'True Detective' Recap: Theories and Answers After Episode 7, 'After You've Gone'

By Dustin Rowles | True Detective | March 3, 2014 |

By Dustin Rowles | True Detective | March 3, 2014 |

After seven episodes of True Detective, the once hazy picture surrounding the mystery of Dora Lange’s murder has snapped into focus. Most of the pieces have been put together, and now it’s simply a matter of fitting those last center pieces into the puzzle and framing it.

Let’s take a look at where we are now:

The answers are right there on the wall when we were introduced into Cohle’s storage unit.

Yellow King ——— Scars ———- Carcosa

The Yellow King could be Reverend Tuttle, but it is looking more and more like it goes even higher, to Eddie Tuttle, the Reverend’s cousin and a Louisiana Senator (in 1995, when Dora Lange was killed. Eddie was the Governor). Senator Tuttle (and his co-conspirators) are most likely the men who had Reverend Tuttle killed after Cohle broke into the Reverend’s safe and pulled out pictures and a video implicating several men wearing animal masks in the rape and murder of Marie Fontenot, and the rape and murder or Reggie Ledoux’s girlfriend, Reanne Oliver, the woman in episode three from Pelican Bay who washed up on the shore in what was initially ruled a drowning.

The “Scars” refers to the Spaghetti Monster, or who we now know to be Errol the landscaper, who we also saw back in episode three. He also happens to be the bastard grandson of Sam Tuttle (the Reverend Tuttle’s father).

Carcosa? That appears to be the “Light of the Way” school, one of the Wellspring schools organized and funded by the Tuttle organization, where both Marie Fontenot and Reanne Oliver attended school, and whose records were all lost in a “flood.”

Toby Boulair, aka Johnny, the messed up kid that Cohle met at a bar, also attended Light of the Way, and his memories are foggy, mostly on account of the fact that — when the men in animal masks had their way with them — the kids were all drugged out. “Light of the Way,” by the by, was where the “black stars rise.”

Guess who else appears to have gone to Light of the Way? Per Reddit, the Munchausen by Proxy killer.

As to the 5 Horseman (or possibly more), I think we can safely assume that Reverend Tuttle, Eddie Tuttle, the Landscaper, and Steve Geraci — who helped to cover up Marie Fontenot’s death — were among them. Geraci, of course, directly implicates the police department, and the cover-up inside there may be bigger than simply Geraci.

If you’re wondering if you’d seen Geraci before, he was briefly in the pilot episode. He called Cohle a “rat f*ck,” and Cohle slapped him.

Maggie also mentioned him in episode 3, in a conversation with Cohle, as having called looking for Marty on the night that Marty went ballistic on Lisa Tragnetti.

Once all of those pieces are put together, the conspiracy now seems fairly straightforward. The Tuttles were basically operating a religious organization that supplied them with children — via the Light of the Way school — to rape and/or sacrifice. All of the members behind the sacrifices are not yet known, however, although it seems clear that Cohle and Hart are about to blow that wide open, once they connect the car battery to Gervaci’s nipples.

Besides the identity of the other killers, there is another question that remains.

Who was the victim in the recent Lake Charles murder?

Is it someone from Light of the Way? Is it a random woman? Is it either of Marty Hart’s daughters? Maggie seemed to rule that out by attesting to Maise and Audrey’s whereabouts, although we don’t know exactly when the last time Maggie saw either of them. She said that Audrey had had an art show in New Orleans, but didn’t say when. Remember, the Lake Charles murder is being kept out of the papers, and it’s only been a few days between the murder and Maggie and Martin’s talk. Maggie also did note that Audrey is often off her meds, but has a boyfriend that looks after her.

Who is her boyfriend?

Also, is it not unreasonable to believe that Audrey may have been raped by the animal-mask men when she was younger? Would that explain her troubled sexual history, or why she’d staged the dolls in such a way? After all, Steve Gervasi and Martin Hart were close friends in ‘95, which would’ve given Gervasi proximity to Audrey. Plus, Audrey did have this artwork up in her house?

It may also be worth mentioning that, per IMDB, neither actress who plays Maise is in the final episode, nor is the older actress who plays Audrey Hart. The younger actress who plays Audrey, however, is in the episode, suggesting a flashback to perhaps explain a troubling event in Audrey’s past that would explain why she’s the Lake Charles murder (take that with a grain of salt, however, as IMDB credits are notoriously unreliable in making predictions).

If Audrey is the Lake Charles murder, and Hart finds out, he’s likely going to seek revenge, which may end in his death, which may have meant Maggie’s statement to Marty during their reunion was foreshadowing: “Did you come here to say goodbye?” she asked. My guess is that he didn’t intentionally come to say goodbye, but that it may be the last time he ever sees Maggie.

That fate for Audrey, narratively speaking, is also fitting: Marty, after all, is the reason why the Lake Charles murder happened. Had he not blown Reggie Ledoux’s brains out, as Marty suggested, the entire case would’ve been solved back then. How fitting, would it be for that to come back and bite him in the ass? Or the fact that Marty so casually dismissed all the signs of sexual abuse in Audrey’s childhood?

The Lake Charles murder may just be the “what’s in the box” moment of True Detective.

One final note: Fans of Boardwalk Empire may not realize this, but they’ve seen the actor who plays the Spaghetti Monster before. Check it out.