http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2015/07/13/true-detective-theory-could-this-main-character-be-the-killer/

So far in “True Detective” season two, we have gotten to know four protagonists, and they are all damaged in their own ways.

Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn), the crime boss trying to turn legitimate, is unique among them because despite his nightmarish back story and crooked ways, he seems to have it all together at first. Then things fall apart. He’s the main character with the most at stake in the central mystery of the show, since he and the main murder victim, a local politician and businessman named Ben Caspere, were going in on a huge land deal together. Caspere’s death really gets to him. It haunts him, really.

Here’s how everything lines up.

We have learned that Caspere was involved with some unsavory folks, from the weird psychiatrist Dr. Pitlor (Rick Springfield) to the corrupt Vinci Mayor Austin Chessani, who has some twisted family issues himself. In fact, episode four revealed that Pitlor, Caspere and Chessani, not to mention sheriff’s officer Ani Bezzerides’s (Rachel McAdams) father Eliot, might have had stronger and deeper connections than were apparent at first. There is also a big, mysterious corporation named Catalyst Group, and a potential sex cult with shades of Bohemian Grove that may be at work in the shadows. Still, a few details in Frank’s story arc have stood out through four knotty episodes of the eight-episode season.

A telling hint, although this may be too literal a reading of what he was saying, is that showrunner and creator Nic Pizzolatto, in an interview with Vanity Fair, described season two as an “Oedipus Rex”-style detective story in which “the detective is searching and searching and searching, and the culprit is him.” It’s a theme common in noir, and in many ways “Oedipus Rex” is the first noir detective story.

In the play, which is part of a trilogy by Sophocles, Oedipus finds out that he, because he unwittingly killed his own father and married his mother, is the reason for a plague. Oedipus also blinds himself, an image that resonates with Caspere’s dead body in “True Detective.” (It’s also worth noting that “Antigone,” about Oedipus’s daughter, is the title of another play in the Sophocles trilogy. Ani’s full name is Antigone.)

Frank, even though he’s on the other side of the law, has done his fair share of detective work so far this season. Caspere had millions of Frank’s dollars, and the money is gone now. Understandably, Frank wants to know where his money is.

The key to everything, though, might be the opening scene of episode two. Frank and his wife, Jordan, are talking in bed before the dawn. Two water stains on the ceiling catch Frank’s eye and clearly disturb him to the point of revealing a horrifying secret about his past. Frank tells a story about a time when his drunken father left him locked in a pitch-black basement, leaving the young Frank to fend for himself against hungry rats.

Meditating on the stains, he says: “Something’s trying to tell me it’s all papier mache. Something’s telling me to wake up. Like I’m not real. Like I’m only dreaming.” Could he mean that another side of him, perhaps unleashed by that horrific time in the basement, is gnawing at him like one of the rats did? Have Frank’s demons manifested themselves in an even worse version of himself?


Vince Vaughn and Kelly Reilly in ‘True Detective.’ HBO
There’s precedent for this kind of thing in TV murder mysteries. In “Twin Peaks,” the killer of Laura Palmer turned out to be her own father, Leland. Only, Leland wasn’t in control of himself. He was under the possession of the evil spirit Bob. Could Frank Semyon be under the influence of some malignant aspect of his psyche that was brought on by his childhood trauma? This season of “True Detective” has echoed “Twin Peaks” co-creator David Lynch’s work in many ways already this season, as Vulture critic Bilge Ebiri points out. Lynch’s “Mulholland Dr.” also focused on a “dreamer,” played by Naomi Watts, who seemed to be repressing murderous guilt.

Another telling detail: At the end of Frank’s grim anecdote, the camera cuts to the twin stains on the ceiling, and then the scene fades into a shot of Caspere’s face. The murder victim’s two acid-burned eyes line up directly with the stains on Frank’s ceiling. Later, in episode four, Frank is so disturbed by two stains on a tablecloth that look a lot like the ones in his bedroom that he covers them with his coffee cup.

Then there’s the question of why the killer shot Caspere in the genitals. Why would Frank, in a fugue state, do such a thing? Perhaps it would have to do with his subconscious feeling of impotence as he and his wife fail repeatedly to have a child. He clearly has well-established father issues, and his need to become a father himself might be too much for him to handle.

How does this all tie into killing Ben Caspere, though? The deal the two were working on — funded by deep troughs of federal money — would have represented a turning point for Frank. He would have been “legitimate,” and he wouldn’t need to rely so heavily on a criminal career to make his living.

This idea might have been too much for his disturbed, guilt-ridden dark side to handle. Indeed, the Caspere murder leaves Frank broke and in need of some quick cash, so he goes back into his previous criminal enterprises. He has to hustle, to get tough. He looks like he’s back in his element. Frank even offers a somewhat-sober Ray, who also seems to be getting his mojo back, an opportunity to quit the force and join his newly rejuvenated crime organization. A coherent, more competent Ray, working a murder case with a clear head, would be a liability for Frank. Being a good(ish) guy isn’t a good look for Frank. He needs to be that guy who can rip out a rival’s teeth with pliers.

As he tells Ray, deep down inside Frank operates under the idea that maybe your worst self is your best self.