Frank Semyon, the criminal businessman from season 2 of True Detective, has a fantastic character arc.
And, like season 1 of True Detective, season 2 is also connected to a weird fiction story by Ambrose Bierce.
For season 1 it was An Inhabitant Of Carcosa (read my post on it HERE).
In season 2 it was An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge (we’ve done a podcast about this one).
So, do you remember the story that Frank (played by Vince Vaughn) tells his wife, Jordan, at the beginning of season 2’s second episode?
Here’s the scene:
Frank and Jordan are lying next to each other in bed.
FRANK: How’d a water stain get there?
Camera cuts up to two brown stains on the ceiling above Frank.
FRANK: It rained maybe twice this last year. It’s like everything’s papier-mache.
JORDAN: Stop thinking.
FRANK: I don’t like being on a ledge.
—
FRANK: My old man back in Chicago, when I was a kid… (laughs) he used to lock me in the basement when he’d go on a bender. Usually last the night. Let me out the next day. Thought he was keeping me safe, I guess. This one time, I was six – he puts me down there. I wake up and it’s locked. It had happened before. Anyways, so I guess he ended up arrested, I guess.
JORDAN: God, baby.
FRANK: Well, by the second morning I was out of food. The third day the light bulb burnt out. Pitch black in there. That’s when the rats started coming out. I dozed off and I felt a thing nibbling my finger. I woke up, it was, you know, chewing my finger.
JORDAN: What did you do?
FRANK: I grabbed it in the dark with my hands, I started smashing. And I just kept smashing it until it was nothing but goo in my hands. Two more days I was in there. In the dark. ‘Til my dad comes home.
JORDAN: Sometimes I wonder how many things you have like that. That I don’t know about.
FRANK: Ever since, I wondered: what if he never comes home? What if I’m still in that basement in the dark? What if I died there? That’s what that reminds me of.
JORDAN: What?
FRANK: The water stain. Something’s trying to tell me that it’s all papier-mache. Something’s telling me to wake up, like… like I’m not real. Like I’m only dreaming.
Then in the final episode of season 2, episode 8, in his last scene, Frank hears Jordan’s voice, then sees her standing there, in that white dress – the one he had her promise she would wear – and him, standing before her, wearing a white shirt soaked in blood (like the “red rose” he had promised her that he would wear).
And the lines:
[FRANK IS BLEEDING, LIMPING THROUGH THE DESERT]
JORDAN: Hey there handsome.
FRANK: You made it! You okay?
JORDAN: Did. Fine. I’m safe.
FRANK: I’m coming, hold up.
JORDAN: Whats a guy like you doing in a place like this?
FRANK: [WALKING EASIER NOW] Just making my way baby. I told ya, Id make it.
FRANK: You did. You made it. You can rest now.
FRANK: No rest. Never stop moving.
JORDAN: Babe, oh babe – you stopped moving way back there.
Earlier in episode eight, do you remember where Frank said he’d meet Jordan?
Yeah. And though we never see them meet there Frank was very specific, saying they’d meet in a park called “Obelisco” in “Barquisimeto” (Venezuela).
Here’s what “Obelisco” in Barquisimeto looks like:
Frank’s story is the story of An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge!
Posted by Jesse Willis