(no subject)

[proximoception]

The most admirable thing about the show is how well it makes particular moments fit both the least-resistance, initial interpretation of viewers who don't yet know what's really happening, and the "oh right, yeah" realization of what was actually happening when you rewatch or think back. The most admirable thing about this most admirable thing is how the "remainder" is handled, those little bits of occurrence that don't parsimoniously fit the strawman interpretation. These bits are presented as texture, as things that don't happen quite straight because life doesn't happen quite straight; they lend, very ironically, verisimilitude, the belief that we're not being imposed upon by some mind's dry design. Whereas in fact they're straight as hell, and we need them to be, need everything to be pertinent to a sufficiently complex final explanation. Little dialogue, few gestures can be wasted or we lose that feeling of paranoia, of the malignant organization of all happenings, that we seem to love, at least in fiction. When the most random-seeming details turn out to be consequences of a single domino fall, that's just neat, and this method neatly underlines that neat effect. We thought only some things were connected, before. But it's all of them. Is this merely the sublimity proper to plot? Because it seems related to the making of god.

Comments

[grashupfer.livejournal.com]

Yes. All in line with Poe's idea of singleness of effect, right? It seems to work especially well in the darker gothics which no surprise was where Poe was master.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I guess it's foundational to the mystery genre to have everything mean twice, an apparent first one then an actual last one. Can't remember if Poe tried to tuck loose ends into cinema verite-ish effects. It looks super-hard to me. E.g. Cohle's asking Hart about his fly fishing stuff in episode 1, where you assume Hart's wariness answering is just carried over from his confusion that drunk Cohle isn't leaving - you also get the first inkling of jealousy there, that maybe Hart thinks Cohle is staying because he liked talking to his wife. Which he probably partly is, and which is a neat effect - smoldering on Hart's part. But Cohle doesn't make small talk. Something's important about that fly fishing stuff. The fishing line, say. Which he saw right before making it clear he'd stay. Or nothing much is important about it except that Cohle has an investigative eye on in Hart's home, and Hart's investigative ear has picked that up. So then in the scene calling back to that one, with the "don't mow my lawn" line, we're both ready to see Hart as so quickly jealous because we've been primed, but once suspicious can see him actually faking, or anyway playing up, jealousy because of terror at Cohle snooping around regularly. A terror Cohle was probably aware of, hence the mowing. We know he fucks with people's heads and assume initially that he is in fact doing that because he's mad at Hart for cheating, wants him to taste some of his own medicine. But he's maybe fucking with him for a different reason. And Hart, a much worse liar, tries to deceive back by coming up with a pretext for shooing him - a terrible, stilted line characteristic of, like, a network show. But plausible even before we know it's a lie, since he's a network show kind of guy.

I mean, there's infinite things you can do to cover stuff up. It's just so elegant here, the coverups all have such elaborate throughlines.

Maybe this is double-neat when it infects the investigators themselves. There isn't a benevolent order confronting a malevolent one, in that case - in traditional mysteries we like the double remove from victimhood, where both we and those we follow are safe. Maybe we feel less safe when our people aren't, or less innocent when they might not be?