World Literature

The diamonds

Not a character, exactly, but they’re confusing as hell. They were first mentioned in Episode Three, when Bezzerides and Woodrugh opened the late Ben Caspere’s safe deposit box. We think the diamonds were in the box when they opened it, and then they were stolen from evidence later on, maybe after the shootout from episode four. We doubt even the writers of True Detective could explain the diamonds’ timeline, but the diamonds are currently missing, and no one has any idea who has them. The diamonds were first stolen from a jewelry store during the LA riots in 1992 in a heist that left the owners dead and their two children, Leonard and Laura, orphans. The heist was probably carried out by Chief (no first name) Holloway, Lt. Kevin Burris, Ben Caspere, and possibly Det. Teague Dixon. Holloway, Burris, Dixon, and Caspere all worked together in the same LAPD precinct in 1992. They apparently used the diamonds to bribe Vinci mayor Austin Chessani into giving them high-paying jobs in Vinci, but then why did Caspere have the diamonds? Anyway, Vera, the missing girl, had a photo of the diamonds in her own safe deposit box, as well as photos from an orgy. Before he died, and before our True Detectives knew about the diamonds, Dixon was looking for them, possibly as leverage against Burris and Holloway, who also are assumed to have been looking for the diamonds. So the big questions about the diamonds in the finale is: who has them, and why are they so important? Not a great question to leave viewers with when you’re going into the final episode.