Shannon Spencer

Structural Analysis
Summary
The season focuses on the lives of Louisiana State
Police homicide detectives Rustin Rust Cohle and
Martin "Marty" Hart. Over a seventeen-year period,
they must recount the investigation into the murder
of prostitute Dora Lange and the histories of several
other unsolved crimes, the perpetrator of which
remains at large.
Theme
Well the theme come from one of the main characters
Rust, he has a very pessimistic and nihilistic
worldview. The show really compares and contrasts
religion and rationality, and is bias towards rationality.
Religion is bashed a lot but in a reasonable yet
offensive way.
So its basically anti-christian/anti-religion
The Heroes
The Heroes are the two main characters; Rust and
Marty
Obviously their goal is to solve the murder and catch
the murderer.
The enemy or murderer
The murderer is actually the million dollar question of
the show. The killer/cult leader is Errol Childress
Other villians
Reggie Ledoux Billy Lee Tuttle Dewall
Flaws
Obviously the heroes have flaws, its what makes
them different and unique. Rust seems to have the
most. Marty doesnt really have as many as Rust but
hes still flawed, also everybody (audience) loves Rust
because of that.
Rust Cohle
Cohle has a drinking problem
whenever stressed out by
anything.
Also PTSD from his time in HIDTA
(high intensity drug traffic
area)
Insomnia, hallucinations, also an
addict for various drugs
Marty Hart
Marty is just not as good
of a detective as Rust
Philander - a man who
frequently enters into
casual sexual
relationships with
women. (Hes married)
Evil; condemned or celebrated?
Well in the show, its more condemned than celebrated. However
that being said, the show exposes everyone and how they are all evil.
Like when Marty and his wife cheat on each other, how a reverend was
a con man, how another reverend was a pedophile, how children/teens
are not as innocent as they appear, how the police abuse their power
etc. Just in general how everyone was evil, some more than others.
But then again some parts in the show were celebrated, like when they
(the heroes) killed a villain after he was arrested, execution style.
Christianity Portrayed
Positive Elements?
The good guys won, sort of; they didnt get all the bad guys.

Cohle is at peace, after he had another (last) near death experience and
well he changes his perspective on life.
Worldview Issues
Addressed
Portrayed Worldview
Id say the show portrays a Nihilistic
worldview. So I guess that falls under
Naturalism.
Human Condition
Rust thinks that mankind are a mistake and shouldnt
exist because were destructive, stupid, and life is
meaningless.
Rustin Cohle: I'd consider myself a realist, alright? But in philosophical terms I'm what's called a pessimist... I
think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware. Nature created an
aspect of nature separate from itself - we are creatures that should not exist by natural law... We are things
that labor under the illusion of having a self, that accretion of sensory experience and feelings, programmed
with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody's nobody... I think the honorable
thing for our species to do is to deny our programming. Stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction -
one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal.
Ethical Behavior
Rust knows/thinks/believes that all people are evil, no
matter what.
Detective Martin Hart: I mean, can you imagine if people didn't believe, what things they'd get up to?

Detective Rustin Cohle: Exact same thing they do now. Just out in the open.

Detective Martin Hart: Bullcrap. It'd be a flipping freak show of murder and debauchery and you know it.

Detective Rustin Cohle: If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then
brother that person is a piece of crap; and I'd like to get as many of them out in the open as possible.
Meaning of Life
Rust thinks that there is no meaning of life because of
reincarnation.
Detective Rust Cohle: In eternity, where there is no time, nothing can grow. Nothing can
become. Nothing changes. So death created time to grow the things that it would kill... and
you are reborn but into the same life that you've always been born into. I mean, how many
times have we had this conversation, detectives? Well, who knows? When you can't
remember your lives, you can't change your lives, and that is the terrible and the secret fate
of all life. You're trapped... like a nightmare you keep waking up into.
Death
Rust thinks death is just apart of life, a passage into a
deeper kind.
Rustin Cohle: This... This is what I'm talking about. This is what I mean when I'm talkin' about time, and
death, and futility. all right there are broader ideas at work, mainly what is owed between us as a society for
our mutual illusions. 14 straight hours of staring at DB's, these are the things ya think of. You ever done
that? You look in their eyes, even in a picture, doesn't matter if they're dead or alive, you can still read 'em.
You know what you see? They welcomed it... not at first, but... right there in the last instant. It's an
unmistakable relief. See, cause they were afraid, and now they saw for the very first time how easy it was to
just... let go. Yeah They saw, in that last nanosecond, they saw... what they were. You, yourself, this whole
big drama, it was never more than a jerry rig of presumption and dumb will, and you could just let go. To
finally know that you didn't have to hold on so tight. To realize that all your life, all your love, all your hate,
all your memories, all your pain, it was all the same thing. It was all the same dream, a dream that you had
inside a locked room, a dream about being a person. And like a lot of dreams, there's a monster at the end
of it.
Detective Rust Cohle: I think about my daughter now and what she was
spared. Sometimes I feel grateful. The doctor said she didn't feel a
thing, went straight into a coma. Then, somewhere in that blackness,
she slipped off into another deeper kind. Isn't that a beautiful way to go
out - painlessly as a happy child? Trouble with dying later is you've
already grown up, the damage is done too late. I think about the hubris
it must take to yank a soul out of nonexistence into this. Force a life into
this thresher.
Coinciding with Biblical Truth
It doesnt.
Departing from Biblical Truth
Being Anti-Religion in all the episodes
Consequences of living this worldview
Obviously its depicted in the show what this
lifestyle/worldview does to a person. Like Rust, hes
unhappy, lonely, troubled, however it makes him a
damn good detective.