The exact airdate has yet to be announced but the fourth season of True Detective is coming this year, with Jodie Foster in the lead role as, um, Liz Danvers.
Oh, yeah. You know where this is headed. You knew before you even clicked that link.
Personally, I wish they'd called all these sequels something else besides True Detective. Maybe something with a colon, like True Detective: The Inevitably Disappointing Second Season.
It's the same way with Stranger Things. The first season is so perfect, so epic, so magic that retaining the brand name just reminds you of how vastly inferior all the other seasons are. Definitely brings colons to mind.
And if Alexandra Daddario isn't returning, should you even bother? I mean, is it even True Detective without her?
Not in my ledger, Charlie. Not in my ledger.
Anyhow, the new trailer seems very 2017, very #MeToo, very DEI. It also reminds me a devil of a lot of this, for extremely obvious reasons.
Mind you, I'm not champing at the bit to see Season Four, but damn if it doesn't tie into the never-ending apocalyptic narrative.
Which reminds me...
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Anyhow, I got to thinking about True Detective when yet another mind-shredding Sibyl sync came to my attention this afternoon. I saw it as so significant that I updated the Laugh While You Still Can megathread.
Check this out:
March 28, 1981: The Cocteau Twins play their very first gig, opening up for Peter Capaldi (Doctor Who) and Craig Ferguson's (Drew Carey Show, Late Night) rather awful punk band, The Dreamboys.
The band used to call Elizabeth Fraser "the Christmas Tree" because of her elaborate outfits.
March 28, 1981: John Hinckley Jr. arrives in Washington, DC in order to fulfill his plans to assassinate Ronald Reagan in order to win the love of Jodie Foster. He was inspired by the film Taxi Driver.
June 21, 1982: Cocteau Twins record their first BBC session on the day Princess Diana gives birth to Prince William.June 21, 1982: John Hinckley Jr declared not guilty because of insanity and sent to St. Elizabeth's Hospital, where he will send the next forty years as an inmate.May 29, 1997: Elizabeth records "Teardrop" with Massive Attack in England.May 29, 1997: Jeff Buckley, Elizabeth's former lover and whom "Teardrop" is about, drowns in Memphis.
May 29, 1997: John Hinckley Jr. turns 42 while housed at St. Elizabeth's Hospital.
$#*%$(*E()*(W(*Y#$ ...DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN?
If so, let's get into a few of those impossible syncs:
We've seen that images from Contact were used for a viral news story in 2016 about a signal from the Hercules constellation that the Russians picked up in 2015, but somehow waited until the story could go worldwide on Elizabeth Fraser's 53rd birthday.
We've also learned that the time period Contact was in development matched the lifespan of the Cocteau Twins, 1979-1997.
I've never heard anything confirming this, but given the time period, I'd guess Carl Sagan got the initial inspiration for Contact from the "Wow Signal," picked up by Ohio State's Big Ear Observatory the day before Elvis Presley died in Memphis.
And there was actually a not-unrelated low-budget film released in 1977 called End of the World, and it starred Christopher Lee, who needs no introduction or explanation.
Read this synopsis of the film:
Professor Andrew Boran (Kirk Scott) is a research scientist who discovers strange radio signals in outer space that appear to originate from Earth.
The signals seem to predict natural disasters that are occurring around the globe.
When he and his wife Sylvia (Sue Lyon) decide to investigate the source of the signals, they end up being held captive in a convent that has been infiltrated by aliens. These invaders plan to destroy the world with the natural disasters.
Huh.
End of the World wasn't just released in 1977, it was released the same month as the "Wow Signal."
The "Wow Signal" was received in the suburbs of Columbus, the city where by sheer fucking happenstance the Cocteau Twins played when they made their first-ever appearance on American TV.
On the same day as the 1985 Mexico City earthquake -- a major natural disaster -- because that's the way this whole thing works.
This thing is absolutely relentless. It doesn't care if anyone thinks it's ridiculous.
End of the World co-starred Sue Lyon.
Lyon also played "Betsy" -- meaning Elizabeth -- on an episode of Night Gallery.
Lyon also played "Betsy" -- meaning Elizabeth -- on an episode of Night Gallery.
Note young Betsy's "unintelligible speech" and radio (read: 'signal').
Lyon's costar on Night Gallery was Joseph Campanella, who also co-starred in Hangar 18, a film I trust you've all watched. If not, you really should. That film also stars our old pal Darren McGavin.
However, Sue Lyon is best known for her role as the titular Lolita in Stanley Kubrick's adaption of Nabokov's pedo-ick milestone.
Lyon was 14 at the time. The character is supposed to be 12.
Jodie is, of course, no stranger to pedo-ick exploitation. She starred in a short-lived TV version of the pedo-ick box office hit, Paper Moon, about a child who runs around with some random adult grifter during the Great Depression.
And of course, Foster also starred as a child prostitute with Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver. She was 12 years old at the time.
Paper Moon may well have served as a partial inspiration for the modern phenomenon of pedo-ick propaganda, like Luc Besson's The Professional, with a 12 year-old Shimmerlie PortFrase.
Who is a whole other discussion. Maybe one some of you may not be ready for quite yet.
But here's a clue, speaking of signals from space.
Here's a deeper dive if you've got your scuba gear on.
I mean, you seriously don't believe yet? You're just fucking with me, right?
Come on, now. You can't kid a kidder.
And inevitably, The X-Files enters the equation.
They did their own spin on Contact-- three years prior to the feature film's release-- for the second season opener "Little Green Men."
And unlike the Contact movie, they go straight for the "Wow Signal" jugular.
TROISKY: Looks like the "Wow" signal.
SCULLY: The "Wow" signal?
TROISKY: Ohio State has a radio telescope that conducts electronic searches for extraterrestrial intelligence. In August 1977, my buddy, Jerry Ehman, found a transmission on the print-out like this. He was so excited, he wrote "wow" in the margins.
SCULLY: What was there?
TROISKY: A signal thirty times stronger than galactic background noise. It came through on the twenty-one centimeter frequency which no satellite transmitters are allowed to use.
When Mama was Moth
There's a plethora of Foster-Fraser connections embedded here.
• Scully was modeled after Clarice Starling, according to Chris Carter himself.• Jodie Foster appeared as "Betty" (Elizabeth) in an episode of The X-Files.• Gillizabeth Anderfrase was in the running to replace Foster as Clarice Starling for the Hannibal movie.• The role went to Julianne Moore, who also starred in the dick-kickingly blatant X-Files ripoff, The Forgotten.• Moore also starred with David Duchovny in the Men in Black ripoff, Evolution.
"TWIN TALK"
Moonlighting's Cybill Shepherd (that name!) also costarred in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, along with a 13 year-old Jodie Foster. Aside from the Korben Dallas synchery, this opens up cans of worms best saved for another time.
But Jodie herself warrants a closer look....
...esepcially considering her starring role in this picture, the tendrils of which could fill a blog all its own.
But for the moment, just take note of actress Brooke Smith there...
... friend and onetime roomie of none other than our doomed Jeffrey O'Shepherd Boy.
WERE YOU SERIOUSLY EXPECTING SOMEONE ELSE?
There's also the nagging suspicion I sometimes feel that all of this is somehow being orchestrated by an unimaginably-advanced alien civilization trying to communicate with us through some arcane technological means.
You know, like VALIS.
Or that free radio from Albemuth.
Note the trailer depicts our current reality to a T. Also note that the actor who plays Philip K Dick also played the Reverend Joel Theriot in True Detective.
Back to Jodie...
Fascinating sequence of roles there. Aside from the voice cameos, the roles for Nell and Contact were the big ones for our Jodie.
And Nell - based on the play Idioglossia - is where it all comes back to the beginning of our discussion.
Have a look at this clip and see if it reminds you of anyone, even vaguely. Then read this:
Nell is a girl who's been brought up in an isolated world. The only people she knew were her mother and twin sister, Mae. They lived together in a cottage in the forest. Nobody has ever met Nell.
After her mother's death, she's discovered by Jerome, the local doctor. He's fascinated by her, since she speaks a mangled language, developed by her and Mae growing up, "twin speak" if you will.
The title of the play reveals the syndrome at work:
An idioglossia (from the Ancient Greek ἴδιος ídios, 'own, personal, distinct' and γλῶσσα glôssa, 'tongue') is an idiosyncratic language invented and spoken by only one person.
Most often, idioglossia refers to the "private languages" of young children, especially twins, the latter being more specifically known as cryptophasia, and commonly referred to as "twin talk" or "twin speech. "
"Twin Talk."
Take me now, Jesus. I'm toast.
OK, so Ms. Foster portrays this incomprehensible woman, does voice acting on Frasier and The X-Files - then plays an astrophysicist who decodes an alien language emanating from frickin' VEGA, of all possible places.
Oh, speaking of signals from space, hear about this one?
Scientists wouldn't be baffled if they knew the Key to All Mysteries...
...would they?
DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT DROVE ME INSANE YET?
DO YOU???
All I can say for now is this: someone somewhere is going to a heck of a lot of trouble to tell us something. If nothing else, it's just plain, old-fashioned good manners to listen and try to figure out what that is.
FRASER FLASHBACK
Let's wind the clock back four years and see how insane we can get with this thing. From my post on Under the Silver Lake and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood:
And seeing how this is America circa 2019, some asshole pulled the fire alarm and sent everyone out into the parking lot, wondering if some dumb fuck with an AR15 had opened fire during Toy Story 4 or something.
But you need to ask me exactly when some nimrod pulled the alarm, because the timing was rather... don't make me say it.The alarms starting going off while Leonardo DeCaprio's character met this young acting prodigy, named Trudi. I'm guessing she's supposed to be a stand-in for Jodie Foster, given the timeline.It's a sweet scene, in which the young Trudi comforts the older actor as the grim reality of his has-been status sinks in. A couple commenters mentioned this previously, so I won't keep you in suspense at the surname of this young screen hellion who set off alarums and warning lights in meatspace.Because I'm sure even if you haven't seen the picture or read the comments, you've already guessed.......it's Fraser.
Trudi's onscreen character is Maribel, the diminutive for Mary Elizabeth.So, yeah. "Elizabeth Fraser," basically.The alarms started going off in the theater when we meet Elizabeth Fraser.And DeCaprio's onscreen character is DeCoteau.
So "Elizabeth Fraser" and "Cocteau."I did mention the alarms going off, right? IRL?OK.
And Brad Pitt plays DeCoteau's double. Or if you prefer, his Twin.
And apparently "Trudy Fraser" is based on Jodie Foster, who...you know.
I told you.
Didn't I tell you? DIDN'T I?
Don't go saying I didn't tell you now, because I did.