In this series, I will complete small character studies on a few characters from the television show True Detective. I will be making connections from my philosophy classes and conversations with others who have also enjoyed the show. This is part one of the series; Rustin Cohle in True Detective, Kant’s Prolegmanena, and Plato’s Parmenides. As I have more thoughts about the series, I may come back to a character for further “study” or I might just leave this as it is and not add more character studies. I just needed to write it down and get it out of my mind.
There are spoilers in this essay, although I don’t give a direct overview of the whole show.
I started Metaphysics at the beginning of this year, and like most philosophy classes I’ve taken, it sinks in slowly. The more I learn, the less I know. Yet, the more I observe, the more I can see the connections - understanding them is something else.
Around this time as well I was influenced by TikTok - mixed feelings admitting this - to start True Detective. I got food poisoning and there wasn’t much I could do about it other than drink Gatorade and make food that went down easy. In my disheveled and disturbed state, I wanted to watch something and distract myself from the pain in my back from heaving at 4:15 that morning. I clicked through HBO, and it popped up on my screen first because of the newest season’s release.
Around this time, I was reading Kant’s Prolegomena (or at least the Wikipedia summaries) and Plato’s Parmenides for Metaphysics. It allowed me to see the similarities between Kant’s, Plato’s, and Rustin (Rust) Cohle’s (played by Matthew McConaughey) philosophies.
As Joni Mitchell sings in her song Coyote, “We just come from such different sets of circumstance.” One of my professors said a few weeks ago in class that we are made out of the context of our lives. All of the characters in this show are a great example of this fact of life. But this fact doesn’t save, forgive, or absolve them in some way, we attach ourselves to mindsets/philosophies/religions that tell us we are.
We meet Cohle on January 3rd, 1995. The day he and his partner find the first of the murders - Dora Lange. This, we learn, is also the anniversary of his daughter’s death.
In Rust’s self-inflicted isolation, he is still very aware of how others perceive him. He knows he is off-putting but his strong - or maybe just stubborn - ethical code keeps him from changing for the sake of others. Throughout episode one we learn of Cohle’s lack of faith or hope - to put it lightly - in humanity. He calls consciousness a “misstep in evolution.” He drives through rural Louisana and its bayou, unleashing stabbing critiques like calling a town they drive through on their detective work “a faded memory of a town.” But with every critique outward, he is really saying something about the internal workings of his own brain. He is heartbroken, untrusting, and hopeless. The audience catches onto this very quickly, this opens the window for sympathy - or even pity, although he comes off as a pretentious and pessimistic know-it-all.
The audience quickly learns that Rustin is also not a religious person. Martin Hart - referred to as Marty and played by Woody Harrelson -comments on the cross in Rust’s bedroom which he says he uses as a focus point to meditate on - “allowing your crucifixion” and “contemplate the moment in the garden.” In episode three, they visit a Christian group whose church has burned down, so they move from place to place with a tent. While under the tent listening to the preacher Rust makes multiple comments that disturb Marty.
When Cohle is introduced to us we learn of his first nickname “the taxman,” which he gets from a big ledger he carries with him to take notes while on the job. He is professional, closed off, and cold-hearted to those who work with him. The only person he seems to be able to get close to is his partner Marty. But even when the audience feels some kind of connection between Marty and Cohle, there is conflict within both of them that makes this connection difficult. In episode one, Cohle explains to Marty: “I would call myself a realist, but in philosophical terms, I’m called a pessimist.”
Later in the show, Rust chases the murderer through Carcosa and is pulled deeper and deeper into the maze and taunted by the name “little priest.” This is not the Rustin Cohle we met at the beginning of the show. He has left his ledger and formal job title behind. A priest and taxman both come to you asking - in a tone that may feel condescending - for money. They have a boss that gives them a chain of commands from one overarching power. Following close to the heals of something that gives you this sense of purpose.
Marty says that Rust has a “sharp eye for weakness.” But what Marty mistakes for a “sharp eye for weakness” is simply Rust’s knowledge about human psychology and tendency, Marty simply lacks this ability as many of us do. His “eyes are unclouded” by the illusions or masks people put up to deceive themselves and others. In episode two, Rust corrects Marty by making the distinction that these murders are not “drug insanity.” There is more driving these murders where women are posed and surrounded by twig sculptures than substance abuse. This is a seemingly true observation to the audience who is expecting more at the end of the season but maybe less so to a man like Marty who struggles to see outside his own context.
But everything that seems to make itself clear in Cohle’s character is twisted with a conflict. Eyes unclouded? Yes. But his hallucinations from his time working undercover. Cohle comes through to the audience so clearly until we begin to not trust his grasp on reality.
It is clear that the writers of True Detective had some kind of encounter with Kant’s Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics and took heavy influence from it. This book attempts to validate metaphysics as a science with strong foundations like the natural sciences possess by connecting rationalists (think Descartes) with empiricists (think Hume). Descartes and other rationalist philosophers believe we can only know something through reason. Countering this empiricists believe that we can only know something through experience. Kant is “awoken from his dogmatic slumbers” by Hume and begins to unlock this revolutionary connection.
In True Detective, Rust is stuck between these two realms and he becomes almost a perfect example of what Kant is trying to achieve in this writing. He is trapped in his mind. Rust has enough of a grasp on reality - if that’s what we want to call it - to decipher reality from illusion but he has still fallen victim to similar vices within philosophy, psychology, and books that he so adamantly has disdain for in Christianity. Piles of books upon books can not save you, just as one book cannot save you.
Cohle falls victim to his logic again and again throughout the show. His - at times extreme - reason makes him appear cold-hearted. And yet, Rustin has sympathy for the murdered women even when Martin doesn’t. Cohle is constantly battling with himself, caught by the fishhooks of rationalists and empiricists. At times he can see it, in others, it is only apparent to the audience. Cohle describes Dora Lange as “a torn-up person on her last leg.” Years later in the interview room with the two new detectives who have taken up the case, he says when he looks at the pictures of the dead women he can see even in their eyes then, they “welcomed” death. Rust has a suppressed capacity to love, and due to his line of work and experience it simply gets in the way.
“At the end of the day, you duck under rationalization just as any one of them.” Maggie Hart (wife to Marty) shoots Cohle down with these words when he’s trying to convince her that the only thing that matters at the end of marriage is the kids. Although I would argue in this situation she misses the point, it remains one of the best reads of Rust’s character throughout the whole season.
Plato’s Parmenides attempts to answer the question; are we one or are we many? Or how can things be both like and unlike? To clarify these questions a little further here is an example given in my class: we can say that there is one form of the large and that large things partake in the characteristic of being large. Say the large thing is an Elephant. The Elephant is partaking in Largeness which is being observed or judged. This is questioned by asking: is the form of the object separate (or above) from the imminent character of the object? Are there separate forms (the beautiful, the just, the ugly, etc.) that all partake in the one object? Is the large object, large by a share of likeness to an original large thing? Or does the Form exist in the object? This question is complex because if the object is like because it shares the likeness of the large, it appears separate from itself. How can a form exist in one object entirely, but another object holds the form entirely? This is (again) contradictory. Nothing can be in two places at once.
Rust responds swiftly to this question with (ironically) a quote from the bible - 1 Corinthians 12:14-31. “For the body is not one member but many. … But now, they are many members, yet but one body.” Rust is speaking to both Plato and Kant when he says this - and in doing so, himself as well. Stuck between mind and body; reason/logic and experience. We are not simply one but many, experiencing it all through the one. Although, I don’t know if this response would satisfy my professor.
Throughout the whole show, the conversations between Rustin and Martin depict a battle between rationalists versus empiricists and pessimists versus optimists. The beautifully written dialogue for this show creates what many argue to be the best season of any TV show. The age-old depiction of light versus dark - there have been and will be so many interpretations that you can’t really be sure that yours is the “right” one. My dad had me edit something he wrote, in one section he wrote something like, “I can’t win every trophy.” The bar for which “best” is aiming is always rising further from the start line. True Detective has certainly raised the bar for what makes a good TV show. Just as Matthew McConaughey’s portrayal of Rustin Cohle does for acting.
I love reading your writing. Philosophy + TV is my favorite. One of my favorite theorists is a TV studies professor :). Great work and well written.