World Literature

Rachel McAdams in ‘True Detective.’ HBO

“True Detective” has been building to this point all season: An undercover look at the sleazy parties crawling with rich and powerful creeps that characters have been hinting at all this time. It was like we were plunged into show creator Nic Pizzolatto’s vision of Hell, and it played a lot like a drugged-out blend of the climax of “The Shining” and the creepy masque at the heart of “Eyes Wide Shut.” A perfectly creepy, “True Detective”-style celebration of the late Stanley Kubrick’s 87th birthday.

But first, let’s deal with old business. When last we left the “True Detective” crew, Ray and Frank were on the verge of a very uncomfortable conversation. The cop-turned-full-time-muscle-man was going to confront his crime lord boss about facts that came to light recently, facts that made Ray really angry about the fact that he had been living a lie for the past 10 or so years, and whatever guilt had been festering within him had popped like a blister on his soul. You could detect, as Frank would say, a “certain stridency” as Ray was slamming on his door, interrupting a lovely morning reconciliation between Frank and his wife, Jordan.

The big revelation, of course, was that Frank sent Ray to kill the wrong guy all those years ago. The crooked big shot told Ray, then a uniformed officer, that he had a lead on the man who had raped Ray’s wife, Gena. Ray, of course, went on to kill him, and living with it, along with the doubt surrounding the paternity of the boy he calls his son, has made him a drunken, corrupt wreck for years. Now, the actual rapist has been caught, and if you think Ray was an emotional mess before, well …

Anyway, Frank and Ray don’t end up shooting each other, even though they have their guns pointed at each other under Frank’s kitchen table as if they were both Han Solo in the Mos Eisley cantina. Instead, Frank tells Ray that he didn’t set him up, and that he’ll help look for the person who gave his guy the bad intelligence on Gena’s supposed rapist. They end up sharing information about Irina, the prostitute who pawned Caspere’s valuables and pointed the way to the falsely accused but now dead Lido, and Frank tells Ray he needs help looking for the hard drive that was stolen from Caspere’s secret sex house. Ray, meanwhile, tells Frank all about Blake throwing prostitute parties with Chessani’s kid. Hey, they’re still buddies after all.

Colin Farrell in ‘True Detective.’ HBO