The above comments from Nic Pizzolatto, alluding to a real case of ritual abuse in Louisiana, have ‘True Detective’ fans on the whiff of the Hosanna Church in Ponchatoula. It’s a story that made The New York Times in 2005, and it’s a story that should come with a warning because it involves the deeply disturbing sexual abuse of children and even animals. The Hosanna Church was once a thriving congregation of 1,000 members, but by 2003 it was more of a sect, with only 10 or 15 remaining. They were led by a pastor who walked into the local sheriff’s office and confessed to rape and bestiality, sparking an investigation that uncovered, among other things, a youth hall with traces of pentagrams on the floor in a church on along US Highway 51.
It’s easy to draw a line between details like this and season 1 of “True Detective,” where – at the end of episode 2 – Rust Cohle and Marty Hart drive over the remains of a burnt-out church in their police car. As they exit, Cohle sees a flock of birds flying out of the weeds in a spiral formation, while inside the church (or what’s left of it) he finds a painting. mural on the wall of a woman with antlers. Pizolatto simply replaced this imagery with the pentagrams.
This leads to Cohle’s famous voice-over line, “I thought I was bringing out the secret truth of the universe.” Many “True Detective” fans also felt they clung to the Yellow King theories well into Season 3. Ultimately, however, Season 1 shows that the evil faced by Cohle and Hart is much more. commonplace and likely to drive a lawn mower.
Season 1 of “True Detective” is now streaming on Max.