If anything, the production team behind True Detective sure know how to end an episode on a cliffhanger. We’re now onto the fifth episode of the HBO series, and Cohle’s six-minute tracking shot during the stash house scene was one of the best moments of television we’ve seen for some time. Despite a considerable amount of action in the first half of the new episode, the next part of the story was more about what was happening behind the scenes, and why in fact the two detectives have been brought in for questioning.
OS REWIND: True Detective “Who Goes There” Recap
The episode kicks off with Cohle speaking to Ledoux’s partner in cooking to configure a huge deal in trading cocaine for meth. The man refuses to cooperate with the detective, and for one of the first times in the series, we’re shown Cohle being spoken down on instead of being the man in charge.
Both Cohle and Hart manage to track down Reggie’s cook lab and approach the location after avoiding booby traps hidden within the bushes. They slowly enter the building whilst keeping quiet, and eventually put a man in handcuffs, before looking further to see what more they can find. The cook’s partner is then brought into the scenario, with Cohle managing to have a shot on him if necessary, as he refuses to put down his belongings. Much to our surprise, Hart quickly returns to Cohle and quickly shoots the handcuffed man in the head, after finding two young children locked up inside. The other man chooses to make a quick exit, not long before he’s killed by tripwire grenade .This is where the pair are clearly lying in the interview during the present day, and choose to cover up the situation by saying they were involved in a shootout.
Hart ends up returning to his wife and kids, and we’re shown their lives several years later when one of his kids is now a teenager and causing trouble of her own, while Cohle surprisingly finds a significant other that might actually be a good match. After bringing a man into questioning, we’re told that the killer is in fact still out there, and mentions The Yellow King, which was mentioned many times in Dora’s diary. That very man then kills himself the next day in prison after receiving a phone call from a random location.
During the present day, the officers assume Cohle has been telling lies the entire time, and bring forth a new investigation involving a killing, and spot him at the crime scene in photographs. We’re shown an obvious side to Cohle that suggests he’s been up to no good, and bring forth the possibly that he could have had secret involvement in many of the cases he was trying to solve. The episode ends with Cohle returning to the abandoned building on the middle of nowhere, and ends up finding more mysterious twigs that we’ve seen in prior episodes.
Let us know your own theories on the case below.