It was a shining beacon of hope amid an endless array of overhead highway shoots, gloomy visages, Vince Vaughn uttering words like “apoplectic,” and that godforsaken guitar player who, by this point, has every masochistic viewer wishing they could pull a John Belushi-in-Animal House and smash that thing to smithereens. I’m talking, of course, about ze orgy.
Back in March, well before True Detective’s second season premiered, rumors began swirling that the show would gift us with a “colossal…Eyes Wide Shut-caliber orgy” incorporating a handful of porn stars and a surfeit of naked, writhing bodies.
The tension’s been building all season, ever since that prostitution sting gone awry during the premiere. We knew that the dickless, dead-as-a-doornail Casper was involved in some freaky, Linda Fiorentino-in-Jade-level shit. We knew that Frank Semyon’s (Vaughn) No. 2, Blake, was running prostitutes on the side with Mayor Chessani’s son, with enhanced chests courtesy of the creepy Dr. Pitlor (Rick Springfield). And we knew that our intrepid heroine, Antigone Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams), she of the mysterious past and BDSM bedroom proclivities, would be forced to confront her sexual hang-ups head-on.
Well, the orgy finally happened. And it was pretty weird. But first, we took in the hottest, most erotically charged relationship on the show: Ray Velcoro and Frank Semyon.
“You want milk? Sugar?” Those are the first words in True Detective’s sixth episode, titled “Church in Ruins.” It’s a question posed by Frank to his Raymond, though the way it rolls off his tongue, it sounds a bit closer to, “You want milk, Sugar?”
For six weeks, we’ve seen these two lovebirds making eyes at each other at the most depressing bar in Los Angeles. They’ve taken their act to Frank’s kitchen, where they stare at each other once more—only this time brandishing guns under the table. The sexual subtext here isn’t subtle—make no mistake about it, those guns are dicks—and Velcoro possesses all the wrath of a scorned lover, wronged by Frank’s bit of misinformation that led to him killing a relatively innocent crankhead instead of his wife’s rapist and allowing Frank to lord it over him for years.
“I don’t want a shootout in my fuckin’ kitchen, Raymond,” Frank says. “And I don’t wanna see you die—by me, or one of my other guys. I didn’t set you up. And I ain’t your suicide ticket.”
Every time Vince Vaughn drops an “ain’t” on True Detective it lands with a resounding thud, but that aside, this kitchen exchange—like all of their exchanges, really—only exists so that these two characters can relay information to each other that the audience already knows, and also to make us wish that they’d run off to Santa Monica together, adopt a kid (or two!), and live happily ever after. But alas, they’re both after Irina Rulfo, the woman who pawned Casper’s watch and ignited the gunfight. And Velcoro is still on the hunt for Casper’s hard drive, which is coveted by Frank’s partner in crime McCandless, the president of the Santa Clara Railroad Company and the face of Catalyst, who can let Frankie back in on the California Central Rail Corridor deal.
There’s also another seemingly extraneous thread involving Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch) hunting down a set of valuable missing blue diamonds. Apparently, they’ve been missing since April 30, 1992, when a mom and pop store was fleeced during the L.A. riots, leaving the two proprietors murdered. It sounds like a professional job—i.e., done by cops—and last episode, Woodrugh discovered that the slain cop Dixon, who was also surreptitiously snapping photos of Woodrugh, had been looking into the missing diamonds. This is presumably linked to Rulfo, whom Frank eventually tracks down with the help of some Mexican cowboys and who spills that a cop (Dixon?) paid her $500 to pawn the Casper watch and provoke the gun battle—right before she gets her throat slit.
We also saw Vince Vaughn and Colin Farrell comfort children, which isn’t their strong suit as actors, to say the least—though it did bring us arguably the funniest moment of True Detective’s second season when, after Farrell’s character confesses his love to his ginger rape baby, the kid says yeah, shrugs, turns his head back to the TV, and takes a bite of pizza.On the plus side, we got to see Farrell throw it back to the aughts and rip through an ungodly amount of blow before doing pull-ups, air-punching, destroying his apartment, and high-dialing his wife (he won’t fight custody if she promises not to tell ginger his tragic origin story). Oh, and Bezzerides stabs the ever-living shit out of a wooden dummy in her living room. Pretty cool.
Ani gains access to the big Blake/Chessani sex party through her cam girl sister from the aforementioned pros raid and, sporting a wig and skimpy black dress, joins a bevy of Pitlor-enhanced Eastern European hookers in being whisked off to a remote mansion. There, the ladies are sprayed with “pure Molly” and presented before a crowd of creepy, bloated, tuxedoed older men of influence.
As far as ze orgy goes, we witness it all through the eyes of Bezzerides, whose dose of ecstasy causes her to experience blurred vision and repeated hallucinations of a Manson-esque hippie creep luring her child self to a van—abuse she suffered during her time growing up in a cult.
It’s mostly standard sex club fare—lots of shots of naked, drugged-out women being taken in various positions by (or giving blowjobs to) gross older white men. There was, apparently, much weirder shit going on in Casper’s apartment with all the animal carcasses. Why did he even need to attend these things? And the music, all quizzical Hitchcock-lite orchestral strings, is awful, failing to, like Kubrick’s spare piano keys, invoke that unique blend of sexy-creepy-surreality. To say that it kills the mood is a vast understatement.
Ani finds that missing sister, Vera, at the orgy, and we finally get to see her put her knife skills to the test, slicing and dicing a handsy security guard (cue a million who brings a knife to an orgy fight? jokes). While all this is going down, the Russians who screwed Frank over in the Rail Corridor deal are busy signing contracts with McCandless—ones that Woodrugh lifts before our three cops drive off into the night.
Last episode, Frank said to Velcoro, “The enemy won’t reveal itself, Raymond. It stymies my retribution. It’s like blue balls…in your heart.” Well, anyone expecting serious fireworks out of that much-ballyhooed orgy is probably experiencing blue balls…in their balls.