My thoughts on Rust's character: Rust was not always the pessimistic nihilist that we see throughout the series. He was married once and had a daughter. I believe it is the loss of his daughter that makes him use nihilism as a sort of coping mechanism to deal with his daughter's death. He wanted to believe everything was pointless because then the events of life hurt less. His nihilism was in essence a defense/coping mechanism I think Marty sees through this at times. When they were arguing at the tent sermon in episode 3, Marty says something to the affect that for someone who saw no point in existence, Rust sure gave a damn about thinking about it. I believe that this was the mask that Rust wears. These excerpts from the sermon delivered in episode 3 hints at this: "This world is a veil and the face you wear is not your own. The shape of your face is not yet known to us." "At the end we'll find ourselves at the beginning and we will finally know ourselves" "Those tears will feel like a warm rain" I believe that the Rust comes full circle when he feels the love of his child while so close to death. The Rust we finally see at the end of the finale is the true, unmasked Rust. My opinion. YMMV.
What about that tells you that is the yellow King? I miss something from before? Spoiler after you said it was right there, i thought his dad, the sherif was the yellow king. He was laid out like a blonde Jesus there strapped to the bed.
Spoiler Makes me think the other skulls and bones are members of the family. Maybe he was preparing the body to add on to the Yellow robed figure. Why are we in spoilers
You mean when he's walking in to that room and looks up? I think you could make a good argument for that. I'd really need to watch the whole season again to really have a strong opinion on that.
The robes on it make it obvious, imo. You can take that woman's story we were talking about and come to the conclusion that she's seen the statue and heard/seen what that redneck does to people in there.
lol What'd you want me to tell you? Do you think it was? Some shows you need to see a few times (I've only seen each episode once) to catch all the small details and themes the suggest for the viewer.
The question remains...why does she have a fondness for it? She is only disturbed in the sense of having trouble with current realities. Was she on acid back then too?
IDK. I would like to think that he was about to see something supernatural. The idea that he happens to have an acid flashback at the exact right time and place ticks me off. I'm irritated that 95% of the season is just up to 'my interpretation.'
Do you know what the direction is for season 2? If it's a continuation of this case then I could see a lot of possibilities w deeper cult **** obviously. I just kind of took it as his mind was playing games w him (acid flashback, dmt trip, random hallucination, whatever) bc of the extreme situation and also that crazy of a setting which would def effect how you're perceiving things at the time.
There was plenty of "deep" stuff about this show. Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_in_Yellow and yes..it was a work of art. On the plane of "series" it is only superseded by "The Sopranos".
Terribly, terribly disappointed in the finale. What a great show leading up to it. The creator warned everyone, that there isn't some huge reveal, or anything like that. He didn't want to fool people into watching 8 hours, and then telling them at the end it was all BS. (SPOILER ALERT but it's okay it's an old *** movie). Like in the Usual Suspects, when at the end you realize that nothing you just watched, happened. So he didn't want to trick us. But he did trick us. You see all of those easter eggs they left in the show, setting up something large, and it turns out to be the old cliche'd terror/man hunt. Creepy old house in the woods? Check. Protagonists go out there alone without calling backup? Check. No cell phone coverage? Check. Why was Audrey's bed room wall decorated exactly the same as that catatonic girl's hospital? Ok, perhaps they got lazy when rearranging the set. But the naked doll with 5 men around it? The spiral drawing on Marty's wall which matched the one used by cult? And the ending was so cheap, with the videotape. Senator Tuttle denies he is related to Errol? How long does it take to sort that one out? A day? Yellow crown symbolism throughout the whole show. Carcosa, etc. It built up so much, only to end on something so little.
Um..lol http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplayl...dings-why-it-wasnt-neatly-wrapped-up-20140310 I think that is possible.
Problem being that inspirational material and the show have almost nothing to do with one another. What makes the King in Yellow most interesting is the idea of being told not to peek behind the curtain because what you see will ruin you. You peek anyway because you are curious. You would rather suffer with true knowledge than remain blissfully ignorant. This was hardly explored
Exactly. That's the best way I've heard it put, that it (the show to that point) was SO much; so rich, so deep, so many layers, and the ending was so little. The cat in the dark analogy is sound as well; it's fine for real life, but as a drama, this owed us more than just the noise being a cat in the dark. One cat.
WADR, that's like saying the movie 10 Things I Hate About You is poetry because it references Taming of the Shrew. Point being, referencing another work doesn't make something deep or good.
i would have to agree that the ending was very disappointing. just killing one chubby redneck handyman was not what i expected from the intense first 7 episodes. i was actually mad i wasted my time watching it. so, was the redneck handyman the leader of a cult consisting of a millionaire pastor, a governor, and a sheriff? i find that hard to believe considering he was ret*rded.
What exactly were you expecting in the one hour season finale? And no, he was not the leader of the cult.
i expected the governor and other high ranking officials to get busted. i expected a conspiracy to come out into the open. if the redneck wasnt the leader/yellow king, then i am even more lost than i thought. i thought the redneck had everyone convinced he was some sort of prophet or leader. who was the leader/yellow king then?
Hey, my good friend co-wrote that movie. It's based off an old note she wrote, "10 Things I Hate About Anthony" (my brother) that she wrote in high school.
It is most likely that the governor and other high ranking officials were involved in protecting Errol Childress. The Tuttle/Childress is firmly implanted in the region and it's inferred that the cult has been around for over 50 years if not longer. Two ex detectives are not going to singlehandedly take down the now senator of LA. Rust did his best to bring it out to the open and the Tuttle connection was refuted. Like Marty says, they might not have taken down all the guys, but they got THEIR guy. The way I interpreted things, asking who the Yellow King was is like walking into a Satanic cult and asking which one was the devil. The Yellow King is what they worshiped. It was their God. In the photo of Marie Fonteneau, there are several masked men. The Reverend was one. Childress the sheriff was probably another. Possible the governor, now senator. We know 2 of these guys are dead. For whatever reason, their Carcosa compound has been abandoned and left to the complete madman, Errol Childress. They would have continued to operate in secret if it weren't for Errol going off the reservation and posing victims where they could be found. Errol may have had some dimwits convinced he was a prophet, like the two Ledoux brothers, but that's about it.
Perhaps I benefited from re-watching all of these episodes this week, but quite a few things were answered in the finale if you ask me. I agree with Fin D in that this show was shot beautifully. I disagree that is was fake art or anything like that. It was a well written, tremendously acted piece of extended cinema, if you ask me. My opinion is that if you were disappointed by the finale, it is only because you probably convinced yourselves that something crazy would happen, when everyone and everything told you otherwise. Essentially, you lied to yourselves when thinking that others have lied to you. On the surface, many larger themes were accomplished (time being a circle and how we are destined to do this over and over again, while Marty and rust do exactly that, 17 years later). But on a more granular level, they really only stopped one branch of an extremely complex tree, which means that this behavior by this family in this neck of the woods, is destined to continue, with cops trying to stop them. Good versus evil. Dark versus light (which is conveniently discussed at the end). As for the story itself, the cave/tunnel deal at the end is Carcosa. Errol says as such while Rust is in pursuit. Rust also mentions that he feels the presence of his daughter and father (everything he ever loved) with him in those moments of sure death. Which lends credence to what the old worker lady said about death not being the end and to rejoice. She of course, was talking about some sort of heaven, or spiritual reunion, etc. in which Rust almost achieved, but couldn't quite achieve since he lived. As for Marty's daughter, on the surface it seemed like a red herring, but with the benefit of binge viewing, you come to realize that her issues had more to do with Marty never truly being there for her and thus, her acting out. Even down to him hugging her after they talk to her about her school drawings, only to see him watch the basketball game over her shoulder while doing so. In short, it was about establishing Marty's personality more than it was a part of the main story. As for it ending with " a hillbilly in the woods, " this is true. But it is also in deep, rural Louisiana...they are ALL hillbillies in the woods. And that was sort of the point of the ending. The whole thing was bigger than Marty and Rust could take down. The Governer, his religious leading brother, and their family members who were given slack and lee way due to their genealogy. As Rust said, they didn't get all of them, and as Marty countered, but they did get THEIRS. And they live in a world where they will never get all of them. The "detective's curse," that Marty explained, was also explored many times over, in brilliant fashion. As for the happy ending, I was good with it. Rust went from saying that the entire universe was nothing but black, and believing that whatever light is there, means that the light is gaining ground, that it is winning. That is a pretty big paradigm shift for a guy who has been through wars, death and seen stuff that no one should have to see. And the video wasn't a mystery box. It was flat out explained that it was a snuff film for a little girl. A lot of the details were int he actual dialogue and not necessarily visual. That is a departure from most shows/films these days.
I agree with this. The killer was revealed last week, so I do not understand the hand wringing when this episode depicts his capture. To me, this series was about two men's journeys, not only Rust's, but Marty's as well. When Marty breaks down in front of his ex-wife and children, he finally accepts what a turd he was as a husband and father. I loved that. Character development was one of the main focuses of this series. I found that refreshing.
I'll say too that Eroll, highlighted only in this episode, was brilliantly acted. A sick and unique twist on filthy, psychotic, debauchery. His jumping Personas and "makin flowers" with his half sister. That is anything but shoddy creativity. phenomenal.
This didn't reference the King in Yellow. They interwove the mythology throughout the whole series. Completely different.
Reference wasn't the best choice of words then. 10 Things i hate About You was a retelling of the Taming of the Shrew. The point being, just because it interwove the story of the King in Yellow throughout its story doesn't mean its deep.
Or maybe she is just old & senile. What did you want out of the video? Assuming someone saw a video of a child being mutilated alive, raped, well yeah it could elicit that type of reaction. It had to be horrific considering what Marty saw when that tweaker put the kid in the microwave. Admit it, most of you guys wanted The Avengers or X Men to come out and save the day. People don't like downer topics. A child's death, a grieving father who is in a downspin, marriage torn apart from it. Another couple dealing with cheating, forgiveness, their children clearly touched by it. Most viewers need some type of happy ending or action filled Schwartznegger / Willis ending to make them feel good about some of the real life they watched.
I didn't go into it, expecting a big reveal, as the creator said he wasn't going to do that. And I'm perfectly capable of filling in the blanks to tie up loose ends. But there are so many Easter eggs placed in this show, with this finale we now realize they indeed were all, red herrings. Marty's daughter Audrey, just so happens to place 5 ken dolls around a naked barbie doll, exactly like in the video we see 5 episodes later. A drawing matching the spiral symbol of the cult, just so happens to sit on Marty's wall. And Marty doesn't notice it? He's a detective right? Probably staring at that symbol for dozens if not hundreds of hours? One is on his wall, and it's "meh?" Dozens if not hundreds of women and little girls missing, but for some reason they decided to expose Dora Lange and Lake Charles? Don't get me started on the ridiculous deduction Marty spontaneously came up with, with green ears, to green paint, to a green house they had a photo of that nobody related to case even lived in. Don't get me started on that.
Not they. Errol. They never wanted that exposure and were probably pretty pissed at Errol for doing that.
Its not that I was disappointed by the ending ftr, I was disappointed by the entire show, start to finish. Every show, every movie, every book, etc. has to have a reason to tell the story it tells. There was nothing unique or interesting about this story. The closest thing it had to anything of importance was its bleakness in the machinations of man.....of which it basically obliterates by the last line realization about the "light gaining ground". Worst of all, there was no reason for Rust's character to feel that way at that moment. He just faced the hard truths that there's more people involved and that he could have prevented all this in 95....oh and he basically went through his daughter dying all over again. His hopeful epiphany in the end didn't match the character they spent almost 8 hours building. Dear god, this is the same man that grump rants over an innocuous question about the weather and how that also shows just how stupid and hopeless man is, but all of a sudden he's a Hallmark card? What's the point of character building if you say "f*** it" in the last minute and make the character go against everything you just built and for no reason? Its like the super ghost army in the Lord of the Rings. There was no subtlety either. In case the poverty of the area, the heinousness of the crimes, the melancholy music, the muted colors, the sub earth tone, etc. didn't tell you everything and everyone sucks....here's Rust to practically flat out say it in every other line of dialogue. As far as the tape, you're misunderstanding what maynard's gripe is. However, in reality (not what maynard was talking about) it was just a MacGuffin. In fact, the entire show was nothing but MacGuffins. Which is fine for typical TV. But that was my point, typical TV knows its typical TV. This show swore it was more then typical TV when in the end it was just a love letter to some obscure play that few have read. That doesn't make it deep or interesting, it makes it hipster.