Watching the Detectives Trivia Quiz

Answer: It is planned as an anthology

The inaugural season of "True Detective" ran on the Home Box Office cable network (HBO) in the US from January to March, 2014. Envisioned as an anthology, the groundbreaking series will feature a different plot and set of locales, investigators, and crimes in each successive season.

The first season of "True Detective" was an overwhelming critical success, following in the footsteps of HBO drama giants "The Sopranos", "The Wire", "Deadwood", and "Treme". As to its popularity, "True Detective" was such a ratings juggernaut that its final episode actually crashed HBO's streaming content website - HBO GO - during its broadcast.

Answer: Louisiana

The southern coastal area of Loiusiana, with its swamps, waterways, thickets, and fields - and the eclectic lifestyle of its people - is the perfectly-evocative setting for season 1 of "True Detective". During the timespan of season 1, the region undergoes the massive shock of the hurricanes of 2005, further altering its physical and sociological environment. Series creator/writer Nic Pizzolatto uses this backdrop to enhance the intense, mysterious, and tumultuous nature of the drama.

Answer: Matthew McConaughey

Rust Cohle transfers into Louisiana CID after a fraught history doing undercover work in Texas with a drug-dealing biker gang, which contributed to his multi-substance abuse. Unpopular with his fellow detectives, who mock his intensity, detail-orientation, and constant use of a legal tablet for note-taking, Cohle has trouble attracting and keeping a partner until Marty Hart.

The period of 2013-2014 marked a career high point in films for Matthew McConaughey. From his role as a stoner in "Dazed and Confused" (1993) through a series of often-forgettable romantic comedies, he began a career remake with 2011 with "The Lincoln Lawyer". which ultimately led to his Academy Award-winning performance in 2013's "Dallas Buyers Club". His role in "True Detective" marked his most significant foray into television.

Answer: Woody Harrelson

Marty Hart combines the "Good Ol' Boy" stereotype with the more modern notion of a police detective. He's well-liked by his fellow officers and supervisors; knows how to talk to victims, witnesses and members of the public; and dishes out as good as he gets from the bad guys. In addition, he maintains a model family life (at least on the surface). These characteristics are in direct contrast with those of Cohle, his partner; but the differences are antagonistic as often as they are complementary.

Woody Harrelson first made his mark in US television as a dim-but-lovable bartender in the iconic series "Cheers", for which he won a prime-time Emmy award in 1987. His transition to film was no less successful: he has starred in such films as "White Men Can't Jump", "Indecent Proposal", "Kingpin", "Wag the Dog" and the "Hunger Games" series, and he was nominated for Academy Awards for his performances as the title characters in "The People vs. Larry Flynt" and "The Messenger". "True Detective" is his second HBO production; he received an Emmy nomination for his performance in the acclaimed "Game Change", a film based on the McCain/Palin presidential campaign of 2008.

Answer: 2006

In 1995 we meet Cohle and Hart, and they encounter and ostensibly solve the series' central murder case. In the process they learn of the unsolved disappearance of a young girl, which has some characteristics in common with their case. In 2002 their professional and personal relationships shatter. 2012 brings another murder, similar enough to the 1995 case that it calls into question whether the real killer was actually caught back then. We learn that Cohle has never really let go of the 1995 case; he convinces Hart to join him and together they take on unfinished business which ties together the old cases, the new case, and the plain-sight clues that lead them to the one person who connects them all.

Answer: the tragic death of his young daughter

Early in the investigation of the 1995 case, Cohle and Hart learn about two other missing and menaced young girls. This stirs up memories in Cohle of the death of his young daughter in a traffic accident several years before. He believes this terrible tragedy led to the eventual breakup of his marriage and caused him to seek solace in alcohol and drugs. Hart innocently invites Cohle to dinner with his family - he has a wife and two young daughters - on a night that turns out to be the anniversary of Cohle's own daughter's death. Cohle shows up for dinner drunk.

After the officers' climactic confrontation with the killer in 2012, Cohle dreams of his daughter, and this at last seems to console him.

Answer: his womanizing

We learn early in the series that despite his idyllic-seeming family life, Hart is seeing a young woman whose occupation as a court reporter keeps her in contact with the police. It seems very likely that this affair is not Hart's first, and he arrogantly assumes that he can compartmentalize his activities so that his two lives do not intersect.

However, his girlfriend reveals the relationship to his wife, who takes their daughters and leaves. As time goes on the Harts reconnect, although their older daughter develops rebellious behavior, but Marty continues his cheating ways. Eventually his marriage breaks up for good, although his now-ex-wife continues to care about him.

Answer: a crown of deer antlers

In addition to the antlers, the victim, Dora Lange, has a spiral design painted on her back; and the crime scene is bedecked with many triangular "Devil's traps," three-dimensional twig sculptures which sit on the ground or hang from the tree. The detectives encounter each of these symbols again and again in various forms, locations, and combinations as they investigate the murder and earlier and subsequent related cases.

Answer: The Yellow King

Cohle and Hart first encounter the term "Yellow King" in a diary kept by the 1995 victim Dora Lange. It refers to a man she encountered somewhere either as a former date or through her membership in a church whose building was destroyed by fire. Just as with the antlers and other symbols found at the 1995 scene, the term "Yellow King" comes up again and again as the detectives work their way through the case. Series writer Pizzolatto has stated that he drew inspiration from the works of several horror fiction writers, and specifically cited Robert W. Chambers' 1895 volume "The King in Yellow", both for its general influence and as a source of direct quotations used in "True Detective".

Answer: a riding lawn mower

In 1995 Cohle and Hart find and are forced to kill men they believe to have been responsible for the death of Dora Lange. This resolution makes heroes of both of them, but it nevertheless troubles Cohle, who continues to investigate by tracking unsolved and related cases, where similar symbols were found and/or which contained references to the "Yellow King". Cohle becomes convinced that although the culprits he and Hart killed in 1995 had indeed committed very heinous crimes, they were not Lang's killers and that the answer rests with one or more other people who are into a kind of cult activity and the antler/Devil's nests/spiral iconography.

He persuades Hart to join him, and together they comb through old files and Cohle's research to find the actual serial killer, a handyman-house painter-gardener, who had been actively killing for nearly thirty years.

The culprit is seen at several earlier points in the investigation as he gives helpful information and directions to investigators, including Cohle himself, each time while seated on his trusty riding lawn mower.