SCENE 3.41 / Exterior Flatboat (1995) - Cohle and Marty question Henry Oliver about his daughters death. / Photo: Jim Bridges/HBO HBO’s “True Detective” Season 1 Director: Cary Fukunaga Matthew McConaughey: Rustin Cohle Woody Harrelson: Martin Hart Ritchie Montgomery: Henry Oliver Photo: Jim Bridges/HBO Nothing like a creepy name to capture the imagination of the TV obsessive who has become primed to expect mythology and “Easter eggs” in everything they watch. True Detective diehards have been discussing the Yellow King for weeks, ever since the name was first mentioned in episode two, plucked out of murder victim Dora Lange’s journal alongside mentions of black stars falling and a place named “Carcosa.” And in an interview with The Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog on February 2, novelist and show writer Nic Pizzolatto name-dropped Robert W. Chambers’s 1895 story collection The King in Yellow as part of the show’s galaxy of influences. But it was an io9 piece, titled “The One Literary Reference You Must Know to Appreciate True Detective,” that spread the name far and wide. As that piece explained, The King in Yellow of the collection’s title is a play that drives anyone who experiences it insane. Chambers’s book influenced the work of H.P. Lovecraft, the early 20th century horror writer who wrote many short stories in which characters go mad after seeing the true nature of the cosmos (or giant, tentacled Old Gods — sometimes they’re o— ne and the same). Pizzolatto’s decision to use that same name for its mysterious, as-yet-unseen murderer/string puller, has lent True Detective a truly eerie, even supernatural, feeling that has helped to elevate True Detective above the typical police procedural. It has also inspired viewers — myself included — to go deep down the crawfish hole, much like Matthew McConaughey’s Cohle, who says in episode one, when speaking about his omnipresent ledger, “I’ve always taken a lot of notes. You never know what the thing’s gonna be, do ya? The little detail somewhere down the line that makes you say, ‘ah!’” So we rewatch the episodes, look for clues both verbal and visual, note even the most minor of characters, strain to spot suspects lurking on the edges of the frame, and try to figure out how it all fits together. The knowledge that the Yellow King is a name taken from stories about vaguely supernatural stuff (which has propelled the ebook to No. 4 on Amazon’s best-seller list) has inspired some grand theoretical leaps, leading some to hope that the weird part of the show will get truly weird. But part of me fears that this is all a red herring and that the Yellow King isn’t anything more than what he appears to be on the surface — just a very bad man, something very familiar to TV viewers. Which, for me, would be very disappointing given the level of mythology that has rapidly built up around this show. And while it seems silly to drop Lost levels of Easter-egg-ness into a show that runs only eight episodes, that’s exactly what everyone seems to be doing. So let’s take a look at some theories about who the series’ master villain could be. (And head over to the True Detective subreddit where these, and many other crazy theories — the Yellow King is the owner of the Vietnamese sandwich shop — can be found.) 1. Rust Cohle 2. Martin Hart Hart is the one who speaks of suffering from the detective’s curse — missing that which is right under your nose — but maybe it’s Cohle who was blind to his partner’s true self. (Or, as the revivalist preacher says in episode three, “The face you wear is not your own.”) Also, someone spotted this familiar swirly pattern in Hart’s house. What does it mean? 3. Hart’s father-in-law 4. Preacher Tuttle 5. Governor Tuttle 6. The Lawnmower Man 7. No one, because there is no Yellow King. 8. The owner of this fast-food franchise.
9. The leaders of a bayou cult of Old God worshippers. True Detective: Who Is the Yellow King? I'm still trying to figure this one out. Surely it couldn't be Errol. He came across as nothing more than a grounds keeper for the big boys. And given how quick the governor and his brother were to create a task force to quell the case, we know that this cult has members far more powerful than Errol. But then again, Errol mentions his ascendency, and is given a quote from the King in Yellow ("Take off your mask"). Some have speculated that the Yellow King is simply a thought, or a higher power, but that can't be true. Several characters throughout the show speak of him as a person they've met or know. Personally, I'd rather that we never found out who the Yellow King was, but perhaps I'm forgetting some clues that do definitively points towards Errol. Thoughts? |