An iconic line from True Detective Season 1 is repeated in the Season 4 finale – here’s details of who says it, and what it means in the context of Night Country.
True Detective Season 1 was celebrated for its dark storyline, strange visuals, and a pair of grandstanding performances from Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson.
It also came to be known for dialogue that had fans reaching for philosophy books, and one line stood out from all the others – “time is a flat circle.”
So here’s how those words fit into Season 1, and why they’re repeated in Season 4. Meaning SPOILERS AHEAD…
Who says “time is a flat circle” in True Detective Season 1?
The words are said by Season 1’s seeming antagonist in Episode 5, who states to Detectives Rust Cohle and Marty Hart: “I know what happens next… you’ll do this again. Time is a flat circle.”
He’s mocked by Cohle for paraphrasing Nietzsche, and the Detective is right on that front, with the line harking back to the German philosopher’s concept of “eternal recurrence.”
When he’s older, Cohle himself repeats those words during his interrogation, stating: “Someone once told me that ‘time is a flat circle.’ Everything we’ve ever done or will do, we’re gonna do over and over and over again.”
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Who says iconic True Detective line in Season 4 finale?
Night Country antagonist Raymond Clark says “time is a flat circle” during Episode 6 of True Detective Season 4. He uses the words in reference to his former lover Annie K, whom he murdered, and who Clark believes is now haunting him.
Speaking to Detectives Danvers and Navarro, Clark says: “She’s been hiding in those caves forever. Before she was born. After we all die. Time is a flat circle, and we are all stuck in it.”
Showrunner Issa López told The Hollywood Reporter why she decided to have Clark deliver the statement: “I felt that if someone was going to drop that line, it had to be a scientist. Because that theory has to do with a lot of really advanced physics and the flow of time.
“I do believe that Clark is crazy. But I also believe Annie’s always had these dreams about the spiral because she always inhabited that secret cave in a way, and was always going to find her fate. She’s always existed there, and she will always be there, and time is not linear in that way. It’s a flat circle.”
López continues: “Nobody’s ever really gone. I do believe in that part of the philosophy. That it’s the ethos of this show. Cohle voices it in the first episode of season one. It’s not just in here for the fans, it’s done because I do believe that events turn around and come back and come back, and we’re trapped in it.”
