First of a two-part psycho-exploration of Nic Pizzolatto’s True Detective season 2 with Lovecraftian Heather Poirier, on comparisons to season 1, the armature of espionage, plot as a delivery device, the implacability of archetypal forces, Greek tragedy and the underworld, the death drive, Oedipus, the scapegoat mechanism, and the structure of detective fiction, class structure, expanding agency, and Frank’s failed ascendancy, transportation and double society, Frank’s naive bid for legitimacy, the inaccessibility of multi-generational lines of power, ancestral poisons, tearing apart the tropes, intentional opacity of plot, season two’s midway slump, sound and texture in season 2, parallels with The Counselor, the bleakness of defeat, the irony and futility of Greek tragedy, Pizzolatto’s sowing of doubt & fanning the tiny flame of hope, killing Frank, Frank’s will to power and the walk into the abyss, Woodrugh and the power of concealment, confounding expectations, season 1 backing away from the implications of conspiracy, social engineering and unrevealed hidden agendas, the ancient impulse, the impossibility of justice, a Pavlovian system, the protecting wall, controlling Woodrugh, the reward-and punishment control system, Antigone’s quest to bury her brother, Ray & Antigone’s core pain, who is in who’s underworld, the art of handling people by keeping them triggered, gods like men/men like gods, everybody gets touched, innocence unregained, what is immortality, money & children, children as currency, how Woodrugh is handled, masculine impotence and lack of autonomy, the id and the eternal return, Woodrugh’s death plan, the American Dream and the child within, the puer aeternus, the new Eden, “new year, new you,” being locked in the past, having all your boxes ticked and fate sealed, getting to the core pain, acceptance of pain and maturation, autonomy through defeat, the beginnings of integrity, Ray’s broken pieces, Colin Farrell’s facial hair, why cops are less effective, the necessity of sacrifice, the false hope of leaving the underworld, Pizzolatto’s use of names and language, conspiracy culture and season 1, everybody becomes an investigator, the absence of interrogations in season 2, fair play in detective fiction, Mad Men a soap opera about social engineering, Don Draper’s Esalen epiphany and the spiritualization of advertising, Snow Crash and weaponized memes, The King in Yellow, the wages of the American Dream.
. Most of it already appeared at this thread, but part two will be all-new material. With thanks to Wombat for his friend's take on ep's 5 & 6 and the Heroic Journey Fantasy.
