Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 

Another opinion:

What the hell kind of ending was that, True Detective?

Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 

I think "we" have to accept the so-called red-herrings (this is actually what this sort of show is about, is it not?).
I agree with ramonoski when he said: TD was not the weird fiction show that "we" are waiting for. It would have been nice if it was--due to the "good-for-tv" acting, production value and appreciable aesthetic qualities of the show which would have juxtaposed nicely with vast unseen things pulling the strings of existence---you know: the new/old scapegoats for our meaningless, futile, irresponsible lives.
However, all the while, TD was simply something else.
Another online voice wondered if everyone was even watching the same show. This seemed a valid point to me, as there was never anything that couldn't be explained by non-supernatural agency in this show--except perhaps the well-read hillbillies, that is.

I too was left with a bad taste from Pizzolatto's comments re: Chambers. I wonder if he did anything more than simply skim The King In Yellow on a hunt for juicy ideas to cannibalize or to "hardboil", as Justin would have it. Saying Chambers's book isn't that great? The first 4-5 stories rank with the very best horror of the period, less flowery and more stylistically inventive than most. Did Pizzolatto and I read the same book?
Speaking of this connection: can anyone explain any further crossover besides the mentions of "Carcosa" and "The Yellow King" in TD to Chambers's The King in Yellow, I've not heard anything convincing, compelling or otherwise in this regard--just another red herring, I guess ;) ---ah shucks

Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 

It's funny to me that anyone would think the story would turn out any other way than with (at least) partial redemption. Everyone has seen other examples of American popular entertainment before, right?

I thought maybe they'd have the McConaughey character commit principled suicide, but even if they'd gone that direction there was no question in my mind they'd give him (yet another) monologue, this time about his dead daughter. This relationship was the character's most salient emotional point--without it he would have read (justifiably, in my opinion) as an asshole. If he had somehow dishonored his child's memory, that would have been truly surprising; slightly less so would have been if, in the depths of his death experience, he had identified with the killer's worship of cruelty. (For a second I thought they were going there, but instead it was the "warm darkness".)

I think "opportunistic" is perhaps too strong a word for the writer and producers as regards their appropriation of the Chambers and Ligotti source material, but not by much. Really though, why wouldn't a writer wanting to try something "fresh" with noir might spend 20 minutes on Google searching out works slightly more obscure than Lovecraft from which to "borrow"? Lovecraft is well-tilled soil at this point, but 10 or 20 years ago they probably would have gone straight to the Old Gent.

I thought the show was good but added up to slightly less than the sum of its parts. I didn't see how either the choppy timeline or the "conspiracy of powerful men" angle really added that much to the detective story at the heart of the thing. Of even less consequence was the Chambers angle. But in the end, it's right there in the title--this was a detective story, not weird fiction.

As written fiction is a vastly superior art form than film or television, I for one would have no problem if there were no further attempts to plunder "our" literature. But I suspect that instead we're seeing a precedent and, God help us, the next ambitious showrunner to rip off weird fiction may do so as weird fiction. Don't expect the results to conform any closer than TD did to anyone's outré philosophical agendas.

Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 

Just thought I would add this to the mix. It's a quote from The Yellow Jester himself, from that interview he gave to Jeff VanderMeer last year for Wonderbook:

I think Tom's opinion, at least, of where True Detective went (if he even watched the series) is probably not in doubt (although Pizzolatto's after-the-fact comments about the whole-series arc indicate that he wasn't and isn't really coming at things from a personally held pessimist or antinatalist stance, so maybe he sidesteps Tom's point here).

That interview will appear as the final item in Born to Fear, by the way.

Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 

I liked it - ending included. Yes, yes . . . redemption is a little trite at times, but with a knife to the gut and a hatchet to the chest we were never sure that they would make it through. There were flaws and missteps, but my line of reasoning goes like this . . . thank heavens someone is at least TRYING to make quality entertainment, and for a lot of us, it was.

Who knows what the future brings, a broader conspiracy perhaps? Whatever, I'll give it its day in court, which is more than what I give to the vast majority of what passes for entertainment these days.

Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 

I'm still mystified why everyone see the ending as redemptive or signalling a major shift in Rust's outlook. Rust was terrified to find himself still alive, he left the hospital with a major stomach wound to go have a drink, and he did not "find closure" or "accept" the death of his daughter and father (which would be de rigueur for mainstream optimism). The comments about the "warm darkness" were still a death wish, despite positing a vague afterlife. Marty didn't offer any life affirming wisdom either - he just distracted Rust from his suicidal thoughts, which one would expect would arise again rather quickly. The ending also left open the wreck that is Marty's family life (i.e. there was no resolution with the daughter, for instance - and more than a few hints that Marty may have been involved with her) and an implication that Errol was only mid-level in a greater conspiracy.

This reminds me of people who complain that Seven hedged at the end because of Sommerset's final line; a few statements shouldn't overrule the greater narrative.

Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 

"The light is winning."

Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 

SPOILERS

The great crime writer, Kenneth Millar (aka Ross MacDonald), wrote that, "The surprise with which a detective novel concludes should set up tragic vibrations which run backward through the entire structure."

TRUE DETECTIVE's ending was surprising and did indeed send "vibrations" which ran backwards throughout its structure. But it had a deleterious--not positive--effect on the whole story.

I was thinking this morning about how the twist that the Big Bad was yet another White Trash Misfit worthy of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre clan was such a tired and unwelcome cliche.

And--most of all--I was thinking about how "the Darkness behind the Darkness speech" came straight from MWINYD. In fact, at the time I was watching it, I had one thrilling and outraged moment when I thought Cohle was going to pull a Domino whole cloth -- saying that everything was just a puppet of this thrashing, horrible darkness, and--even possibly--that EVERYONE must go. And--boom--at the very least Cohle is permanently off his rocker, raving about the Darkness behind the Light, Carcosa and the King in Yellow. At most he begins his new quest by offing his erstwhile partner.

Instead, of course, Nic P in one sentimental, grotesque, outrageous stroke twisted Domino's observations about the Darkness into the warm darkness of eternal love. And then threw in a (lifted) Alan Moore quote about the darkness, the stars, and "the Light" "winning."

All of this reminds me of Poe's famous advice:

Love or hate TD (or something in between), Pizzolatto's interviews and his lifting whole quotes and ideas from his far ranging "influences" reveal a writer who seems far more concerned with success than he is with being true to himself. Which of course makes the title of his show even more ironic than it already is.

Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 

http://puu.sh/5RhS5.gif

Pretty much all I have to say about the way this one ended.

Re: Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’
 

I’ve said several times I thought the ending was very satisfying in general, I just perceived a “tacked on happy ending.” (My God, I’m quoting myself.)

It may honestly reflect Pizzolatto’s worldview—he’s gone on record saying he doesn’t hold to any of Rust’s philosophical beliefs—but artistically it doesn’t stay true to Cohle’s character. That hardly ruins the show; just what I regard as a little pandering to the audience, no big deal in the scheme of things.

What bothers me more are the guy’s remarks about Weird Fiction in general. At the start of the series he implied in an interview he didn’t believe in literary ghettoes. After the show’s run, he seems to be inviting comparison of his own work with the Bible, Faulkner and Hemingway while subtly suggesting Chambers and Lovecraft shouldn’t live on the same street as those gentlemen. Just my reading of his remarks.

The dark grim atmosphere that empowered TD was due, in appreciable part, to the use of Chambers mythology and the hints of nightmare Lovecraftian death cults.
Now even animals rarely bite the hand that feeds them…

Very disappointing.