Time is a flat circle… so True Detective and Twin Peaks mashups had to happen.
HBO’s True Detective —IMO the best television drama in years— and Twin Peaks are very different yet strangely similar. A few weeks ago, I tweeted that I wouldn’t be surprised if one of TD’s lead characters, detective Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey), had spent the years he was gone missing in limbo inside the Black Lodge… high on Haloperidol. In one episode, someone tells him: “I saw you in my dream. You’re in Carcosa now with me. He sees you. You’ll do this again.” Is Carcosa “another place” like the Black Lodge and is everything always “happening again“?
UPDATE: True Detective’s amazing first season is now available on Blu-ray (Amazon).
Other parallels are that the shows start with the gruesome discovery of a murdered young girl; they both have a character called Audrey (Horne/Hart) who’s in a troubled father/daughter relationship, and then there’s a diary mentioning the potential killer (BOB/The Yellow King). Not to mention the symbolism, slow pacing and gallons of black coffee.
Alright, alright, alright. I could go on (and you can in the comments), but I’m digressing.
Inspired by the perceived connection between the two shows, motion graphics designer Blunt Objects from Chicago, IL has made new opening credits for True Detective using the Twin Peaks theme song, font style and an eerily matching slowed down frame-rate. Some tweaks to the color grading and less of Reggie Ledoux’s place would’ve made this perfect, but I’ve enjoyed this crossover anyway!
Now, who’s going to make new Twin Peaks titles using the True Detective style? UPDATE: That didn’t take long! Check the second one below.
True Detective Title Sequence Twin Peaks Remix
(Other Twin Peaks intro mashups: Peaks And Recreation and Twin Cheers)
Twin Peaks Titles (True Detective Style)
Damn Good Coffee In A Big Hug Mug
Here’s another True Detective versus Twin Peaks mashup I couldn’t resist.
If Dale Cooper were a True Detective, he’d drink his damn good coffee from a Big Hug Mug.
By the way, the mug is real. The still is not 😉
Rust Cohle Channeling Killer BOB
Purely coincidental if you ask me, but the old Rust Cohle could indeed be a relative to Killer BOB.
Just read a review that compared True Detective to Twin Peaks and pointed out MM's possible BOB impersonation. Haha pic.twitter.com/8OWEClxNqQ
— Robin Alexander (@RobinAlaina) January 18, 2014True Detective X Twin Peaks Titles
Another opening titles mashup, but the other way around (and just the still).
The Owls Are Not What They Seem
That owl looks like a Twin Peaks Easter Egg, doesn’t it? From the second episode of True Detective. Hat tip to Filipi.
Rust Cohle Inside The Black Lodge
YES! Thank you Shindoku for visualizing this!
Have You Seen The Green-Eared Spaghetti Heisenbob?
John Burnham threw Breaking Bad into the mix just because he can: The Green-Eared Spaghetti Monster, Heisenberg and Killer BOB are “one and the same“.
Rust Cohle And Dale Cooper Meet The Man From Another Place
One of a few True Detective X Twin Peaks drawings by Pachu M. Torres, here’s Rust Cohle and Dale Cooper interrogating the Man From Another Place inside the Red Room. Clever how he replaced the owl shadow on the curtains with the silhouette of Dora Lange.
Audrey & Coop Versus Rust And Marty
Another one by Pachu M. Torres.
Please share your thoughts on True Detective, its likeness to Twin Peaks and your own mashups!
Fire walk with 
Great mashup!
Also, there is an owl at the top of the church, at the end of episode 2. The scene is shot in a way that we see clearly that the owl is watching the detectives. I’m pretty sure that is a homage to Twin Peaks.
You’re right. Thanks for reminding me of that scene!
This mash-up gave me one hell of an idea to throw out there to the True Detective people: Next season of True Detective bring in Mr. Lynch to direct. He’s already shown interest in cable TV. Eight episodes would be the perfect length for him. (First Season of Twin Peaks was 8 episodes) True Detective was so smart for using the same director for each episode. It’s like a perfect 8 hour long movie. Lynch directed 5 episodes of Twin Peaks plus the feature length pilot. David has talked in the past about how when he went away from Twin Peaks, and left it in other people’s hands, he didn’t always agree on the direction they took it. When I imagine what he could do with 8 complete episodes, it make me giddy.
“…to me it had zip to do with Twin Peaks. ZZZIP! And all these rip-off things that came after didn’t catch one little whiff of what Twin Peaks was, to me. But other people see similarities.”
The last frequence of the last episode of true detective: what is it on cohle’s breast? it looks like a TP-owl. isn’t it? 🙂
The owl from episode two has nothing to do with Twin Peaks, I wish it did and even thought it was a clue to the story when I fisrt saw it but the truth is actually pretty cool. The crew used owl’s and other predator birds to keep songbirds (mockingbirds) away from the set. The bayou is filled with them and they need to keep natural noise like that away from the set. Check it out here plus more, HBO did a mini doc about the making of True Detective http://youtu.be/zoYq2bDaGt4
http://40.media.tumblr.com/9b24a9f6841209c831a4f13e84e62975/tumblr_ng4ghu5RDq1qalz3io1_500.png
This is simply amazaing!