Serial killer stories dive deep into reptilian logic, dealing directly with our most primal urges—sex and violence. True Detective embraces this approach, vilifying humanity itself. People are messy organisms rife with unquantifiable feelings, oozing out onto the humanity highway that buzzes according to dishonored and flimsy rules. It’s a miracle that they’ve made it this far.

We see a catatonic rape victim relive her unshakeable experience with Reggie LeDeoux. The Yellow King; a monster. And drug addicts eroding their psyches, throwing themselves into beliefs far removed from decency. This show is as much as about killing, as it is about the narratives we force ourselves to believe.

Even amid tracking the great misery of a killer, Rust and Marty must cope with the greatest misery of them all—life. We see how Rust’s life crumbled in front of him. His daughter died. He had to bury a child. Spending years deep undercover made him remove himself from himself. Take a broken man and throw him into a volatile environment. His perspective emerges unique to his own. Religion is a disease. This world is not our last. Man is ultimately corrupt.

There are only hints to Marty’s past. Maggie once said he was so smart. His Dad died. Marty uses that tragedy as an expired excuse for his distant behavior with his family. At one point, Marty was a good investigator. He was sharp. Somewhere along the way, and we don’t know when, he started to care for the wrong things.

Both men have a need to fulfill something lost. Marty’s thirst for extramarital sex masks his yearning to return to his youth. Rust’s penchant for death is his cry out to join his dead daughter. Both men tumble forward through life making a mess; their mission is to pick up the pieces.

The story is also about storytelling itself. It posits that storytelling is a crucial element in committing murder. The narrative that builds and builds inside our heads drives us to follow our impulses. The Yellow King abides by a historical narrative. His victims are the subjects of his skewed drama. He sets his time, location, and picks his “actors.” They are centerpieces for his tortuous theatre. The odd relation between killer and victim brings to light an odd, cosmic connection.

Rust intimates that time is a flat circle. How often he’s had the same conversation in the same place and the same time. Again and again, life continues in the same fashion it always has.

There’s some ethereal undercurrent that links to all things. It is the plane that separates from the material world and the immaterial world. There’s a world outside our own. Both frames of reference require each other to exist. One fails. All fail.

Man is bound by the eternal rotation of destiny. No matter what we choose or what we deny ourselves, we will wind up in the same place, again and again. Even if we believe our choices make a difference, they’re simply stories we tell ourselves to make us believe we have purpose. Our self-imposed purpose breeds life into life. It’s another narrative, another drama. We can derive meaning from anything but our interpretation drives our human experience.

Husband and wife. Parent and child. Killer and victim. True Detective shows the varying ranges of pain shared within these relationships. No matter how small or how great, we need this suffering to drive our own narrative. Without drama, there is no story.