold.
The other scene I loved was the one just after Maggie finds out Rust is cheating on her, and comes downstairs to give Marty his food. It was this scene that convinced me that Pizzolatto knew, a little at least, what he was doing with his portrayal of women. For a series so relentlessly focused on Marty and Rust, this scene where we see Maggie and the girls' palpable disgust and contempt for the caricature of masculinity/fatherhood that he had become seemed to me to place the audience firmly on their side. We're invited to see the whole thing from their perspective, and so in that moment, the audience is disgusted by Marty too. Because there he is, sitting on his recliner having his food brought to him and he's off-handedly mocking the women in his family, and it's clear he has no idea who they really are and that he's totally ignorant of the look of pure contempt Maggie is shooting him.
posted by yasaman at 9:55 AM on October 22, 2014 [8 favorites]
The interview with Maggie is really interesting. The set has shifted again. She's close to the door, door's open, blinds are up. No camera.
This episode has a several Greek themes. The 'Marshland Medea.' Rust calls SIDS a 'curse,' 'not in a language anyone speaks.' One of the overarching ideas in the series is one of hubris. Marty references it, calling it the detective's curse. Rust's face looks masklike in the interrogation room, and he curses her at the end. Woe to you.
Objects aren't used for their rightful purposes. Kelly sits in a rocking chair, unmoving. The major has some impressive taxidermy on the wall.
Also, 'Thirty seconds, in and out!'
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:32 PM on October 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
This episode has a several Greek themes. The 'Marshland Medea.' Rust calls SIDS a 'curse,' 'not in a language anyone speaks.' One of the overarching ideas in the series is one of hubris. Marty references it, calling it the detective's curse. Rust's face looks masklike in the interrogation room, and he curses her at the end. Woe to you.
Objects aren't used for their rightful purposes. Kelly sits in a rocking chair, unmoving. The major has some impressive taxidermy on the wall.
Also, 'Thirty seconds, in and out!'
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:32 PM on October 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
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posted by carsonb at 8:57 PM on October 21, 2014