Fans of HBO’s True Detective are an obsessive lot. Over the course of the show’s 8-episode first season, bajillions of hours of productivity were wasted discussing, dissecting, and speculating about the show. Insane-sounding theories about the identity of the murderous Yellow King abounded, each with an insane-sounding premise that actually made sense if you just listen, guys, no seriously hear me out. The Louis XIV theory, the Lawn Mower theory, the Lovecraft theory, the Boat theory, The Maggie theory. The hidden crowns and spirals theory. But I’ve got one to beat them all. One that extends further than the show. The Every Movie Matthew McConaughey Has Ever Made Has Actually Been About Rust Cohle Theory. If you look for signs everywhere, you’ll find them.
Laugh it up. Laugh it up all you want, Sir Chucklepants. But I’ve got compelling evidence from a small amount knowledge of Matthew McConaughey’s catalog combined with a buzzy, paranoid mind suffering from the aftereffects of too much True Detective that leads me to believe that all these years, it was, in fact Rust Cohle starring in all these shitty movies. He was just undercover.
So join me. Follow my flat circle of insanity around and around in progressively smaller circles, like a lawn mower in a cemetery, until my True Detective superfandom collapses upon itself and forms an absurd singularity.
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In this film, which in the life of Rust Cohle predates and of his True Detecting, a young holy man named Palmer Joss gets into philosophical arguments with Astronaut Jodie Foster about the nature of belief. This is where Rust learned to be pedantic. He changed his name from Palmer Joss to a much more detectivey name: Rust Cohle.
How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days
When this film was released, audiences received it as a breezy romcom — and why wouldn’t they? —but time has revealed that the film is anything but breezy. This is the story of Rust Cohle’s tragic courtship with his wife, played by Kate Hudson. On the movie’s publicity materials and in the movie’s most iconic scene, Hudson wears a yellow dress. A call-forward to The YELLOW King, obviously. SEE?!
Look out how they’re standing — the angle between their bodies conjures images of the creepy “devil nets” that have appeared at all sorts of crime scenes in True Detective. The two seem to have trapped light between them, in much the same way the devil is believed to be trapped in the rudimentary stick figures that are so ubiquitous in the show. I HAVEN’T BATHED IN DAYS.
Fool’s Gold
Use of the color yellow is almost suffocating in this Rust Cohle film, which is a misguided comedic take on his failed marriage to Kate Hudson, who also is living one continuous life from one film to another.
Angels In The Outfield
An undercover Rust Cohle, pretending to be a dippy, preening California Angels player named Ben Williams, investigates drug use in professional baseball, only to believe that he is being propelled forward by magical angels that are giving him unexplained powers.
In later years, Rust will understand that it was the PCP.