True Detective’s season finale brought the right amount of closure to one of television’s best new dramas.
During episode 8, which aired Sunday night, Hart and Cohle finally caught up with their scar-faced monster name Errol at his home in the middle of the woods with his lady friend who’s just as messed up as he is.
It wasn’t the first time they’ve seen Errol. Cohle spoke to him ever so briefly back in 1995 when he was mowing a school yard, but missed the clues he needed to connect him at the time because A) he was sitting down – Cohle couldn’t see his height – and B) his face was too dirty for the scars to be noticeable. The fact that Hart was leaning on his horn while Cohle spoke to the man in ’95 didn’t help him focus on the fact that the suspect was right under his nose, either.
During the finale, the two detectives finally catch up with Errol after Hart connects the color of his “ears” in the sketch with the color of a house in a photograph from one of their files. After speaking to the woman who owned the house at the time, they dig into her tax records to find the business who did the paint job. They then make a few more connections and are led to the serial killer’s home.
They head to Errol’s house and try to call the new detectives investigating the case but there’s no cell phone service. Hart goes to the main house to ask for the phone. He’s greeted by Errol’s woman who says they have no phone, so he breaks in. He still has no luck making a call.
Cohle goes to the smaller house, where Errol’s just killed the family dog, and spots his man. A chase leads them deep into Errol’s massive compound, and Cohle gets directions thanks to a voice in his head. “Come die with me, little prince,” he hears.
Cohle enters a final, tall room with a hole at the top letting light in. He starts seeing a vision in the form of a night sky. Errol suddenly comes out and stabs him with a serious blow to the stomach, but Cohle’s still got his physical strength about him and head-butts Errol several times. Hart comes in and shoots him. It doesn’t do the trick, and Errol replies with a hammer to Hart’s chest. Cohle, on the ground, then delivers a bullet to Errol’s head. Moments later, cops arrive at the scene.
We flash forward to the hospital where Hart is being briefed by the ’12 detectives. Several pieces of evidence at the scene were linked to the various murders. Hart’s family comes in for a visit too which brings him to tears.
Cohle is alive, miraculously. He realizes that the man he saw riding the lawnmower in ’95 was his man all along, and he wishes he nabbed more of the people who were at fault (like the Tuttles). Hart reminds him that they got their man, and that’s all that matters.
With a few sweeping shots of locations we’d seen over the season, we jump to Hart – who’s healthy again – wheeling Cohle out of the hospital. The latter has something bothering him: When he was on death’s door, he could feel his father and his daughter with him. The people he loved were close to him. “All I had to do was let go” to see them again. And now? He can still feel his daughter’s love there. “Even more than before. Nothing but that love.”
“Dark has a lot more territory,” Hart says when admiring the night sky at the end of the episode. Cohle disagrees. “Once there was only dark. You ask me, the light’s winning.” The two leave the hospital for hopefully greener pastures.
True Detective’s eight episode season ended with a little bit of peace for both Hart and Cohle. The former was in good spirits as he wheeled his friend out of the hospital, while the latter was thinking on the bright side after feeling the love of his daughter and father beside him for the first time in a long, long while.