True Detective Reddit Recap: S2 E5 “Other Lives”

Episode 1: The Western Book of the Dead

Episode 2: Night Finds You

Episode 3: Maybe Tomorrow

Episode 4: Down Will Come

Well it was a good run. I was able to fully wrap my head around what was going on in True Detective for a whopping four episodes this season. Now we’ve got people who may or may not be working with each other and may or may not be working against or with other people who we may or may not know about, multiple murder scenes, illegal sex parties and an unidentified bird person. We’re back, baby!

Your summary, courtesy of /u/LifeWillBeOkay:

So. Many. Questions.

One thing that was 100% over my head was Frank’s line where he told the little Asian guy to “go stand in front of a motherfucking tank”. Apparently in 1989 some guy stood in front of some tanks in China the morning after the Tiananmen Square protests were squashed. I guess this is one of the most iconic photos of the 20th century or something.

That shed Ani and Paul found at the end of the episode. First reaction was that it was where Caspere was murdered, or at least where his jubilees met a shotgun. You saw the blood sort of pooled beneath the chair and they weren’t shy about stressing (and showing) the fact that his body had serious genital mutilation. But then you think, would those birds really be circling the shed some 70 days after Caspere’s body was found? Perhaps the missing girl met a similar fate there after that? Or another one of the girls? Ugh.

(/u/DeathSludge)

Just a crazy amount of questions regarding the late Teague Dixon. It’s obvious he was working undercover for Vinci, trying to steer the investigation whatever way the Mayor wanted it to go (pimps). He knew about the diamonds in the safety deposit box before the rest of the squad and didn’t tell them. He was secretly spying on Paul and others, I’ll bet. Or he could have been gathering intel for whoever is behind Caspere’s murder, aka whoever the sex party gang was threatening to blackmail with whatever is on that hard drive. This could be someone or multiple people with Catalyst, which would mean they were behind Caspere’s murder but not the bird person because the bird person has the hard drive (I think) and the hard drive would be their end game (I think). I don’t know what to think.
It’s looking more and more like Frank is all on his own here. Catalyst used him to “contaminate” the land surrounding the rail, thus making it cheaper for purchase. But that was just business, he doesn’t seem to be involved in any of these sex parties, so he wouldn’t have anything to do with the mission to recover the hard drive that resulted in Caspere’s murder. I’m guessing his henchman that was killed and made to look like Caspere was done in by Vinci, not knowing Frank wasn’t completely in cahoots with Catalyst (this would also require Vinci knowing that Catalyst did Caspere. Also that Catalyst really did do Caspere.) There seems to be some strong animosity in pretty much every scene with Frank and the Mayor. I also am inclined to believe that Frank had no idea the name he gave Ray wasn’t really his ex wife’s rapist. I don’t know if it’s because it’s a realistic possibility or I just want it to be true so the last three episodes turn into Frank and Ray against the world but I think he was intentionally given bad intel. The fact that one of his own henchmen is working for Chessani and the sex party gang shows that there’s somebody above him that is involved in his affairs and possibly even controlling him.
Is Mayor Chessani actually involved in all of this, or is he just a dirty politician whose son happens to run a giant illegal human trafficking sex ring? Pitlor says the mayor doesn’t know about the parties as Ray is beating the living piss out of him, but I certainly don’t trust anything that comes out of that guy’s mouth.
- Speaking of Pitlor, he’s either dead or kidnapped right? Probably dead. Ray seemed pretttttttty pissed off and he couldn’t exactly let him go free as he made no effort to hide his identity and Pitlor still has some very powerful friends.
Let the Bottlegate record show that Colin Farrell’s acting in this episode is probably top three performances I’ve ever seen. Guy has been stellar all season long but he knocked it out of the god damn park with this last hour. When he finds out they caught his wife’s real rapist, meaning he (assumedly) killed the wrong man, you could see his complete internal breakdown leaking out in his face. But his best work was when he told his ex wife that “Frank set me up.” She obviously doesn’t know what that means, and he wants so badly to tell her what he did for her and that it ended up being the wrong person, but he knows he can’t. They’re divorced and he can’t completely trust her with information that would put him in prison. In my opinion, after this episode, Ray Velcoro is officially giving Rust Cohle a run for his existential money.

(/u/redskir)

The scars. What does it all mean, Basil??? Paul lets us know during an argument with his mom that his scars are the result of whatever mission landed him $20,000 under the table during his time as a mercenary. Blackwater was clearly a shady mission that was declassified, intentionally or unintentionally, hence Paul mentioning it openly multiple times. On one hand, I have a hard time believing his scars and the lady bartender with the scarred face are unrelated, but on the other, Nic P isn’t the biggest fan of coincidence. Interesting, though, that her scars are on her face and they focus in on her the same episode that Pitlor admits to “turning 8’s into 10’s” with cosmetic surgery for the parties. Hmmmmm

(/u/logan_aaron_11)

Last bullet point, I swear. It was hard to follow live, but the woman with the missing sister got the pictures of the diamonds (which have since disappeared from the Vinci evidence room) and the parties from a PO box that her sister had opened at their old address. When they were evicted, they shipped her the contents. This could mean one of three things: she took these photos on her own prerogative as insurance in case her employment at these parties ever went south, she was hired by Chessani and co. to take these pictures as part of the blackmailing scheme, or she was hired by an outside party to infiltrate the parties and take the photos. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion it’s option C.

Reddit Theories:

Reaching the home stretch of season 2. Woo!