HBO’s True Detective
Season 1, Episode 2: “Seeing Things”
Directed by Cary Fukunaga
Written by Nic Pizzolatto

* For a review of the first episode, “The Long Bright Dark” – click here
* For a review of the net episode, “The Locked Room” – click here

Dt. Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) is still sitting with Detectives Maynard Gilbough (Michael Potts) and Thomas Papania (Tory Kittles), explaining things from his side. He talks about when he and Dt. Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson) found the strange stick figure. They went to see Mrs. Kelly (Tess Harper), daughter of the deceased young girl for which they’re searching. What’s most interesting is what Cohle notices, as the woman rattles on. He sees a few pictures, one depicting men dressed in strange costumes on horseback and surrounding a little girl, likely the same one whose murder they’re investigating.
Furthermore, we see the divide between Cohle and Hart. The latter talks of his mother, the former doesn’t even know if his is alive. In the present timeline, Dts. Gilbough and Papania get all sorts of information about Hart, though they’re edging more towards getting the dirt on Cohle. Back then, Dts. Cohle and Hart start to flesh out more information about their victim, and what may have happened to her. The serial killer they track is cunning, symbolic, and worst of all nearly untraceable in the backwoods of the Louisiana swamps.

Cohle and Hart are vastly different, but they’re also alike in that they have both hide things. There is a secret side to them both. And much as they try, those secret sides want to get out. For now, at least Cohle finally tells Marty about his wife, the child that died. So there’s a bit of a bridge building there. A small one, though a bridge no less. There’s lots more to them as characters, which begins fleshing out in this second episode. The part we discover about Cohle is that his pessimistic view of the world is mostly a reflection of how he feels about himself. In opposition, Marty’s so completely wrapped up in himself that he can’t even see his own faults. He knows they’re there, he just can’t admit to them. Funny, he says about the very same thing re: Cohle to Dts. Gilbough and Papania. His weakness is women mainly; women that are not his wife.
And while Hart spends sordid nights with Lisa Tragnetti (Alexandra Daddario), his partner Cohle is out cruising the night, having psychedelic flashbacks and trying to contain that other part of him hoping to rage. He gets pills, plus a bit of information from a Confidential Informant. Even better, his past is slightly concealed to the detectives now interviewing him. One mysterious man.
In their early days as partners, Cohle and Hart were at odds. Cohle knew almost immediately what Hart was like, a dog of a husband and a man. They had their confrontations, they slightly worked that stuff out. But you can feel there’s something bigger in their future, something we’ll see as the chapters wear on.

Back in ’95, Cohle and Hart manage to track down a little “hillbilly bunny ranch” where there’s underage girls being prostituted. Their victim Dora Lange was once a part of the farm before she made it out to bigger, supposedly better things. We know how that turned out. They find one girl, Beth (Lili Simmons), who knew Dora, and they try to figure out any of the poor deceased girl’s movements over the past while. They hear about her ex, but not much else. They do, however, get the girl’s diary. It talks about some strange things: The Yellow King, black stars, Carcosa, and all sorts of creepiness.
In 2012, Dts. Gilough and Papania find out more about Cohle, how he was in a psychiatric facility for a little while during ’93, that he dove headfirst into undercover work. He was a “floater” able to go anywhere, do anything. Deep undercover type stuff. For four years. The type of assignment which changes a man irreparably.
Between what he’s seen on the job and the guilt he feels in relation to the death of his daughter, Cohle is stuck during ’95 in the duty to find Dora Lange’s killer. At the same time, Marty gets resistance from his wife Maggie (Michelle Monaghan) while trying to work the case. That’s because it isn’t only the case for him, either. It’s about the infidelity, cheating on his wife and feeling guilt for it, all of that making him act like an asshole and neglect his family.
One scary moment for Marty is when he finds his daughters playing in their room. They’ve got dolls setup like a bunch of men standing around a woman, one ready to have sex with her as she lays naked between them. The influence of sex is already present in their lives. This should be a wake-up call for Marty, that there’s an evil beneath their small town’s covers.

During ’95, Cohle and Hart also find themselves swept up in a task force, one put into action by the governor. Meanwhile, the brother of the governor, Reverend Billy Lee Tuttle (Jay O. Sanders) turns up poking his nose around. Things are not well for Cohle around the office. He hates that there’s a bunch of nonsense about Satanism and a big “political circle jerk” going on. Everyone else is clueless, yet in the midst of it he’s the only one, surprisingly, making sense.
They end up finding a church where Dora may have sought religious counsel. Inside painted on the wall is a mural depicting a woman with antlers on her head, very eerie, too similar to the way they found Dora’s corpse at the beginning of their investigation. Now, the plot thickens quite a bit. Their leads are becoming more tangible, real, and things get scarier.

A great follow-up to the first episode. Love this one. Great series that only gets better with repeat viewings. The next episode is titled “The Locked Room” and holds plenty more delights.