I read somewhere that all detective stories are parables for our search for God. Maybe Nic Pizzolatto had too. One group who hadn’t were the secular humanist watchdogs who man the cultural barricades for any hint of conventional spirituality. Boy did HBO’s True Detective take them for a ride, John Deere style.

Everything was set up for the secularists to consummate their relationship with the series in the finale. On paper and seven episodes, the series had all that they and Richard Dawkins could ask for, namely;

• A likely conspiracy run by a white wealthy charter school advocate whose brother was a senator and whose office featured a cross so large it could have been a goalpost in a prior life.
• A deeply cynical portrait of the type of people who get their religion under a revival tent.  You might say those folks wore their IQ’s low on their foreheads, sleeves being optional.
• Of the numerous references references to a ‘King,’ most were about a Yellow King, a few of the King of Kings and none of Alan King. [Distribution roughly equivalent to Carmelo Anthony FG attempts, assists and charges drawn].
• The married detective was an alcoholic serial adulterer who executed a prime suspect, assaulted males who copulated with his daughter and bitch-slapped said daughter. This character was the intellectual defender of the role of faith in the series.
• The unmarried detective sounded like what typical secular humanist males [think Pajama Boy] wish they could sound like in public, i.e., unemasculated.

Jesus, you could almost feel the anti-God-squaders excitement. Finally, the rich white God-fearing evil hypocrites would be exposed and by an unrepentant nihilist to boot!  Dreams, unlike prayers, would come true. Then came the finale.

Not only did the secularists not get their money shot–a take down of the rich white guys pulling the strings on the moronic killer/child-abuser–no this Pizzolatto dude had the temerity to have the nihilist detective describe an experience which unmistakeably resembles how most people come to believe in God. Based on intensely personal experiences, not the philosophical ramblings of bipeds who can’t figure themselves out, let alone the universe or prime mover.

I hope that you, numerically limited but highly discerning reader, will find half as much pleasure as I do in all the negative reviews about the final episode of True Detective. I just know there is a secularist on the other end of most of those screeds.

But really, its their own fault.  Isn’t their whole point not to believe in stories? So hey Nietzsche wannabes … [for clues on how to finish my last thought, please refer to Rust Cohle’s final admonition to Reggie Ledoux].