The Guy Responds

By Guy

Alright, Guy here.  Clearly.  Girl gets it mostly right up there.  ‘Mostly’.  One thing I can’t say enough, is that I’m very happy to have thrown Girl down the rabbit hole this show has torn into our common national consciousness, as she is a hyper vigilant and astute watcher of TV.  Have you noticed that we are all part of the story now?  You out there reading this?  Of course you have, that’s why you found us.  You are picking around for clues too.  You’ve probably been on Reddit, read through all of the comments on all of the review sites (hell, I saw Grant Morrison and Cormac F’ing McCarthy arguing about this show in the comments of one review), and now you’ve found our little corner.  I think you’ll find some good stuff here.  Like I said, Girl is unsurpassed at finding crispy golden nuggets of info from this show.

I got sent down the rabbit hole because my wife ‘really wanted to watch that new Matthew McConaughey show on HBO’, you know, because, well, McConaughey is dreamy.  I relented.  But the tables quickly turned.  Now I literally think about this show far far far far far too much.  I mean, like waaaaaay too much.  I’ve been peeking around the ol’ net, and it seems like I’m not the only one.  When was the last time a show caught the national imagination like this?  Lost?  Maybe, but that one was a big dud for me by the end.  This show?  Revelatory.  And, because I’m a whore for anything ‘meta’, I think as a cultural phenomena, the fact that a show about Detectives, a show about digging to the bottom to find the truth, has caused so many of us to turn into our own little True Detectives is utter brilliance.  More So when you realize that the origin of the King in Yellow is a set of stories about a play which, when reading the second act, drives the reader insane.  Which, clearly, seems to be happening to many of us, especially as this ride reaches its second and third acts.  Stuff like that gives me the shivers.

When the King In Yellow was first namechecked on the show, I just about fell out of my chair.  I’m a long time Lovecraft/Lovecraftian fiction fan, so to hear such a clear an obvious reference to good old Metaphysical Horror thrilled me.  I’ve read all of Lovecraft, Ambrose Bierce, and many of their compatriots and descendants, so to see even a small element of that mythos enter into a show of such obvious quality thrilled me beyond belief.  Now, let me briefly explain my ‘mostly’ up there, in reference to how much Girl got right.  I AM very interested to see how the King in Yellow relates to this story, and what it signifies.  Much of the speculation out there in Webland has been of the “Is Cohle the King in Yellow?  No wait, it’s Marty!  No, dumbass, it’s clearly Tuttle, Reggie, Maggie, blahddie blah blah.”  Now, you and I know that is nonsense, right?  The King in Yellow is not going to be a person.  It is going to be a FORCE.  I don’t think he/she/it will ever make an appearance in the show.  [Cthulhu:   I told you already, HBO never contacted me, so I’m not in this show.  For reals, ok?  Besides, the only show I’m lobbying for a walk on role is Girls.  I want that bitch Jessa’s soul.] Oh jeez, sorry about that.  F’ing Cthulhu is really pushing it with his interruptions.  Anyway, Only the cult debasing themselves to him will make an appearance, and that is as it should be.  That is how much of Lovecraft et al. plays out.  And that is much more spooky than some rubbery monster with tentacles coming out of it’s eyeballs (although that would be thrilling in it’s own way). [Cthulhu:  Is that supposed to be some sort of burn?  Am I not *terrifying* enough for you?  Don’t make me come over there and eat away the last vestiges of your sanity…]  So, while I am super duper interested in how the mythology Nic Pizzolatto has woven into this tale will play out, I don’t expect to ever see even a glimpse of The King in Yellow, or even learn much about him.  As a matter of fact I think it would be a mistake to have anything to explicit about him at all.  But man am I loving the subtle fan service Nic is throwing us diehard Metaphysical horror fans.

Also, Nic and I seem to like a bunch of the same stuff.  Like Grant Morrison, and Alan Moore, who Nic has gone on the record stating as major influences.  I’d say Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles is an influence on this show.  Anyone who has read The Invisibles is likely to agree.  Anybody who HASN’T read The Invisibles and likes this show should do the right thing and read it, for elder god’s sake.

But, I am close to digressing far too much, so maybe that is introduction enough.  This isn’t why you came.  You came to see if your theories match up with ours, and to argue with us in your head.  And holy crap, we really only have two episodes left, so there is a lot to catch up on.  So, on to the good stuff!