True Detective = Call of Cthulhu

If you have not seen this show on HBO, I would highly recommend it if you like: Cop shows, Cthulhu, mysteries, hillbillies, cultists...

While it would not be appropriate for children, at all...if you like generational cults, a good story and a pair of very hard-bitten, low sanity, investigators...this is something that you might enjoy.

I am watching the final episode now, and tomorrow, I think I will write up the two Investigators for use.

-STS

I loved it.

I'd point out that the show has nothing to do with Cthulhu despite the references to Chamber's work and the show's writer had little knowledge of the penetration of the King in Yellow trope in the geek community being very surprised that so many people knew about Chamber's book and the content therein.

I don't think it is available in the UK, which is good as it would be another one to record and find the time to watch.

@Simon, it was available through Sky in the UK., I watched it over at a friend's who has the service. Well worth picking up when they offer the boxed set.

Warning: Some of the themes can be triggering and the content is more mature than one usually sees on US made shows (basically less violence and more sexual)

This sounds very interesting. While the Necronomicon was used in more stories, I always felt the King in Yellow was a more skillful execution of the invented text technique.

I'm on Virgin, so if it isn't on Sky 1/2/Living then I wouldn't have seen it. I'll have to search for it, then.

I too appreciated the show very much and without reserve. Visually, for some reason it reminded me of Dave McKean's work for DC/Vertigo in the '90s (maybe because of the colors and all those little sprigs). In fact, the whole show might have been a graphic novel from Vertigo!

Just finished watching it back to back in two evenings and wow. It's so good on so many levels, very well acted, very wel written, very well realised. It has a slow Louisiana pace and yet it builds and builds. It is very much a perfect CoC story, it may not be dripping with the later tentacles and aliens, but it sits neatly in the early human based cultist tales.

I like, and this is not original, how the King In Yellow, just as in Chambers, never quite gets to centre stage in Carcosa.

Watch it or buy it, it's a very good one.

I'd be very pleased to see the two cops written up for CoC!

SPOILERS ALERT!!!

I really liked the show as well... well, up to the last episode. I felt like it kind of invalidated the entire atmosphere of the episodes leading up to it.

Not that I needed a Big Downer ending... but that final bit of dialogue... ugh!

UNLESS! (here I let my imagination run between lines and probably against the intent of the writers...) The power that the primary villain was expecting for himself instead came to the wounded detective... who used it to alter his corner of reality, and himself... a kind of subconscious wish that there really could be a 'light' and that it could be winning.

I'm surprised that the writers claim no knowledge of the geek awareness of Chamber's stories since one of the main characters is pretty much spouting the nihilistic philosophy of Thomas Ligotti... and a his online presence is narrow enough that it would almost surely lead into a vein of the Lovecraft/CoC fan community.

OK, well, this is my shot at making Cole and Hart NPCs...

Rust Cohle "Self-Identified Sentient Meat"

STR-11

DEX-13

CON-15    HP-15

INT-15

EDU-16

WIS-11

CHA-7

APP-11 at the beginning, 8 at the end

POW-13

Sanity-45 at the beginning, 20 at the end

Underworld contacts

Single minded focus

Loose cannon

Pistols 50%

Rifle 60%

Punch 50%

Kick 40%

Head Butt 50%

Grapple 60%

Dodge 55%

Drive 50%

Computer Use 60%

Investigate 80%

Research 85%

Interrogate 85%

Bluff 70%

Acting 80%

Occult 30%

Lying 40%

Breaking and Entering 50%

Tracking 40%

Hunting 40%

Marty Hart "Lying Sack of S--t"

STR-13

DEX-11

CON-11     HP-13

INT-13

EDU-16

WIS-9

CHA-12

APP-11 at the beginning, 10 at the end

POW-10

Sanity-60 at the beginning, 40 at the end

Dogmatic, take 1 less Sanity Loss

Weakness for children

Led a double life

Likes "crazy p---y"

Pistols 55%

Rifle 30%

Punch 40%

Kick 40%

Head Butt 55%

Grapple 50%

Dodge 55%

Drive 70%

Computer Use 70%

Investigate 80%

Research 85%

Interrogate 60%

Bluff 50%

Acting 80%

Occult 10%

Lying 60%

-STS

I think True Detective  might be the first show that has really "got" how to handle the Mythos.  I have always maintained that HPL movies will never be any good until they are treated as seriously as a BBC production of Henry James'  "A Portrait of a Lady".  HPL and James were men of similar class background and sensibilities.  I loved True Detective and watched it avidly over 2 nights in back to back episodes, then re-watched it to look for all the clues I had missed.

I really need to watch TD soon. I bought the DVD a year and a half ago, watched one episode, and then it got "lost" in a jumble of other series I was trying to catch up on. 

How have the other seasons been? Have they also had a CoC feel to them?

Don't bother with Series Two TBH the Lovecraftian/KIY/Chambers vibe in series one isn't carried forward into the second series at all.