Television Review: After You've Gone (True Detective, S1X07, 2014)

After You've Gone (S1x07)

Airdate: 2 March 2014

Written by: Nic Pizzolatto
Directed by: Cary Jo Fukunaga

Running Time: 53 minutes

Matthew McConaughey's triumph at the Academy Awards serves as rather a splendid recommendation for anyone yet to witness his extraordinary work in HBO's True Detective. One suspects that whilst his performance in Dallas Buyers Club may have delighted critics and Oscar voters alike, in decades to come it shall prove rather less enduring than his portrayal of Rust Cohle. Of course, those tempted to sample this particular programme on the strength of McConaughey's recent accolades ought to be advised: one must view the preceding six episodes before attempting this seventh instalment. As with many of HBO's genuinely superior offerings—or "limited series," as they are fashionably termed nowadays—the uninitiated shall find little sense here, and any attempt to compensate through spoilers and plot summaries gleaned from the internet shall rob the viewer of a richly rewarding experience.

At first glance, this penultimate episode—tasked, naturally, with preparing the ground for the inevitable finale—appears somewhat leaner than its predecessors. There are no "shocking" revelations here, nor any soap-operatic twists in the narrative. Director Cary Joji Fukunaga proves wise enough to present some of the potentially most repugnant and unsettling imagery indirectly, relying upon the viewer's imagination and, crucially, upon Woody Harrelson's superlative performance—his reaction to these horrors speaks volumes without uttering a word.

If one were to identify the principal virtue of this episode, it would surely be its economy and simplicity. Screenwriter Nic Pizzolato, to judge by his work here, is not one of those Hollywood scribes who feels compelled to reinvent the wheel, nor to over-season what already promises to be perfectly serviceable material. This latest episode, situated entirely in the "present" of 2012, depicts its characters as unusually normal—or at least as having evolved in a normal fashion since 1995. Rust Cohle has thus progressed from being a nonconformist, headstrong investigator unencumbered by rules to becoming, quite naturally, a nonconformist, headstrong vigilante pursuing justice through his own devices. Marty Hart, meanwhile, has evolved from a conservative policeman who disliked "making waves" into a conservative middle-aged chap with one foot already in retirement, his life increasingly revolving around fishing, golf, microwave meals, and television.

Yet the most significant matter is that this episode must necessarily pave the way for the mystery's resolution. Here the creators do rather well in suggesting that the grand solution shall likewise prove "normal"—that is to say, devoid of supernatural or fantastical elements, and certainly not featuring the sort of dramatic twists that would completely alter the moral character of our protagonists, as has been widely speculated online beforehand. The ritual murder that nominally set the plot in motion is, admittedly, part of a broader and deeply disturbing whole; yet even the conspiracies and bizarre cults depicted in this episode appear realistic—entirely conceivable in the backwaters of rural Louisiana. The closing scene, suggesting that our two investigators have in fact encountered the true murderer, implies that the evil in this series, as in life itself, is actually rather banal. One can only hope these suggestions shall not prove mere misdirection before the creators of True Detective subject us to some typically Hollywood "exploitative" conclusion. Neither this series, nor McConaughey and Harrelson, deserve such a fate.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

(Note: The text in the original Croatian version is available here.)

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