![rust cohle rust cohle](https://www.sickchirpse.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Matt-1.jpg)
This is why anyone who wants to argue that Rust’s near-death revelation was somehow about “finding God” or any such thing is entirely missing the point - it’s not like he’s been converted to the idea that hey, everything’s great after all! It’s more that, like Willard meeting Kurtz, he’s seen the extreme of where his nihilist philosophy can lead, and recoiled from it. Just like everyone else in the show, nihilism is a story he’s been telling himself. In the end, Rust’s nihilism softens into what we might call classic existentialism, the idea that we give our own lives meaning. Life isn’t defined by a cross or a devil net, but nor is it entirely meaningless. When you think about it, there really isn’t a whole lot of difference between Christianity and the Yellow King mythos and Rust’s nihilism - they’re all stories that characters told themselves to give meaning to their lives, and they’re all ultimately destructive and delusional. The show isn’t so much anti-religion as anti-self-delusion, of which religion is only one manifestation. This is entirely correct, but I’d argue that True Detective‘s conception of storytelling as an escape from the truth extends beyond religion. On the other hand, there’s religion - storytelling as an escape from the truth.” On the one hand, there’s investigation - storytelling as a search for the truth. The most succinct formulation of this idea comes from The Daily Beast‘s Andrew Romano, who wrote this morning, “In the earliest episodes of True Detective, Pizzolatto established a clear dichotomy. (I’m not the first to argue this - Pasha Malla’s excellent piece for Slate last week came to a similar conclusion.) The show takes many different approaches to the theme, but the finale suggested that perhaps the most important was an exploration of the stories we tell ourselves. Nic Pizzolatto’s narrative is about many things, but most importantly, it explores the nature of storytelling.
![rust cohle rust cohle](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/rust-Cropped.jpg)
The idea of True Detective being anti-Christian, or even anti-religious, misses a much deeper point. It didn’t take people long to complain that True Detective was “anti-Christian,” but honestly, that complaint only served to illustrate how people tend to pick and choose the things that offend them (especially on the internet.) Spoilers ahead, obviously, so don’t read unless you’ve watched the season finale.įrom the beginning, religion has gotten pretty short shrift on True Detective - particularly from Rust Cohle, the show’s endearingly nihilistic antihero. Clearly, there are all manner of recaps to read on the web (and on Flavorwire), but I want to focus on one particular aspect of the show: what it has to say about religion, and the way we define the meaning of our lives.
Rust cohle series#
The past eight weeks have seen all manner of internet speculation on what the show is about, and in the wake of last night’s excellent finale, we have a complete series to which we can apply such theories. And so True Detective is over and done with - for this season, anyway.