Geekscape Recaps: True Detective – “Church in Ruins”

Things sure are ramping up to the season finale. Building off of last Sunday’s episode, we find our true detectives finally delving into the parties we’ve been hearing about all season.

Warning: Spoilers ahead!

Ray

We immediately start the episode with the confrontation we’ve been waiting all week for:

While it was nice to see Velcoro and Frank make amends, I felt it was a little too easy. Although, it’s quite possible that both Velcoro and Frank put too much blind trust into each other, and they know it.  As Frank puts it, Velcoro is possibly the only friend he has left, to which Velcoro remarks how “fucked up” that scenario would be.

Velcoro leaves with the promise that Frank will look up who gave false information as to who raped Velcoro’s then wife. Let’s just say Frank is telling the truth and was deceived all those years ago. Who would set up Frank, and ultimately Velcoro? Is it connected to the organization that did Caspere in? Another thing I wanted to bring up is the sudden appearance of a prime suspect in his wife’s case.

Velcoro visits him at the jail and threatens him enough to scare anyone, innocent or not. The suspect is also conveniently suffering from a some sort of condition in which his memory fails him regularly.  Is it possible that this sudden appearance is meant to detract Velcoro from his work on the Caspere case? It wouldn’t be the first time one of the detectives has had their personal lives put on display by the group that killed Caspere. Fans won’t have to think too far back to remember Teague shadowing Woodrugh before the shootout.

Eventually Velcoro ends up back home, alone, and begins to go on a binge. He drinks, does coke, works out, and eventually comes to the realization that he can’t be in his son’s life anymore.

It’s somber moment, but Velcoro ultimately makes his decision with the best intentions in mind. He wants his son to be at peace and not be in the midst of a custody battle in which he may find out unsavory aspects about where exactly he comes from. Velcoro promises that he will forfeit the custody battle if his son is to never learn about his real father.

Frank

After previously contesting the idea of adopting a child, claiming that it would be taking on someone else’s problems, Frank transcends into a sort of father figure to a former employee’s son. This comes after Frank pays a visit to Stan’s widow. It was here that Frank learned that Blake is perhaps more deceitful than he anticipated. The widow reveals that soon after Stan’s death, Blake came by asking her what Stan knew and if he knew anything about his eventual murder.  As we know now, Blake is also working with the same group that throws the orgy parties. These are the same parties Caspere attended. This particular party we saw tonight was also attended by the Osip and the rep from Catalyst.

Eventually Frank gets a lead on the woman who pawned some of Caspere’s items that would eventually lead to the shootout. According to the woman, a cop paid her $500, plus whatever she made by pawning the items so long as she did it. She described the cop as tall, white, and slender. Blake is a likely suspect. Unfortunately we’ll have to wait to find the answer because Frank’s lead was killed by a pair of Mexicans who seem to either have a gross misunderstanding about what exactly’s been going on in Vinci, or potential partners with the organization that killed Caspere.

Cabin

The cabin makes another brief appearance in this episode. Last week, I suggested that the chair was the same that Caspere sat in as he was tortured and/or ultimately killed. Tonight, one of the detectives mentioned that the blood belonged to a female, which makes sense, but it was also mentioned that the entire room is contaminated and the results may not prove to be as fruitful as Ani and Woodrugh would hope.

Also in last week’s episode, it was revealed that Pitler was a regular surgeon that specialized in operating on women with the purpose of making them look more attractive at these orgy-like parties. This cabin may have very well been Pitler’s operating room.

Woodrugh

Not much happens with Woodrugh internally, but he does seem to be the most solid detective of the bunch. In this episode, Woodrugh further investigates the origin of the blue diamonds. His search first leads him to an insurance company that tells him that the diamonds were stolen during the LA riots in 1992.

This leads him to track down the cop that took the case in ’92. During the conversation, the cop mentions that whoever did the robbery were trained professionals. Parents who owned the shop where killed execution style in front of their children who were hiding in a cabinet.

The cop was obviously shaken by the case and really didn’t want to talk about it. From the sound of it, it would be right to assume that whoever committed the robbery is tied to the group or organization that would come to kill Caspere.

Ani

If there was ever a sequence to make us feel uncomfortable, it was Ani’s experience throughout this episode. First, I think it’s important to point out that Ani’s cover for attending the party was Athena. Ani posed as her sister and assumed her identity in order to gain entry to the mansion party. I’ll go into the psychoanalysis later and we’ll instead focus on Ani’s drug-induced trip.

Ani’s behavior to sexual situations has been highlighted a few times throughout this season. We know about her office romances, we’ve seen her browse a porn site, and let’s not forget she tried something kinky with her then boyfriend at the start of the season. As to what she did, well, no one really knows for sure, but you can use your imagination.

During her drug trip, Ani begins to have vivid visions involving memories of when she was a little girl. She begins to see a man around the mansion.

The man, who we can safely assume sexually assaulted her, appears to have come from the commune that she grew up in. Thus, we now know why she places hostility toward her father and the life she left behind.

What really stuck out to me was the appearance of a crow in her vision. If you think back to earlier in the season, the crow mask was seen in the backseat next to Caspere’s dead body in the first episode. Then, the crow’s head made a second appearance not too long after in a scene where Velcoro was shot a point-blank range with buckshot rounds. Could the crow in the vision be alluding to a relationship between her father, the commune, and the group responsible for Caspere’s murder?

Eventually, Ani, her mission person, Velcoro and Woodrugh escape the mansion, but not before taking all of the contracts with signatures with them.

Psychoanalysis

Larua Mulvey, a film theorist, came up with the concept of the “male gaze.” The concept is simple: In films, especially classical era films, the male gaze is present whenever a male is gawking at a female. The male gaze also has three different gazes: The person behind the camera, the characters portrayed in the film, and us as spectators. I’m finding this sort of psychoanalytic technique is being used mostly to make audiences feel uncomfortable. It was heavily present in the later seasons of Mad Men and is a big part of tonight’s episode.

First, the male gaze is present when Ani walks in with the other girls. The room is full of men gawking at them. Ultimately, this makes Ani rather uncomfortable. It’s unusual to see Ani like this since we’ve seen her dominate conversations and rooms throughout the season.

The composition of these shots was also similar to Silence of the Lambs. Both share a dominating female character put in an uneasy situation. The following shots from Silence of the Lambs comes at a time when Clarice Starling must tell all of the officers, who happen to be male, to leave the room so that a body can be examined properly. It is another example of the male gaze.

Mulvey also has some writings on scopophilia. Scopophilia is the act of taking gratification in looking. Perhaps the best example of this concept being put to good use is Michael Powell’s 1960 classic Peeping Tom. Peeping Tom is a film in which a serial killer records his victims final moments as he kills them. Each of the victims are females and the entire film is rather strange. Scopophilia is also present in Hitchock’s Rear Window. The film’s protagonist becomes obsessed with peering into his neighbors lives by pointing his camera at their windows. Scopophilia is more closely tied to voyeurism when placed in a sexual context.

Each of these concepts are present in this mansion sequence. The voyeuristic nature pops up when an interested male takes Ani around and stops in front of a threesome taking place in front of them. The man promptly says, “Oh yes, here we are. You care to watch for a while? I do so enjoy the natural state.”

The sequence is further off-putting due to the musical score too. The score was unlike anything in the series so far. It’s classical undertones made the mansion feel bigger, yet gave the feeling of isolation whenever we saw Ani walking from room to room. It was almost as if the shows creators took cues from classical era cinema by dressing incorporating the use of bowties, dresses, and atmosphere just to throw us off.

Overall, I thought this was a solid episode. I’m thinking next week, we’ll probably see Katherine Davis killed, leaving our detectives extremely vulnerable for the season finale in just two weeks.

Did I miss anything? Want to share some thoughts? Please do! Thanks for stopping by!