Sunday night’s episode of True Detective finally brought Hart and Cohle face to face with the monster at the end of the dream — Reggie Ledoux. And true to the show’s way with words, Ledoux calmly babbled about some things that we’ve heard about before:
“It’s time, isn’t it? The black stars. Black stars rise. I know what happens next. I saw you in my dream. You’re in Carcosa now. With me. He sees you. You’ll do this again. Time is a flat circle.â€
But in a behind-the-scenes video released by HBO, in which show-creator and writer Nic Pizzolato talks about the show’s Yellow King, a version of the scene plays out (at about 1:50 in the video below) in which Ledoux says, “I saw you in my dream. You’re a priest too. I know what happens next. You’re in Carcosa now.â€
This is the first we’ve heard on the show about any priests in this Protestant land full of ministers and pastors. (Yes, southern Louisiana is very Catholic, but that’s not a denomination of Christianity that we’ve seen much of on True Detective.) Is he referring to the Yellow King cult, the ones who made all those stick figures we see at episode’s end at the abandoned school? Did the line get cut because it would have revealed too much information? Did the line get cut because it honestly has no bearing on the show’s events and was just something that sounded cool on the page but not on-set?