True Detective - finale; Am I the only one?

Last night was the True Detective Season 1 finale. I, for one was disappointed. Not that the ending wasn't dramatic, and suspenseful. It was, but it didn't feel to fit the character of the show. All the exposition done through secondary characters; the tent preacher, and his fall, the series of schools, the room full of devil catchers at the end of episode 6 when Cohl goes back to the school.

It turns out the spaghetti monster was the lawnmower man, a relative of the Tuttle family, we met innocuously at the end of episode 3. He seemed a tangential character. It was an inventive twist to bring back someone we took little notice of. Was he The Yellow King? We're left to assume that. His house was a hoarders paradise, and the labyrinth on the property was chock full of devil catchers of all size, which was a really cool effect. But this shit sty was the headquarters of a cult that had such reach, and influence that dozens of murder, and missing person cases were swept away for over a decade? It was a disappointment to have the Tuttle family idiot be the Yellow King. What was their involvement, aside from hiding some evidence? I wanted to know more about the cult. How active were Tuttles, or other Louisiana notables in the cult? How expansive was cult? It covered up so many missing/murder cases. It had to have been huge.

And how, how, how did the police know to get there (and where) while Hart and Cohl were wounded after the Yellow King confrontation? Did they all of a sudden get cell reception in that pit - you know, the reception they couldn't get in the driveway? The house land line didn't work, and who would have called anyway? After the attention to logic, and the what if's, the what abouts, the how does this fit, the this doesn't, to have the police just show up was a serious departure from the series' cohesive attention to detail.

Marty, after being visited in the hospital by Maggie and the girls, breaks down as if he finally realizes all that he's lost. Then nothing after that. Did he begin to get to a good place with Maggie. Reconciliation? More importantly, did he begin to get to a good place with his daughter Audrey? We haven't seen interaction between those two since the "captain of the varsity slut team" incident. So much of the series was the development of Cohle, and Hart from 95, to 02, to present. Watching Marty Hart's demons consume his relationship with his family, and his first mistress was really compelling. What happened after the hospital visit, Shit. What happened after he broke down when Maggie held his hand? I wasn't hoping for a reconciliation, but we spent 7 episodes watching Marty's self destructive nature fuck it all up. Did anything happen?

Rust, who was the most seriously wounded and the more deeply scarred personally, lets us in on his near death experience. His description of the warm darkness, feeling his daughter's love, and wanting to stay there was an uncharacteristic bit of light in his personal darkness. McConaughey's character is the glue of the series, and I almost shit myself when it looked like he was mortally wounded. I mean, shit, no cell reception, who's gonna navigate that labyrinth in time to keep him from bleeding out? It also felt odd that Cohl and Hart seemed to have become kind of buddies. Every cop show has the partners as buddies. True Detective introduced a really cool dynamic by having these 2 not like each other the whole time. "If you were drowning, I'd throw you a fucking barbell."

The strength of the show has been it's introduction of interesting characters, whether they are major or minor to the narrative. The destructive personal natures of Hart and Cohl was also compelling. Hart lost a battle with it, and Cohl accepted it. It looks like they've come to some sort of terms with that, and maybe even personal redemption. Looking at the stars, and noting how the dark has more territory was interesting. I don't know how I feel about that. Maybe almost dying does that. On balance True Detective has been outstanding. The finale left me wanting more, and if there's a season 2, I'm there.

Seriously, how the fuck did the police know where they were?