Just watched that part again, Rust says “we get him alone, snatch him up, work him over and he gives up LeDoux.”
Yep. Then Ginger demanded Rust’s help to take down that stash house first.
Took me back to The Wire – “5-0” and “soldier” and “stash”. 
I wonder where they will work him over. It cannot be in the police station since they’re off duty and Cohle is on family leave.
“You are the Michael Jordan of son of a bitches.”
Short term memory lapse.
Wait so the scene at the end of the previous episode where they find LaDoux’s cabin and he’s walking almost naked in the mask happens after yesterday’s episode? It was a flash forward within the flashback? I was so confused by that.
I just watched the shootout sequence again. Incredible! I didn’t even notice it was one take the first time I saw it, that’s how intense it was!
And it really was one shot!
Oops, missed that!
This is getting rickety.
The guy doesn’t want to get involved in Woody’s personal problems. But he takes him in as roommate and meets with his wife on his behalf.
Earlier, they ignored some clues about a strange church, and when they eventually followed it up, that lead to something. Now they are again told a couple things about a Satan worshiping church and killings. But they go off trying to find someone off the grid first. Terrible detectives.
And the plan with Ginger was so doomed to fail from start to finish it is ridiculous.
In other “you got to be kidding” things: McConaughey is dragging Ginger across the projects. They come across a room full of locals armed to the teeth. Those idiots, despite sirens, a helicopter overhead, etc. think the best thing for them to do is to be black men with guns running around in that mess. Nope. Real bangers would take off walking, sans guns. Act innocent as possible. Sheesh.
I like how Rust sobers up, more or less instantly, after all the drinking and snorting. One minute he looks like he’s about to keel over and the next he has his wits completely about him as they hit the stash house. And what’s the point of wearing police uniforms if you look like Ginger and his bros? It might cause a moments hesitation on the part of the locals but not much more than that. When the hostage/drug dealer opened the secret stash wasn’t there a hand grenade there as some sort of booby trap?
And Rust’s little box of weapons included what appeared to be a Desert Eagle .50. In the after-show comments one of the writers or someone says they wanted the weapons to be a reflection of Rust or something along those lines. Nobody who has any real life experience would ever carry one of those. Pretty much useless except as a range toy and Hollywood prop.
Finally, Rust calls Marty near the end of the shootout and tells him to be at some intersection in 90 seconds. How the hell is Marty supposed to have ANY idea of where Rust is, much less be within 90 seconds of some intersection he has never heard of before in his life? Wasn’t Marty’s last sighting/contact with Rust when he saw him leaving on the air boat? Did I miss something here?
I like this show but this episode was stretching things more than a bit.
He lets Marty move in so he can watch him. He needs Marty to focus. The meeting with Maggie was perfunctory – something to get out of the way so Marty would relax. Hence the fib about Maggie maybe taking Marty back in a couple months.
Didn’t the church stuff lead to LeDoux?
It was, but Rust didn’t have much choice.
Lots of confusion. A lot happened before the real cops showed up. The project guys might have thought the gunfire was from a rival gang. It’s not like they’re smart.
I keep thinking of the last episode and the circumstances around the planned drug heist. Clearly the bikers are not college grads. But the plan is so stupid from start to finish that I can’t believe Rust would not be able to talk them out of it and get Ginger alone without having to go through all that.
I did love the grittiness of the entire sequence and I really enjoyed it despite having to suspend disbelief. Great direction, filming and acting throughout. Just wow.
The first squad cars were already on scene. And more were on the way. The sirens alone would have told them that there were police all over the place. The dumbest corner boys would know that it was time to ditch the guns.
Maybe they thought those guys who busted in to rob their mates were actual police officers and were running out there to confront the police.
This is a very strange objection; one I almost can’t follow. They are told “a couple things” about a Satan worshiping church, yes. The main thing they are told about that church is that LaDoux was involved with it.
LaDoux is their main suspect because:
- His old girlfriend was murdered in much the same way as their current case.
- He knew the current murdered girl by the pictures his cellmate showed him.
- He was busted for cooking up the same drugs found in both murdered girls’ systems.
- He was involved in the same church the current murdered girl talked about.
One of the things that points to him is that church.
I kinda agree that this wasn’t their best episode. It was a bridge episode designed to move the plot along and inject some action, but I’d be happy with an episode every week in which Marty and Rust just drive around Louisiana while Rust says crazy shit.
Of course, there’s a meme for that: True Detective conversations: Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey talk it over.
For me the last episode was simply frustrating. I wanted to know who that creepy guy was that we glimpsed at the end of the episode before, I wanted them to concentrate more on the King in Yellow and far Carcosa (“No mask! No mask!”). This episode was more the standard cop show type, bangs and explosions.
Still a huge fan of the show though.
They probably felt they needed some action, since the show is generally more “talky”. But I agree - it was close to standard TV cop show stuff. But at least it was really well-done standard TV cop show stuff! That single long shot was really amazing.
I thought the timing was a little off - “90 seconds”? They had no idea he would end up on a job that night. Did he just get lucky that the location was nearby? I suppose project housing and really seedy biker bars are both likely to be in the bad part of town. Still, they could have handled this better. Imagine if Hart had heard on the police radio that shots were reported fired - possibly by fake cops. He pauses, considers whether this might involve Cohle, and decides it very well might. He takes off for that location right away; when he gets Cohle’s call, he’s already partway there.
Re: Satanic church - They’d be horrible detectives if they took that story at face value. In the real world (which the show more or less inhabits until proven otherwise), murderous Satanic cults are the stuff of urban legend and Fundie wet-nightmares. They simply aren’t real. They may be real in the world of the show, but I have no problem with the cops (apparently) chalking that up to wild rumor.
That’s what they did. Before Rust went into the bar, he gave Marty the cell phone and instructed him to monitor the police scanner if Marty lost track of him. Later, Marty manages to get into the back room just in time to see Rust heading out on the boat, meaning Marty knew the general direction Rust was going. We then get a shot of Marty driving in his car listening to the police scanner, when he hears a report about the incident Rust is currently in. Marty was already on the road moving in that general direction when he heard the report, which included the address.
That creepy guy in the mask is Ladoux, and they spent this episode tracking down and acquiring someone who could lead them to Ladoux, who is off the grid and otherwise un-locatable. (Swamp people! heh.)
I somehow missed that. I could have sworn he was parked when he got the call.
That would make it even better, because it would mean Marty had already arrived at the address he heard over the police scanner by the time Rust called him.