Spoilers after the jump.
Last week, (“Who Goes There”), Rust went undercover again to find an old buddy from the Iron Crusaders, hoping to use him as a path to Reggie Ledoux–meth chef for hire, prime suspect in the diabolical murders of young, lost women, and the “monster” at the end of his (that is, our) nightmare in “The Locked Room”, sickle in hand, staring at the audience behind a gas mask.
“The Secret Fate of All Life” begins with Reggie’s unkempt, grizzled partner Dewall leaning across a bar table to call Rust’s bluff, chew him up, and spit him out. “I can see your soul at the edges of your eyes. […] You got a demon, little man. […] I see you again, I’m putting you down.”
Undeterred, Cohle and Hart track Ledoux and Dewall in their overgrown, booby trapped meth lair in the woods…without calling for police backup. (Note the devil’s trap Rust spots after stepping carefully over a tripwire; this must be the man they’re looking for…isn’t it?)
The story transitions between the ex-detectives’ present-day retelling to Detectives Papania and Gilbough and how the mission actually goes down, meaning only the audience will note some, uh, complications in their pursuit of Ledoux and Dewall. (Even after years of hostility and silence, the camera can cut between the former partners to show how clearly their stories match as they describe the other’s bravery under desperate circumstances and heavy fire. Is it self-interest or begrudging respect for one another that allows them to finish one another’s sentences?)
After disposing of the meth dealers, Hart and Cohle rescue two dirty, starved children Ledoux was holding captive at the property (one dead, one “catatonic” but alive). Having survived a bullet-filled warzone to get their killer, the two are hailed as heroes. Hart’s household is tentatively restored after it was threatened by “crazy pussy” and infidelity. A bond is forged between them in shared triumph and shared deceit.
But that peace is short-lived. Fast forward seven years, from 1995 to 2002. Hart’s familial equilibrium wanes as his daughters grow into adolescence. Maisie, the youngest, has blossomed into the smiling spitting image of Maggie; foul-mouthed, kohl-rimmed Audrey probably shares more with her father and his “wild” tendencies than he’d care to acknowledge, a mystery and a ticking timebomb to Marty. (Before we see Audrey transformed from deceptively angelic-looking child into teenaged hellion, he muses, “Maybe I didn’t change, not the way I needed to. […] The solution to my whole life was right under my nose–that woman, those kids. And I was watching everything else”.)
While Hart is losing his family, we’ll see Rust lose what grounds him, ties him to the earth–being the “bad man” savvy enough of human ugliness to “keep other bad men from the door”. He’s called to work his charms and assist in the interrogation of Guy Leonard Francis, charged with a double murder. Just when Cohle thinks he’s got the confession he needs, Francis, desperate for a deal, promises to give him the killer Rust thought he’d caught seven years prior– “the Yellow King”, the phantom invoked by Charlie Lange and in Dora Lange’s diary entries. When Francis utters the words, Cohle snaps; years after closing the case he almost died to solve, he realizes he’s let his “monster” stay free to hunt.
In the present, a weary Cohle describes the “terrible and secret fate” of human existence revealed by the ghastly discovery of the children and the realization of his mistakes–there is no real progress, no wisdom gained, no redemption, and no relief. “You are reborn, but into the same life that you’ve always been born into. […] You can’t remember your lives, you can’t change your lives […] You’re trapped. Like a nightmare you keep waking up into.”
We have yet to see just how deeply he’s ensnared and whether Hart will remain loyal to his former partner as Papania and Gilbough test the theory that Cohle’s guilt goes beyond his skewing the investigation and failing to catch the right man the first time around.
Is there anything that caught your ear or eye in this episode? Visual details? Foreshadowing? Thoughts about the performances, or possibilities for future episodes? Interesting insights from elsewhere on the interwebz about where the show is going?
