Check Out This Vulture Interview with True Detective’s Glenn Fleshler
Although this Vulture interview is several months old at this point, it’s worth talking about simply because there hasn’t really been another way to get inside the mind of Errol Childress. As Childress, Fleshler brought The Yellow King/Spaghetti Monster to disturbing life, and he has quite a few thoughts on the character. Something to note that comes up early in the interview is the literary reference that’s still hot on Amazon:
"“Nic [Pizzolatto] didn’t share an awful lot with me. I had started to Google all the Carcosa/Yellow King stuff…He basically told me not to worry about it.”"
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This further confirms that the The King in Yellow reference was mostly meant for people in the know and serves no other serious purpose. Childress is a character that starts to lose some of his mystique by the end of the series, and one reason for that is because the Yellow King references weren’t taken far enough. It’s one of the few series’ few disappointments. Flehsler’s thoughts on Childress also includes a level of understanding:
"“But he also has grown up in a culture of sexual abuse and ritualistic abuse, so it’s a labyrinthine mind-maze, if I can sound McConaughey-ish about it. To go into the details of what his life is like is like the Yellow King story itself. It’s too crazy.”"
We don’t get to spend enough time with Childress to truly experience his psychosis — certainly not on the level that Flehsler has. How did you feel about Fleshler’s performance, and the character overall? The story of Childress feels unfinished, but that’s the way it was meant to be. You can check out the full interview over on Vulture, and it contains quite a few nuggets even if it is several months old at this point.