I am not someone who watches TV series a lot. I just watched True Detective's first season in April 2020, which was released in 2014. It has been 6 years since, a lot must have been said about it ... I will only touch a few things that interest me more (at first watching).
In the Season 1, one of the things that attracted my attention most, and frankly the best thing I liked about the series was its fair approach to women and men. You know, in recent years, there has been hostility towards men (they call it misandry) being pumped in the cultural universe in general, and in movies and series in particular. Unfortunately, this approach, which is based on the idea that men dominate the system, women are oppressed, has evolved into "men are bad in essence" in recent years.
This series doesn't have this morbose approach, and perhaps the biggest reason for this is its success in character creation. Characters are not one-dimensional; complex beings who have their own mistakes, shortcomings, good and superior aspects, virtues; they often behave in a way that is expected from them, and unexpectedly at times, like all of us ... This is why the characters feel like so realistic, even like you would bump into one of them just around the corner.
Let's take Marty. Prima facie, he seems like a typical white American guy that loves his job and family and tries to enjoy his life. But is he? He has alcohol problem, he has difficulty in controlling his anger, he loves his family, but he doesn't spend much time with them, he abuses his position as police from time to time, and he cheats on his wife repeatedly. But do you hate the man who does all these things while watching the show? No! Because, you know, he is a good character in essence; he has ups and downs and virtues, as we all do. I couldn't pinpoint the reason in the series, but somehow there is a void in him who tries to fill that void with booze and womanizing. As Marty's somewhere says, Marty's wife Maggie is "a fine woman". But she is also not bestowed favour with positive discrimination by the producers, she is a multidimensional character with her flaws ... Maybe it's a small example but worth giving, she constantly tries to correct her husband with her words or facial expressions like a teacher when they are together at home or elsewhere. This may be one of the things that alienates her husband. But the real problem with Maggie surfaces when she brings herself to the brink of going to bed with a stranger at a bar for revenge and severing all ties with him who betrays her for the second time. Instead, she does but something much worse: she debauches her husband's colleague. You cannot justify your wrongdoings by others' wrongdoings. Since your spouse cheated on you, you cannot just go and betray him/her. Doing this will take you down to his/her level, at best, or even to a worse level as in Maggie's case. But she does it. TD does not victimize the female character and go for a banal emotional exploitation. Maggie is portrayed as a strong woman. This is what I mean when I say the characters in the series are multi-dimensional ones, when I say TD behaves justly in male-female issues.
By the way, the Maggie-Rust affair I mentioned is one of the things I don't find very convincing in the series ... Maggie acts with her desire for revenge and maybe her interest in Rust, which you feel vaguely. However, it was not very convincing that a man like Rust, who was trying to stay away from people in general, especially women, had a relationship with his friend's wife, even though they were at loggerheads with each other the time. The writer and director must have not been very comfortable about this scene anyway, so that Maggie and Rust instantly regret what they have done, one apologizes and the other kicks her out. Yet, sometimes I can't help thinking their regret was actually a result of disappointingly short sexual intercourse - ahahaha just kidding.
One criticism about the series, says producer / writer Nic Pizzolatto, argues that things are not given from the women's point of view. He gives a good answer to this: There are only two people's point of view in this series, events are told and interpreted from the viewpoints of two men, Rust and Marty. "Is the perspective of another male character being given in TD", he asks, "so that a criticism of the absence of women's perspective can be made." He is right!
Another scene that I do not find very convincing is the part where Marty overreacts and kills Ledoux upon seeing the two detained girls. Okay, the man has an anger control problem, he is reminded of his own daughters, but he is a man who has never used his weapon during his career ... But even these not-so-convincing scenes I have mentioned do not bother you so much, because they are not structured as shallow, superficial men. Aren't we all doing unexpected things from time to time?
In the last episode, the moment when Rust bursts into tears is maybe one of the most impressive scenes of the season. Throughout the whole season, a character who does not get emotional once, let alone cry, or even does not really smile once, faces perhaps the first time with the feeling of pain and emptiness created by the death of her daughter, and lets himself go. The last episode is not only where the tension created by events is discharged, but also it is where we witness catharsis of the sorrow and tension built up in Rust throughout the series. This is where you understand what makes Rust that way, what creates the void inside him.
Rust makes philosophy throughout the series, utters big words, questions what is considered normal in that society at that time. At the end of all that beautifully expressed word crowd, the point where he gets to is a another beauty: "It's just one story. The oldest. Light versus dark. (...) Once there was only dark. If you ask me, the light's winning."
This last bit, I think, cannot be interpreted solely as an abstract philosophical reflection. A clear link is being established between the darkness and the things that our heroes have been dealing with from the very beginning, satanism, the abuse and murder of children through satanic rituals. You know, the Satan is also known as the prince of the darkness. Our heroes lighten up us, whispering that the winner will be light/good, not Satan/evil.
When you reach to the end of a good novel, you wish it would never end so you could continue reading. The last episode makes you wish the same thing.
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