While the original True Detective is certainly no slouch when it comes to embedding potent symbolism meant for scrutinizing, then ultimately forgetting about, it’s nothing compared to the below DVD bootleg cover—a cover that is exploding, metaphorically and literally, with deeper meaning, making flowers all over your mind. Also, bursting with “Amazing Perform, Full Frontal Action,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times, whose decades of reporting have more than earned the public’s trust that it knows full-frontal action when it sees it.
Some salient clues, as uncovered by the Reddit community that posted it, and what they might mean:
– Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey are seen against the backdrop of Las Vegas, with its telltale replica Eiffel Tower and Sphinx in the background. Las Vegas is known as Sin City, as in the sins of the past that constantly revisit them—and us all. It’s a city of artifice and illusion, like the familiar constructs that only hide man’s true evil.
– It’s also definitely not in Louisiana, where the show supposedly takes place. But then again, what if it is? What if the entire first season of True Detective took place not in Louisiana, but a Las Vegas-created illusion of Louisiana? Maybe it was just a dream you had inside a locked Vegas hotel room. And like a lot of dreams, there’s a buffet at the end of it.
– Rising from the flames of the police cars, and the flames of Woody Harrelson’s jacket, a lone phoenix reaches toward the sky. This phoenix, as pointed out by Reddit’s Pinkzeppelin, is known as “Fire Bird Random HD Wallpaper,” a symbolic nod to the random acts of violence that can swoop in at any moment in our meaningless lives. Like a desktop wallpaper, this violence can be accessed by anyone.
– Matthew McConaughey’s head has been grafted onto Brad Pitt’s body from Killing Them Softly. Brad Pitt has been rumored to star in a new season of True Detective. They are the same. Time is a flat circle. Time is a Photoshop lasso loop.
– Woody Harrelson’s giant gun hand arrives from some unknown place, some unexpected angle, completely overwhelming him. The same could be said about violence, no? (“Violence is a big ol’ freaky gun hand that just sort of sticks out there sometimes, Full Frontal Action”—Carl Jung)
Touch this DVD cover, and it touches you back.
[via Uproxx]