True Detective : Rust Cohle as the Reckoner of Darkness
The creator of True Detective, Nic Pizzolatto, has openly declared that occult knowledge, esoteric mysticism, and cosmic horror play a large role in the mythos of the show’s subtext.
This isn’t a show about two gum shoe detectives in Louisiana hunting a serial killer. This is a show about the consequences of unchecked sociopolitical power, corruption, and the story of heroes shedding light upon the terrible truth, and how the process of illumination costs them everything — their families, their children, and their psyches.
The heart of the show’s resolution revolves around the eternally reoccurring death dance of light and dark. In this article, the frying pan scene from the “Form and Void” finale will be explored to prove this thesis.
The final episode of the series begins with the viewer’s first clear window into the happenings of Errol’s Childress’s life. His dirty house, stacks of books, films, dolls, and his ability to mimic and change demeanor establish his character archetype as a savage monster.
He’s suffered abuse at the hands of a psychotic father with prominent social affiliations, and when Errol isn’t being gouged, burnt, or stabbed, he’s left alone to be raised by the images and sounds of film and television.
He’s intelligent, evasive, ruthless, and far more complex than the incestuous redneck archetype many critics claim he represents.
In the frying pan scene, Errol returns home from a walk, and his wife, Lizbeth, yells at the family dog as it runs into the house with Errol. To show scorn for the animal’s behavior, Errol lifts a frying pan from the kitchen counter, and throws it at the dog.
In performing this movement, Errol is correlated with Orion, the hunter from Greek mythology, and also the constellation Orion itself. Remember, the Orion constellation is the final image in the last frames of the series.
Errol’s dog is correlated with Sirius, nicknamed by astronomers as the “Dog Star.” Orion was a hunter of animals in Greek mythology, and it is understood that Sirius was his hunting dog. Check out the link below for a more detailed astronomical rendering of the Orion and Sirius narrative.
Errol yanks the asterism of the big dipper from its larger constellation, Ursa Major, from its place in the cosmos, and throws it at the dog star, Sirius. The frying pan Errol throws is the big dipper, and the visage of its spinning flight through the air represents the big dipper’s spiral as it proceeds through space and time.
The Orion/hunter analogy explains the deer antlers being placed on the victims. Errol ties antlers around the heads of the victims to mark them as being fair game for their sins and moral transgressions. It’s illegal to hunt does, after all.
The final image of the show is a panoramic view of the Orion constellation glowing in the night sky, once again reminding the audience of the intentional Orion/Errol/hunter relationship.
Pizzolatto draws attention to Robert Chamber’s novel of short stories, The King in Yellow, in which the Hyades constellation serves as home to the Yellow King. This perhaps explains the reason for the domed room in in the labyrinth. Errol needs to contact the Hyades, the dwelling place of the Yellow King, and the domed shape of the room allows Errol to astrally project to the higher dimensional plane of the Hyades, or perhaps entreat entrance to the Yellow King entity.
Of course, there are two hunters on the show. One is Errol. The other is Rust. One hunts deer, women, and children born of perceived sins. The other hunter hunts the hunters and the perverted predators. Rust and Errol are both possessed by the Yellow King entity from the Carcosa city in the Hyades. The yellow king is an entity that expresses its will through the sensibilities of the person channeling it. Errol was pinned under its weight because he had been hollowed out through abuse and incorporates its presence with his identity as a meta-psychotic.
Rust channeled the entity because he had no room for love in his life. His longing for his dead daughter, and his inability to remain sober or in a relationship, coupled with his emotional rigidity rendered him inhuman. Rust, instead of becoming a monster, becomes a sentient redeemer, bringing justice to cruel conspirators.
This is why Reggie Ledoux says to Rust, “You’re in Carcosa now. He sees you.” Ledoux is right. Rust does have supernatural sight, and the Yellow King recognizes or “sees” Rust as a result of this. But what Ledoux and Dewahl don’t realize, is that the Yellow King is who’s in charge of this inter-dimensional waltz of death, not Errol.
Errol begins breathing heavily in the shed as he sees Rust approaching, because Errol knows Rust is the destroyer. Errol and his kin, as their fathers and forefathers did before them, run unchecked murdering women and children, until Rust joins the play. Rust has a role in the play. Errol has a role in the play. Rust is the sentinel of light sent by the Yellow King to exterminate the evil Errol and as many of his dark brothers as he can, which is why Errol lures him into the labyrinth whispering “Come with me, little Prince.”
Errol realizes Rust, like himself, is aware of a world beyond traditional human sight. Errol mistakenly believes he is the Yellow King, when in fact, he too is a Prince under more powerful forces than he acknowledges.
Where Errol signifies pure evil, Rust signifies righteous justice. This underscores another important concept for the show: true darkness is defeated by a light energy that is in many ways as terrifying as its dark counterpart. Sure, Errol is scary. It’s easy to see that. But so is Rust. He drags a henchman from a dangerous bike gang through a gunfight in a ghetto. He outsmarts one of the Tuttle patriarchs in a face to face confrontation. He is absolutely fearless.
The show circles in on itself — it spirals inward and outward through character development and narrative, and ends with the intonation that grown men and women are but children in the light of the swirling complexity of the Universe.
