True Detective: Everything Is Fucking

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Things are looking bad, bad, bad for our True Detectives in season two’s penultimate episode, “Black Maps and Motel Rooms.” They’re holed up in a shitty motel after infiltrating an orgy (I hope I get some compensation from the way you keep copying MY LIFE, Nic Pizzolatto), state attorney Davis has been assassinated, Paul is being blackmailed, and Ani’s missing person Vera isn’t being as cooperative as they want her to be.

As it turns out, Vera wasn’t kidnapped or kept against her will. Instead, she was off enjoying life as a high-end sex worker—more particularly, a high-end sex worker who’s not terribly bothered by the occasional murder of a female colleague.

“Maybe, and this is just a thought, maybe you were put on Earth for more than fucking,” Ani tells her, in an attempt to convince her to testify.

“Everything is fucking,” Vera replies and, as the True Detectives’ current situation proves, she’s not entirely wrong. Ani, Paul, and Ray’s dilemma is that they fucked—or, more accurately, got fucked—by the wrong people. And they’re currently paying dearly for it.

Ani and Paul both send their loved ones out of town to help keep them out of harm’s way, which leads to the first, and possibly the only, tender scene between Ani and her father to occur all season. After telling her dad that she remembers the face of the man who abducted her as a child, her father expresses genuine remorse (a complete 180 from his “You’re angry at the entire world, and men in particular, out of a false sense of entitlement for something you never received” diatribe in the first episode of Season 2), and tells her, “You’re the most innocent person that I’ve ever known.” She then embraces her dad, her sister, and her former partner (who has promised to help get her family out of town) and they’re on their way. Happy travels and good luck, pals. Hopefully you all fare better than the other (now dead) people that our True Ds have tried to protect.

As Paul goes off to get murdered by Lieutenant Burris (RIP, Paul!), Ani and Ray are left to act on their loneliness, sorrow, and boredom in the motel room. Now, I truly don’t doubt that two people who’ve shared a traumatic experience might express their grief and stress by boning each other, but would it kill a show to be about a man and a woman who don’t end up fucking? You know, maybe it would! As Vera says, everything is fucking. This is fucking. That is fucking. So let’s have everyone fuck until they can’t fuck anymore.