While some families like to go on vacations or have barbecues, the Tuttles prefer to put on ghoulish animal masks and wearing antlers as crowns. This week, Rust and Marty seem to be inching closer to catching the Dora Lange killer (keyword being “seem”).
We start episode seven, “After You’ve Gone,” where last week’s episode left off in 2012. Marty buys Rust that drink and after a slight awkward silence, they take little jabs at each other about how they look. That last decade of drinking for Rust is finally taking a toll on him, living in Alaska for eight or so years doesn’t help either.
At the bar, Rust tries to convince Marty to help him get police files on missing children that could relate to the Dora Lange murder and the Tuttle family. But Marty isn’t convinced. So, Rust decides to show him what’s in that storage unit, which I’ve been waiting for weeks to see.
It was more than we — or Marty — could have imagined. Written above a drawing of the spaghetti-faced, green-eared monster, Rust has “Yellow King,” “Scars,” and “Carcossa” in black paint on the wall. There are tons of maps, books, and pictures tied to missing children, but I couldn’t stop looking at all the drawings of the circular symbol seen on Dora Lange and in Rust’s notebook. He even drew a giant mural of it on one of the walls. Rust hinted at being a painter. Instead, he is an obsessive ex-detective trying to solve a seemingly impossible case.
That casework leads us back to 2010 where Rust is meeting with Toby, who was a student at a school run by the Tuttles, Shepherd’s Flock. Here, we learned that men with animal masks (one with scars all over his face — oh God, the spaghetti monster) drugged the students, took photos of them, and did “other things.” If that information wasn’t bad enough for Marty to soak in, Rust brings out a black and white, bayou cult video he stole from the late Reverend Billy Lee Tuttle’s mansion.
We didn’t need to watch the whole video to realize how messed up these people are. Just seeing Marty slug down that whiskey and the terror growing in his eyes before he shuts it off is enough. The blindfolded girl wearing antlers in the video was none other than Marie Fontenot. Although Marty tried to be rational and prove Rust wrong, hinting that he could be insane (Rust explains he totally isn’t) the video was the tipping point and he’s on board with Rust to solve this case, or rather to see how much deeper the rabbit hole goes.
But we’re finally back to these two working together again, and for the first time, they seem to be acting like friends. Rust takes up shop at Marty’s new business, Hart Investigative Solutions, where he is a not so busy private detective. He decided to quit the force in 2006 after he had to investigate a case where a junkie tried to microwave his child. Luckily for us, we don’t have to see Marty’s view of the charred remains in the microwave.
Aside from working on the case, they catch up on what they’ve been up to since 2002 and it’s somewhat depressing. Marty stays busy by fishing, eating TV dinners, and scrolling through match.com. Rust spends his time drinking and (I imagine) dreaming of being the next Salvador Dali.
After a nice catch up between the two, Rust and Marty get back to what they’re good at. Marty uses his charm and spy-like lying (Marty as a true crime writer?) to get files on missing children from his old pal Bobby.
Those leads bring us to Jimmy Ledoux, Reggie’s cousin. He reveals another fun fact about the man with scars all over his face: Don’t ever, ever, ever go deer hunting with him.
Then we go to Sam Tuttles’ retired housekeeper. Sam wasn’t exactly into the whole being with one woman thing and had uncountable numbers of illegitimate children. Wouldn’t you know it? One of the children is the father of a boy who was scarred under his nose and around his mouth. Rust seems to bring out the craziness in people. Once he shows the housekeeper his drawings of skeletal tree and Cajun bird traps, she starts preaching about how death is not the end and Carcossa. Of course, Rust doesn’t believe a thing she’s saying. Death is totally the end, according to Rust.
Marty follows a lead on Steve Geraci who is now the sheriff of Iberia Parish. Marty wants to use his charm to get the information from him while golfing but that doesn’t work. So they go with Rust’s suggestion, which is torturing the answer out of him through a car battery and two jumper cables.
They get Steve to go on a boat under the guise of two buddies fishing, which turns unfriendly when Rust comes out of nowhere pointing a gun at him. The next episode is going to be electric!
Speaking of charged feelings, Marty pays a visit to Maggie at her new house. Audrey is quite the artist and sells her paintings in New Orleans while Macy is busy saving the world working for the Peace Corps. It seems everything is better for them since Marty left.
Rust wasn’t as cordial to Maggie when she pays a visit to him at the bar. “Now, get on out of here. You’re classing the place up.” And drop mic.
How about that ending? Detectives Gilbough and Papania getting lost in the swampland and driving into the groundskeeper from episode three who is mowing a lawn full of white caskets gave me goosebumps. And just as they abruptly drive away, he says his family has deep roots in this area. My first thought was, “Is this the Yellow King?” But I’m not entirely sold that he is. I do think he was one of the masked men in the video. And he’s probably the spaghetti monster although I thought his face would be more scarred.
Anyways, the season finale is next week and I’m going to be thinking of who the hell the Yellow King could be. Also, I may need to go on a Jameson bender to accept the fact that this season is already coming to an end.
