‘True Detective’ S1 E1
Seeds of curiosity have been planted and are begging to be watered by clicking “Next Episode.”
Let’s start off with a confession: I will admit that I am awfully immovable when it comes to getting into television shows.
For every new show recommended to me, I will ask, “Okay, so, to which episode must I faithfully endure until this starts getting good?”
The typical answer is: “Oh, hmm… let’s see… probably around episode three or four.”
In light of the typical pattern, you can imagine why I take notice when a show is able to be immediately engaging from the series premiere alone.
True Detective somehow manages to accomplish this through some clever tactical devices and screen-writing choices. Let’s unpack some of them and tease apart why they worked so effectively for me.
Note: spoilers for True Detective Season 1 Episode 1 ahead.
The Time-Jumping Framing Device
Jumping around in a given timeline can be hit or miss. Not all creators can use it as effectively as Christopher Nolan, weaving meaning and purpose to the cuts between various timelines.
In True Detective Season 1 Episode 1, the jumps in time fuel curiosities in two aspects: about the central murder case and, more interestingly, about the characters themselves.
We get to watch, observe, and learn about our two main characters, Marty (Woody Harrelson) and Rust (Matthew McConaughey), in two different points in time, 1995 and 2012. The differences in the way these two men look, speak, and act are very different.
The most obvious differences can be seen visually in their attire. Rust is wearing casual but tattered clothes, his hair is uncombed and unkempt, and he is unapologetic about his obvious drinking problem. Meanwhile, Marty is wearing a polished, dark-colored blazer but no wedding ring.
The juxtaposition of their 1995 selves and their 2012 selves naturally begs the questions: What happened between 1995 and 2012? Who were they then, and who are they now?
In the same way, the 2012 scenes juxtaposed next to the 1995 scenes easily create curiosities about the central murder case itself. The 1995 scenes depict the detective work of the case itself from our two leading men. The addition of the 2012 scenes, where two current police officers have brought in Marty and Rust for questioning, complicates our understanding of the case in an interesting way. It creates questions and curiosities that would be absent in a truly linear storyline isolated to only the events of the 1995 murder case.
The juxtaposition of the 1995 events and the 2012 interrogations ignites some key questions: Why are our two protagonists being questioned nearly a decade later? And why is the murder case still unresolved?
These questions beg to be answered by continuing on to the next episode.
A Killer Closing Line of Dialogue
What most impressed me about this episode is the final scene and the way the last two minutes of the episode are crafted.
The scene is set in 2012 during a line of questioning between the police and Rust. There, a key question is raised in the conversation, which is really meant to be a seed of curiosity that is planted for us as the viewers: How could the murderer from 1995 still be operating in 2012 if Marty and Rust already caught him in 1995?
Rust gives the two police detectives a knowing smirk and then delivers the final line of the episode: “Then start asking the right f-ing questions.”
Now this is a mic drop moment.
This could easily have felt incredibly gimmicky. How often have we seen an episode of television end with such a blatant and obvious hook intended to reel us into continuing on? In many instances, it feels cheap and manipulative.
But nothing about this final moment of True Detective Season 1 Episode 1 felt gimmicky to me. Why?
My hypothesis is that this moment is firmly rooted in who Rust is as a character, so the delivery of this line from him feels appropriate and fitting. It truly is something he would say. Because this moment was so deeply character-driven, it worked for me. This was the cherry on top of an already well-crafted episode of character-driven and detective case-driven exposition.
I was pleasantly surprised at how much this opening episode of True Detective was grounded in building robust character moments. In the end, it was my curiosities about who these two men were and who they would eventually become that propelled me to want to immediately click “Next Episode.”
I suppose who Marty and Rust are as human beings became my personal little detective case to solve.
Listen to our review of True Detective Season One wherever you get your podcasts!
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