HBO’s crime drama wraps up in an unconventional yet satisfying way

Time is a flat circle. This is a reference to the most important story aspect from the first season of HBO’s crime drama anthology “True Detective,” where the main character Rustin Cohle, played by Matthew McConaughey, is obsessed with the cyclical, never-ending nature of time; however, Cohle never experiences the flat circle of time.  It’s Mahershala Ali’s Wayne Hays in the third season who is forced to venture into the endless and revolving depths of his mind as it fades from existence after a long life of war and policing.

The writer of “True Detective,” Nic Pizzolatto, is known for writing complicated characters, which he faithfully delivers in the third season. Yet the biggest controversy of the season, splitting fans down the middle of disappointment and delight, is when Pizzolatto refused another trope of the series he’s well known for — the final shootout, the grand finale.

In both the first and second season, the series finale resulted in tears as the fans plead for their favorite characters to survive their violent confrontation with the masked killer they were hunting. Because the entirety of the third season was presented as one large memory inside Hays’ mind — another reference to Cohle’s first season philosophy — the finale episode was from the perspective of Hays as a seventy-year-old man, which brought fans to their knees as they hoped they weren’t going to see him gutted with a knife or executed by a government militia. But, no. Pizzolatto went the optimistic route.

All eight episodes of the season were spent on the pursuit of Julie Purcell, a girl who was supposedly kidnapped at a young age, which resulted in her brother’s murder when he tried to stop the incident. The final episode was a reunion, of sorts, between the lost and found. Once again, the audience expected the worst with the missing girl since both prior seasons dealt with a pedifilic ring of kidnappers that were tied in with local government forces. In fact, those clues were even laid out for the audience. As a true-crime documentarian, Elisa Montgomery, played by Sarah Gadon, presented similar evidence between the Purcell case in Arkansas and other missing children cases in Louisiana — which ended up being a direct reference to season one as Montgomery showed newspaper clippings of hero detectives, Cohle and Martin Hart, played by Woody Harrelson.

Instead of a bloody end, this season concluded with Hays having a flashback to a piece of evidence he wholly overlooked, which then lead to him finding Purcell alive, happy and with a daughter of her own. The Arkansas community expected her dead, and so did the audience, but she was actually sold by her drug addict mother to another woman of large fortune to be her own daughter since she had lost her own. Although nothing goes over smoothly; as the sale results in Purcell’s brother’s unfortunate death and her own drugging to forget the incident.

Surprisingly, Purcell lived a happy life, albeit on copious amount of Lithium, until she escapes the “pink castle” and builds a life of her own. And while the detectives are searching for kidnappers and gunning down suspects while on the hunt, Purcell is living happily in a convent, thus steering the two roads of seekers and hiders to never merge with one another until the finale. In that final meeting, Hays finds the address to Purcell’s new family and pays them a visit. But he forgets what he’s doing and where he’s at upon walking up the driveway, resulting in a nice conversation between an elderly man and middle-aged mother who do not recognize each other despite their long history within the flat circle.

This season may refuse its audience a few aspects they’ve come to expect from Pizzolatto: the monsters in the dark and the finale shootout that reveals those monsters, but it replaces those tropes with more pertinent themes. Probably the most lovable aspect of this season is the unbreakable bond between Hays and his partner Roland West, played by Stephen Dorff, who spend over 35 years together on the Purcell case alone. Despite their unyielding partnership, external racial tensions put them at odds more often than not.

As West consistently received praise for Hays’ hard work, West is determined to the pull strings that will allow his partner shine in the light of the racially prejudice foundations the Arkansas Government is built upon, however, that’s not how Hays works. As he puts it, “I don’t play games.” His decisions to overcome the racist dispositions of his employers and working on the case on his own time leads him to find the Purcell girl while the rest of police force fades from the picture.

The bond between these two partners is what keeps a smile on the viewer’s face. Much like in every other season of True Detective, the audience is brought into the front seat of a vehicle with two partners on the hunt. But what’s different this time around is that these partners actually enjoy each others company from the start and their friendship only grows.

Season three deals less with the darkness of humanity and more with the horror of  the mind. The audience spends more time being viciously flailed around from dark corner to dark corner inside Hays’ fading memory.

That is where the brilliance of this season stays: while each scene represents a memory that Hays is experiencing, the reliability of that memory is sketchy. There might be a scene of an elderly Hays traversing the dark cellars of the pink castle, but pay attention to the mirrors on the wall and you will see a reflection of thirty-year-old Hays — is that how he sees himself, even in old age, or is that memory ever really taking place? For the first time ever in “True Detective” history, the audience must bear the weight of an unreliable narrator as they explore his most intimate memories and hazy recollections. It goes without saying, Mahershala Ali is a brilliant actor, meant to play only the most important roles on-screen. Paired with a writer like Nic Pizzolatto, the combination results in an unforgettable television performance that stands side-by-side with the greatness of the most favored first season of “True Detective.”

Written by: Clay Allen Rogers — arts@theaggie.org

A whimsical, interactive art piece brings focus to environmental issues

Third-year studio art and psychology major Maxine Aiello turns campus trees into pieces of art through a project titled “If Trees Could Talk.” Aiello placed mirrors in tree hollows around campus, as well as dog-tags directly underneath to demonstrate personal responsibility in environmental degradation. Aiello transformed 14 trees last year for her sculpture class, Art 150 2A: Studio Projects. The project took a total of five weeks to complete. To alter each tree it took four hours.

Inspiration struck when she was working on a different project for Art 150 2A, which consisted of three smaller projects and one larger final. They weren’t necessarily meant to build on each other, but Aiello took them in that direction.

“My philosophy in the class is to have them dig deeply and find something that they care about,” said Robin Hill, an art studio professor in the UC Davis Department of Art and Art History. “And that they put their work into context that acknowledges not only contemporary art history, but the world around them.”

As Aiello worked on her smaller projects, she was inspired by “Alice In Wonderland.” Aiello saw a tree with a small opening at its base where the grass touches and thought it resembled the rabbit hole that Alice fell into. As a response, Aiello created small polyester clay woodland creatures and placed them at the bottom of a tree on campus.

“[It was] kind of my way of dealing with life’s anxieties,” Aiello said. “To shrink down and just go into this world that I made up that was basically the opposite of how it is now where everything is fantastic, and everyone respects the planet. Everyone respects each other, and we’re just sustainable and thriving.”

With this idea in mind, Aiello realized what she wanted to do for her next smaller project: put a mirror in a tree.

“I really just wanted to see people’s reaction to it,” Aiello said. “I was itching to watch people see it. I wanted to just post up 30 feet away and see who walked by. I was just excited. I think I knew once I put the first [mirror] in that it wasn’t going to be the end of it.”

While her final smaller project included placing a mirror in a tree, the first tree also had an impact on what would later become her larger project of fourteen trees. The first tree was Aiello’s take on a mini magical mirror, the dog tag containing the phrase “mirror mirror in the tree who can stop the third degree.”

“There’s this article [that argues that] by 2030 if we’re going along this path, we’re going to increase [the earth’s temperature by] three degrees which is detrimental to us and animals and basically everything,” Aiello said. “That was kind of the source of me really wanting to say something in my gigantic project. I thought it was just a really good opportunity for me to say what I want to say and make everybody hear me.”

With the idea of placing mirrors inside trees, Aiello developed the concept for her final project in the class. She combined her whimsical mindset with an environmental one.

“At this point, a lot of information had come out about how bad our climate is doing and  how scary it is that our planet is going down this path,” Aiello said. “I was just overwhelmed with the idea that we were kind of on this unstoppable path, and people weren’t really paying attention to it. So the messages I was adding to the trees ended up being my way to get people to think about the planet and think about what they’re doing, how they’re affecting it, what they can do and kind of finally take some personal responsibility for their role in our future. So each mirror has a different message engraved on a dog tag that’s just lightly nailed into the tree below the mirror.”

While the idea of bringing attention to the environment was Aiello’s motivation, others perceived it as a different type of artwork entirely. There exists a spectrum of reactions and interpretations to Aiello’s work.

“I feel [the art piece] tries to show that there’s so many people here,” said Kate Heller, a third-year economics and statistics double major. “If you look in the mirror, there’s so many different people that come to Davis. There’s going to be so many people passing by this tree and seeing themselves in the mirror. Davis is a very diverse place, and we all don’t look the same.”

In order to get the mirrors to fit inside the hollows, Aiello used butcher paper to estimate what shape the mirror would take. The butcher paper would then be used to outline cardboard. If the cardboard fit well inside the hole, Aiello cut out plexiglass using the cardboard as a guide. This created a problem for Aiello, and it was one of the most frustrating aspects of the process.

“The art building is in a weird corner of campus and some of these trees were far away from it,” Aiello said. “And it was starting to rain. Some days I was just out in the rain because that’s when I had the time to do it. I mean, I can’t not do it just because it’s raining outside, and there was just some points that just seemed like ‘I’m never going to get this mirror to fit, should I scrap this tree all together,’ ‘should I try and find another one?’”

But once the trees were finished, Aiello felt satisfied.

“I kind of get taken over by this person that just won’t stop until I’m satisfied and can be proud of whatever I made,” Aiello said. “So it’s hard, and there was times where I’m in the Art Building until like 4 a.m. engraving something, and I really want to leave, but there’s something else in me that won’t let me leave.”

This quarter, Aiello’s upcoming project falls in line with her environmental concerns. She will be using recycled milk cartons, a type of plastic that is nondegradable and stays on the planet years after it is produced, to produce her art.

Written By: Itzelth Gamboa — arts@theaggie.org

Though hard to find, good tea exists in Davis

Finding good tea in Davis can be challenging. While there are boba shops around every corner and more seeming to open every day, finding unsweetened tea is difficult. Many tea drinkers have been disappointed after ordering hot tea at a café or restaurant, only to watch a flavorless tea bag float in a mug.

Why drink tea? With less caffeine, it’s a healthier alternative to coffee. Some tea may even lower the risk of cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

All tea comes from the Camellia sinensis plant, native to China and India. Different ways of processing the plant result in different types of teas, and the main types of tea are black, green, white, oolong and pu-erh. Anything else is technically not considered tea but herbal infusions or tisanes, such as beverages prepared with chamomile, lemongrass, osmanthus, mint, rooibos or other plants.

Andy Leung, a second-year biological systems engineer, buys all of his tea from Hong Kong and prefers tea over coffee.

“[Tea is] less tannic, less bitter, more refreshing,” Leung said. “Coffee feels like it slaps me in the face and wakes me up. Tea is like a nudge, like ‘hey, wake up.’”

Loose leaf tea refers to tea leaves that are not separated into paper or mesh bags and is often higher in quality than tea that comes packaged in bags. Typically, loose leaf tea is put into a strainer that is removed from the cup once the tea has reached the desired steeping time. Quality tea that is prepared correctly should not be bitter and therefore does not need milk, sugar or any other additions.

“I’m not against the idea of milk tea, but regular loose leaf teas don’t need [milk and sugar],” Leung said. “Milk and sugar is to cover up any offensive notes from the tea, and my tea has no offensive notes.”

Leung recommends purchasing tea from China. Those unable to make the trek still have options, however. Leung recommends walking around Chinatown in San Francisco to find quality teas.

Jake Cheng, a second-year statistics major, considers tea drinking to be an integral part of his culture back home in Beijing.

“[Tea drinking is] about [being] social, business,” Cheng said. “If you invite someone to a tea place, it’s kind of like respect, it’s good manners. You rather take a friend to and talk about business at the tea place than like coffee shops right now in China, or other restaurants. When you take them to the tea house, you respect them more. Of course, it’s really expensive. A pot is like three to four hundred bucks [USD].”

Similarly, undeclared second-year Chad Lee drinks tea to connect with his parents, grandparents and cultural roots.

“I’m Asian American and my grandparents drink a lot of tea,” Chad Lee said. “Usually when we go out to eat at Asian restaurants, they obviously have tea so I drink tea with my grandparents. I don’t really drink it with my parents a lot, but mainly with my grandparents, because they’re a little more traditional.”

While there are no Chinese tea shops in Davis, there are still several places to enjoy a good cup or pot of tea. In downtown Davis, Tea List offers afternoon and high tea, as well as food options. Unlike many English tea rooms, Tea List does not enforce a minimum price per person. Customers can enjoy a singular cup or pot of tea, and prices depend on the type of tea. Tea List currently offers over fifty types of tea, such as black, green, white, oolong, pu-erh and herbal infusions, in addition to yerba maté, matcha and blooming teas. Tea List also offers tea lattes and other specialty drinks.

While known for its coffee, Temple Coffee Roasters has an impressive list of loose leaf teas. Temple Coffee Roasters serves black, green, oolong and white teas, as well as tisanes and iced teas. Like Tea List, Temple Coffee serves hot tea in aesthetically pleasing teapots.

Peet’s Coffee and Tea has a separate list of loose leaf teas that can be found near the registers. They also sell tins of tea to buy and make at home. Unfortunately, the Peet’s Coffee and Tea cafés on campus do not offer this separate list of teas.

While Cloud Forest Café only offers tea bags, the café has several unique tea drinks on its menu that are nice alternatives to coffee drinks, such as a matcha latte and iced tea topped with cream foam.

Several restaurants serve loose leaf tea. For example, Crepeville, known for its breakfast food, has a list posted near the register of various tea varieties. The tea is served in a teapot with a strainer.

Students can also make tea at home. Lee buys his tea bags from Trader Joe’s.

“I like the decaffeinated green tea,” Lee said. “Late at night, I like to drink it so I can feel relaxed when I go to bed.”

Loose leaf tea is available in decent selections at other stores, such as Nugget Markets, Davis Food Co-Op and Cost Plus World Market. Kim’s Mart, a Korean grocery store, carries tea as well. Safeway, Target, Save Mart and other bargain stores tend to carry bagged tea more often than loose leaf varieties.

Options for good tea in Davis are limited compared to the Bay Area or abroad. Good tea does exist in Davis, one just has to be willing to look for it.

Written By: Cheyenne Wiseman — arts@theaggie.org