'True Detective' recap: 'Down Will Come'

Spoiler alert! The following contains spoilers for Sunday night's episode of True Detective.

True Detective has been struggling with living up to its stellar first season for the past three episodes, but it was never more clear than in episode 4, "Down Will Come." The show has eschewed its intriguing visual forays into David Lynchian territory (last week's performing Elvis and the pulsating roadways of California were standouts) for a standard cop drama style, culminating in a shootout so similar but so unlike

. It feels like an obvious red herring for the investigation of Benjamin Caspere's murder -- but the question is whether the characters are being duped more by this narrative detour, or the viewers.

Back to the streets

Frank continues to try to call up favors and get back in the game, but his renewed vigor for business is causing friction with his wife, Jordan. While Jordan tries to soothe his ego by telling him it may be her who's the reason they're having trouble conceiving (there's even some not-too-subtle symbolism of dead trees over barren soil at the beginning of the episode), Frank's apparently too much of a hardened criminal to let up his mission to recover his lost money. Frank is slowly but surely sweet-talking his way back into the underbelly of the criminal element, but one failed negotiation ends with him and Jordan fighting over just how many teeth he has to pull.

'Sometimes your worst self is your best self'

Meanwhile, Paul is struggling with his closeted sexuality, as he wakes up in his soldier friend Miguel's apartment. Miguel urges him to "Be what you want, it ain't bad," but Paul, being the repressed machismo that he is, books it out of there. When he finds out that his motorcycle, the symbol of his masculinity, has been towed, he gets bombarded by the press asking him about his mysterious miltiary op, "Black Mountain." He gets picked up by Ray, who is similarly struggling with his own personal angst this episode, and the two bond over their shared personal struggles and substance addiction.

While Paul tries to avoid his bubbling homosexuality by staying to make a family with his newly pregnant girlfriend, Ray kind of decides to become a better man to his son. He gives Chad his dad's police badge and swears to make it up to him, but the looming offer of becoming Frank's righthand man in the criminal club business is ever present.

With friends like these...

While the men angst over their own inner demons, Ani is trying to do her job. After an interrogation with the mayor's daughter -- who is tight-lipped about the dead Caspere but talkative about the tragic death of her schizophrenic mother from suicide -- Ani finds herself being drawn back to the past she was trying to shut out.

It turns out Pitler, the doctor who treated the mayor's first wife, and Mayor Chessani were somehow connected to Ani's father and his commune. Despite this blast from the past allowing her a touching moment with her sister Athena over their dead mom (where we get another pseudo-intellectual catchphrase that True Detective is so reliant on: "Those moments, they stare back at you. You don't remember them, they remember you"), the trail of Chessani and Caspere's land deals that Ani and Ray were following goes somewhat cold.

Ani is starting to warm to Ray, but she quickly gets punished for finally opening up her emotions to her police chief. She gets put on developmental leave and kicked out of the building for "sexual harassment of her subordinate" Deputy Mercer -- which is quite obviously a set-up from the vindictive mayor. It's unfortunate that True Detective is trying to make up for their lack of female representation by dumping Rachel McAdams with all the feminist rage scenes, but hey, I'll take it.

A Mexican standoff

Without the trail on Chessani and the land development deals, the True Detectives follow Paul's pawn shop lead of pimp Ledo Amarilla, whose prostitute was found trying to pawn off Caspere's watch.

The True Detectives get tipped off to Amarilla's whereabouts at a warehouse where the group stage a raid. It quickly turns into shootout, complete with machine guns and low-income protesters caught in the crossfire. The scene is fairly intense, but standard, with basically everyone except for the main three meeting a gory death. The bloodbath ends in a Mexican standoff, with an Amarilla angrily yelling in Spanish, Ray, Paul and an unfortunate bus hostage. Despite the tense standoff, Amarilla shoots the hostage in the head and subsequently gets killed by Ray and Paul. The three stand in shock, surrounded by the bodies of colleagues and protesters, and the case is supposedly closed.

But it's such an obvious set-up for the characters and the audience, and True Detective is just putting off the chase for the real villain in the mask. This season's Yellow King better be worth it.

Missed last week’s recap? You can read it here.