Rustin "Rust" Cohle ( Matthew McConaughey ) is deeply gifted, but deeply pessimistic. Accused of being a serial killer when we meet him during Season 1 of "True Detective," he recalls the last words of drug manufacturer Reggie Ledoux (Charles Halford), and philosophy enters the room in the form of Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of eternal recurrence. "Someone once told me time is a flat circle. Everything we've ever done, or will do, we're gonna do over and over and over again. And that little boy and that little girl, they're gonna be in that room again. And again. And again. Forever."

Rust is, of course, misquoting the criminal slightly. Ledoux says, "I know what happens next... you'll do this again. Time is a flat circle." Cohle's response is facetious, "What is that, Nietzsche?! Shut t

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