Viewed from a "fourth dimension", humanity goes round and round in a circle, never growing or progressing. "Time is a flat circle," he says, parroting the same thing Ledoux told him back in 1995. As a result Rust and Marty have to spin an elaborate cover story that, tellingly, is relayed to their interrogators complete with booms, bangs and gun noises, like a game of cowboys and indians.ĭamning too are Rust's long, metaphysical digressions, which reach a peak this week as he reveals to Gilbough and Papania his findings on the nature of existence. It's an impulsive decision that has dire repercussions when Hart, reeling from having found two children imprisoned inside the meth lab, shoots an already captured Ledoux in the head (while DeWall attempts to escape, but falls foul of one of his explosive booby traps in the process). That vision is on display here too as Rust and Cohle, having tailed DeWall, enter his and Ledoux's 'nam-like compound, rather than doing the sensible thing of calling the case in. The leukemia story was, of course, a cover for that sting in east Texas, which as much as it was a means of getting to Ledoux, seemed equally a way for Rust to enact his boys'-own-adventure vision of police work: stakeouts, disguises, gunfights. Those "maverick cop" tendencies so often presented in cop dramas as admirable – an unwillingness to do things by the book, a lack of respect for procedure – just make him seem more suspicious.
True detective season 1 episode 5 serial#
Is it that much of a stretch to suggest that Rust manufactured those clues – "pushed the case where he wanted it to go" – to string along the police: a serial killer toying with the men hunting him? What's more, he just happened to be the one who unearthed all the salient evidence in the original investigation – Rianne Olivier, Reggie Ledoux et al. He emerged from his wilderness years just as the most recent murder was uncovered, has been sighted at the scene of that murder on five separate occasions and has a storage locker that he won't let the cops inspect. Rust has numerous holes in his backstory, from his redacted undercover work, to his time spent looking after his ill father (who has no record of ever being treated for leukemia), right to the period where he went "dark" between 20.
And, most significantly, in the 2012 scenes we finally learn the real motivation behind the interrogations of the pair: the two detectives doing the interrogating, Gilbough and Papania, believe that Rust is the man responsible for the occult killings.īar some unexpected (and likely ludicrous) twist, we can safely rule out Rust as the killer - the final scene where he uncovers the occult symbology in the abandoned school fairly conclusively confirms that - but equally, you can see why Gilbough and Papania have made that leap of logic. Replacing it are the first glimpses into the events of 2002, the time where Marty and Rust's partnership went bad.
The 1995 portion of the investigation is violently concluded with the deaths of Reggie Ledoux and DeWall. If the unbearably tense climax to Who Goes There hinted at a change in pace from True Detective's meditative opening trio of episodes, tonight's instalment follows through on it. And yet, it's an assessment that seems to hang heavily over Rust for the rest of The Secret Fate of All Life, an episode that steers the investigation of Dora Lange's murder into a sudden left turn. Given that the man who makes that judgment, DeWall, is a child-abducting meth cook who later manages to blow himself up into small chunks, the temptation might be to take his words with a barrel load of salt. "You've got a demon, little man … there's a shadow on your soul," Rust is told early on in tonight's episode. Gwilym's Mumford's season one, episode four recap If you have seen further ahead in the series, please do not leave spoilers.
Please don't read on if you haven't watched episode five. Spoiler alert: we are recapping True Detective after UK transmission.