hurch in Ruins is why True Detective was worshipped to begin with. So far, the best episode of the season is reminiscent of Rust’s extended action sequence through the ghetto. Bez’s (Rachel McAdams) subplot’s climax evoking–either a Kubrickian or Lynchian (either way, brilliantly twisted and atmospheric) tone–matches Velcoro’s unbridled snowy Cuervo bender.

In this week’s beat, suspense and acting save the day. Frank (Vince Vaughn) and Velcoro (Colin Farrell) work things out as last week’s cliff-hanger ended left us with an assumed impending showdown between the two. As a morning coffee complete with glocks in hand emerges, Frank assures Velcoro he thought the lead that raped Velcoro’s wife was genuine. In exchange, Velcoro spits out that Frank’s associate Blane has been a bad boy pimping Frank’s women through the wrong culturati.

Velcoro tracks down the degenerate that raped his wife and shares his creativity with detailed torture imagery if the prisoner ever got less than what state justice has defined for him. And he tries to work out some quality time with his son but is stagnated by an awkward supervised visit launching him into a cocaine frenzy and Cuervo rage; as it winds down, he confronts his wife and promises to vanquish himself from their lives if she agrees in exchange to never tell their son his forced beginnings. This scene was a great moment for the character and for Colin Farrell. His suffering was raw and we got to see what really defines Ray Velcoro. He rather leave his son with the lie that he’s his biological father than be in his life with him knowing that he’s not.

By this rationale, so much for him cleaning up the sauce. But Frank while having a heart to heart with his dead associate’s son, says you can turn something bad into good. The flat circle, constantly cycling us around, is called into question. Thus, two world views collide as the rest of the season’s events will conclude its thesis.

Frank hunts down an associate of Amarillo, the reason for the bloody mess left from the bullet spray two episodes ago. This henchman knows who Irina is leading Frank to her apartment and his new Mexican adversaries. He broker’s a deal with them, where they can run their dust through his clubs at one hundred percent profit if they allow him to speak with Irina face to face. They first talk over the phone and Irina tells Frank that she has a picture of the man who told her to take the diamonds, a cop. But Frank gets played by the cartel as he finds her face to face with her throat slashed.

Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch) discovers the diamonds are untraceable, looted from the LA riots in 1992. He and Velcoro team up with Bez carrying the trophy plotline through the show’s finish as she goes undercover as an escort to one of the notorious parties. Bez is forcefully doped up with the other escorts before she winds her way around half cognizant through the flesh fest looking for clues when she’s invited into a drug-induced orgy. She finally finds Vera juiced up to oblivion as Bez tries to push through a hallucination from the bad trip, which alluded to a sexual abuse scenario at her father’s commune when she was younger. But Bez can’t master it when she cuts up a security guard in self-defense.

At a new tipping point, they leave us on a lost highway in the vastness and the dark.

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For prior Silver Screen Riot True Detective coverage, find archive reviews below:

TRUE DETECTIVE Season 2 Episode 1 Review “The Western Book of the Dead”
TRUE DETECTIVE Season 2 Episode 2 Review “Night Finds You”
TRUE DETECTIVE Season 2 Episode 3 Review “Maybe Tomorrow”
TRUE DETECTIVE Season 2 Episode 4 Review “Down Will Come”
TRUE DETECTIVE Season 2 Episode 5 Review “Other Lives”

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