In addition to our weekly recaps of True Detective this season, we will also be pulling out important life lessons that you, the viewer, can learn from the events of each episode. These lessons will range from helpful to very, very not helpful. You are welcome.
There are obviously more important things to get to from this week’s episode. Obviously. Something like 50 people died in the street during an intense shootout between a Mexican gang and the cops. My favorite character on the show, Consistently Hungover Grumpy Cop Who Hates Everything No Not Ray The Fat One, got the top of his head blown off. At one point, one of the gang members sprayed bullets from an automatic weapon into the side of a city bus because… I don’t actually know why he sprayed bullets from an automatic weapon into the side of a city bus. It was so weird. The cops were, like, behind him. Maybe he was just frustrated, like how your dad used to slam down his fork at dinner when you and your brother were arguing at the table, but instead of peas flying on the floor, two dozen bus passengers died in broad daylight. Or something like that. Probably not the best analogy.
Anyway, this week’s lesson is, “Ask your bar singer to play a happy song once in a while, geez.”
Picture this: Ray and Frank are discussing strategy. Ray explains exactly what went down during the shootout, and prods Frank for info. Did they know the cops were coming? What’s the word on the street? Was it some sort of ambush? Frank listens and says he’ll look into it, and then tells Ray he needs help ironing out a few more things on the Caspere front; who he was meeting with in the days before his death, which prostitutes know what about who, where the money is or was or could be, etc. All the while, as the two men discuss darkness in the hearts of others (and themselves), the haunting, ghost-like bar singer with the guitar is singing a peppy acoustic cover of, say, “Let’s Hear It for the Boy” by Deniece Williams.
I mean, it couldn’t hurt, right? Have you ever looked at the clientele and turnout in that place when the camera zooms out a bit? Jesus Zoloft-Popping Christ, does it ever look like a bummer. It’s basically Frank, Ray, and four lonely drunks drinking Jameson at such a frantic pace that using a glass almost becomes an inefficiency worth weeding out. The question here is the old chicken-or-the-egg dilemma: Did the bar hire the singer to go with its bummer vibe, or is the bummer vibe the result of the singer doing nightly sets of songs about the neverending blackened hellscape that we call life?
God knows Ray and Frank could use a pick me up. Those guys, hoo boy. Frank lost all his money, found one of his men murdered, and is having trouble conceiving a child. Ray is losing the child he does have (who might not even be his), is being investigated for corruption (which he is extremely guilty of), and survived both a street shootout and an ambush by a creep in a bird mask. When the best thing you have going for you is “didn’t die in sex den ambush,” hate-drinking to the tune of Suicide Jamz Vol. 4 probably ain’t the best course of action. Slip the bar singer a $20 and ask her to liven the place up a bit. You’re a paying customer. It’s your right.
Or maybe… maybe a karaoke night? That could be fun! Ray and Frank up on stage together, drunk on Johnny Walker Blue, blowing off steam by belting out an enthusiastic rendition of “Islands in the Stream” (Ray doing the Dolly parts, with two bottle stuffed under his shirt pointing outward to symbolize big boobs) or “Regulators” (Frank as Warren G). They deserve a night of lighthearted kicks after all they’ve been through. Actually, no. “Deserve” is the wrong word. They’re both awful, awful people. But a night of lighthearted kicks might pull them out of their funk a bit. And I think it might bring some more clients into the bar, if they see people having fun when they peek in the door. More, happier people coming in is always good for business.
At the very least, the bar could get a Golden Tee machine. People love those.
