By Sherif Badr

We're all guided by something.

I had a professor tell the class that all prophets were schizophrenics. "Not exactly the type we jump to follow," I thought. But how about a genius that literally gets visions, eyes wide open, either from God or a drug issue in the past? He would have to feel things that others don't, because of revelation or maybe because of "synesthesia," literally tasting sounds and hearing colors. That's Rust Cohle from True Detective, our "little priest," our debatably religious example around whom this article is framed, and through whom you will know if you are in tune with the universe.

Whether it's in recurring events, a string of murders, or a cloud of birds in the sky, you see patterns that others don't. Sure, sometimes it's nothing; coincidence. But you can’t help feeling there’s something to them…  

Maybe because you’re always trying to tie things together, you have a nearly psychic intuition for how things will pan out. “Back then [with] the visions…most of the time I was convinced that I’d lost it…But other times...hell I thought I was the main line for the secrets of the universe.”

Some people believe in right. Others make right happen. Despite their differences, Rust and Marty reunite after years because of their sense of justice. When Marty needs a reason why he should care about the missing persons and the high level folk involved, Rust responds "because you have a debt." To whom is irrelevant.

When you’re seeing connections between things that you are sure are real that others don’t, you’re bound to feel like an outsider. “I was aware that I might have lost my mind,” says Rust remembering how he slips into obscurity and starts breaking and entering. He keeps digging, and he turns out to be right.

"I never been in a room more than two minutes where I didn't know the person was guilty or not,” says Rust despite the long interrogations he’s lead. People are tuning forks and you pick up the vibrations of others quick.

In his early years on the force, Rust’s nickname was the “taxman” for his big black book and the meticulous notes he takes on things that nobody else cares about. Over and over again, those small details that he records become giant clues, keys even, like the spaghetti monster’s “green ears.”

Amidst all this seeming chaos, the visions, the connections people don’t see, and possibly stepping off the beaten path, there’s order. Things still converge. You end up in the right place at the right time. To you, maybe you’re frantically holding somebody at gun point on a boat, but from a wider view you’re moving in the right direction exactly where you need to be. The pieces are magnetized, snapping into place.

“Everything we've ever done or will do we're going to do over and over again. That little boy and that little girl are going to be in that room again…and again...forever.” If you look at the various time periods in True Detective, you’ll see a cycle of events. Clues are dropped, victims are found, and what they were looking for slips under their noses again and again. They’re given chance after chance to catch on, but it’s up to them. People in True Detective are seen making the same mistakes,  perpetually finding themselves in similar situations with similar opportunities and threats. Just talking about it feels cyclic. There’s always a pair of detectives asking the same questions, following the same paths, missing the same clues. Hell, this paragraph is downright repetitive.  The theme of repetition in True Detective hits home at the end of episode seven where our lawnmower man is cut off explaining his family’s long history in those parts to the next pair of gumshoes snooping around.

“My family’s been here a long, long time” he says to deaf ears.

Rust: You asked..

Martin: Ya, and now I’m begging you to shut the f@$# up.

Take off your mask.