The Ending of True Detective

[Ascrobius]

As far as I am concerned, the ending was painfully predictable and in every way a "Hollywood" ending, all wrapped up with a tidy, palatable bow. Of course the light wins out over the darkness. As it was, as it has almost always been...in Hollywood films. And HBO is just as Hollywood as any other entity of its kind, and provides entertainment to a population that needs them to end that way, for the most part.

[symbolique]

nil

[Frater_Tsalal]

I'd say that most fictional art formats are entirely predictable, though. Consider the weird fiction genre. Have you ever started reading a Ligotti story (or nearly any story that falls into the Lovecraftian vein, for that matter) and thought to yourself, "This narrator will probably end up okay by the end?" It almost always ends badly., and you know that going in. I'm not even sure if TD's ending could be called tidy though. Weren't there still killers out there who had evaded being arrested? It's not as if every single member of the cult (or whatever it was) was caught.

[Druidic]

Quote

I'd say that most fictional art formats are entirely predictable, though. --FraterTsalal

That's what I like about Lovecraft: sometimes the Good Guys win (Charles Ward, Dunwich Horror, Dream Quest, Shunned House); and sometimes not. Sometimes like Dreams in the Witch-House it's a stalemate. Gilman pays with his life but destroys the witch and, indirectly, Brown Jenkin. Apparently the familiar needed the witch to survive.

[Frater_Tsalal]

It may sound odd, but I've always found the ending of "Shadow Over Innsmouth" to be kind of a happy ending. I'm not sure if Lovecraft intended it to be tragic or horrific, but I've always found those last passages kind of hauntingly beautiful.

[ramonoski]

Poe was half right when he said that to be successful you have to write a book titled "my heart laid bare" and be true to it. What people want are stories that exalt the power of the human spirit, the overcoming of adversity. Works that leave it clear that even in our darkest abyss there is light*. If you can slap a sticker that says "the inspiring true story of X" in the cover, get ready for all those royalties. But perhaps I'm being too cynical. Nothing wrong with light-hearted fare, and I certainly welcome it from time to time. But as Ligotti explained in that very apt interview quote, you best not deceive your audiences. As they say, you're only deceiving yourself.

Frater_Tsalal: yes, that ending is a particularly odd thing. You'd figure you're supposed to feel repulsion at the idea of this narrator slowly abandoning his humanity, but Lovecraft makes it work the other way around. That last sentence is quite optimistic in a way.


* My name's not Nic, so I have no problems telling you I lifted this phrase from Alan Moore.

[LeglessSaltyDiogenes]

I too was disappointed with the ending, but not because it was redemptive in itself. I could believe that Rust had some kind of glimpse of enlightenment while near death, and this would have reconciled him to the loss of his daughter in some way. But they could have easily thrown in something that would have confirmed his previous statements about the Self of Man and the lack of fixed identity; why make his revelation so Christian?

I also liked the ending of "Shadow Over Innsmouth". I didn't like the movie "Dagon", but the ending was kind of romantic in a way.

[dr. locrian]

The ending of True Detective wasn't bad because Rust was redeemed. It was bad because the redemption wasn't earned or believable in any way. It was a classic case of Deus Ex Machina and seemed to me simultaneously hollow and calculated. If Pizzolatto wanted to go the unexpected grace route, he should've read up on Flannery O'Connor's work and ripped her off instead of Alan Moore.

[nicolamasciandaro]

Readers of Ligotti who watch TD may be interested in this new collection.

[the significance of the ending is addressed by several contributors, esp. Ennis and Neylan]

True Detection

 

True Detection

. Edited by Edia Connole, Paul J. Ennis & Nicola Masciandaro. London: Schism Press, 2014. ISBN-13: 978-0692277379. ISBN-10: 0692277374. 272pp.

A collection of philosophical and critical essays on the television series True Detective.

"Traditionally, the detective genre deals with the problem of epistemology – how to know something that one doesn't know. There are some things we cannot know, and some things we should not know. Sometimes clues just give way to more clues, and epistemic tedium rules the day. These essays reveal knowledge becoming an enigma to itself, revealing the brilliant futility of the epistemological project." – Eugene Thacker, author of In The Dust of This Planet

"The television event of the year - I would say many years - is without doubt True Detective. One deserving of forensic, unflinching, and unrelenting philosophical treatment." – Simon Critchley

"The most intelligent series in TV history has opened strange crypts for explorers. This excellent essay collection reveals just how far the dark tunnels lead. Let it coax you from the comforts of death and fear, into detection of the guttering nightmare that is life, coldly seen." – Nick Land

CONTENTS

I. Black Stars
Gary J. Shipley – Monster at the End: Pessimism’s Locked Rooms and Impossible Crimes
Edia Connole – Contemplating the Crucifixion: Cohle and Divine Gloom
Nicola Masciandaro – I Am Not Supposed To Be Here: Birth and Mystical Detection

II. Separate From Itself
Fintan Neylan – The Labour of the Pessimist: Detecting Expiration’s Artifice
Paul J. Ennis – The Atmospherics of Consciousness
Ben Woodard – Nothing Grows in the Right Direction: Scaling the Life of the Negative

III. There Was A Videotape
Niall McCann – True Detective, Jean-Luc Godard and Our Image Culture: ‘This May Well be Heaven, this Hell Smells the Same’
Daniel Fitzpatrick – ‘True Dick’ . . . The Accelerated Acceptance and Premature Canonisation of True Detective

IV. It’s Just One Story
Scott Wilson – The Nonsense of Detection: Truth Between Science and the Real
Erin K. Stapleton – The Corpse is the Territory: The Body of Dora Kelly Lange in True Detective
Caoimhe Doyle & Katherine Foyle – The Flat Devil Net: Mapping Quantum Narratives in True Detective
Daniel Colucciello Barber – Affect Has No Story

V. And Closure–No, No, No
Dominic Fox – koyntly bigyled
Charlie Blake, Daniel Colucciello Barber, Edia Connole, Paul J. Ennis, Gary J. Shipley – Bird Trap
Edge to Edge
Caoimhe Doyle & Katherine Foyle – The Chole Story

[dr. locrian]

Quote Originally Posted by nicolamasciandaro

Readers of Ligotti who watch TD may be interested in this new collection. [the significance of the ending is addressed by several contributors, esp. Ennis and Neylan] True Detection. Edited by Edia Connole, Paul J. Ennis & Nicola Masciandaro. London: Schism Press, 2014. ISBN-13: 978-0692277379. ISBN-10: 0692277374. 272pp. A collection of philosophical and critical essays on the television series True Detective. "Traditionally, the detective genre deals with the problem of epistemology – how to know something that one doesn't know. There are some things we cannot know, and some things we should not know. Sometimes clues just give way to more clues, and epistemic tedium rules the day. These essays reveal knowledge becoming an enigma to itself, revealing the brilliant futility of the epistemological project." – Eugene Thacker, author of In The Dust of This Planet "The television event of the year - I would say many years - is without doubt True Detective. One deserving of forensic, unflinching, and unrelenting philosophical treatment." – Simon Critchley "The most intelligent series in TV history has opened strange crypts for explorers. This excellent essay collection reveals just how far the dark tunnels lead. Let it coax you from the comforts of death and fear, into detection of the guttering nightmare that is life, coldly seen." – Nick Land CONTENTS I. Black Stars Gary J. Shipley – Monster at the End: Pessimism’s Locked Rooms and Impossible Crimes Edia Connole – Contemplating the Crucifixion: Cohle and Divine Gloom Nicola Masciandaro – I Am Not Supposed To Be Here: Birth and Mystical Detection II. Separate From Itself Fintan Neylan – The Labour of the Pessimist: Detecting Expiration’s Artifice Paul J. Ennis – The Atmospherics of Consciousness Ben Woodard – Nothing Grows in the Right Direction: Scaling the Life of the Negative III. There Was A Videotape Niall McCann – True Detective, Jean-Luc Godard and Our Image Culture: ‘This May Well be Heaven, this Hell Smells the Same’ Daniel Fitzpatrick – ‘True Dick’ . . . The Accelerated Acceptance and Premature Canonisation of True Detective IV. It’s Just One Story Scott Wilson – The Nonsense of Detection: Truth Between Science and the Real Erin K. Stapleton – The Corpse is the Territory: The Body of Dora Kelly Lange in True Detective Caoimhe Doyle & Katherine Foyle – The Flat Devil Net: Mapping Quantum Narratives in True Detective Daniel Colucciello Barber – Affect Has No Story V. And Closure–No, No, No Dominic Fox – koyntly bigyled Charlie Blake, Daniel Colucciello Barber, Edia Connole, Paul J. Ennis, Gary J. Shipley – Bird Trap Edge to Edge Caoimhe Doyle & Katherine Foyle – The Chole Story

Yep, and I know for a fact that Ligotti's name comes up in these essays more than any other writer whose name isn't Pizzolatto.