Rustin Cohle
| Rust Cohle | |
|---|---|
| True Detective character | |
 |
|
| First appearance | "The Long Bright Dark" |
| Last appearance | "Form and Void" |
| Created by | Nic Pizzolatto |
| Portrayed by | Matthew McConaughey |
| Information | |
| Nickname(s) | Crash (by Iron Crusaders) The Taxman |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Detective Bartender |
| Family | Travis Cohle (father; deceased) Sophia Cohle (daughter; deceased) |
| Significant other(s) | Claire Cohle (ex-wife; deceased) Laurie Spencer (ex-girlfriend) |
Rustin Spencer "Rust" Cohle is a fictional character in the first season of the anthology crime drama television series True Detective on HBO. He was created by series creator Nic Pizzolatto and is portrayed by Matthew McConaughey. Cohle works as a detective for the Louisiana State Homicide Unit, alongside his partner Martin "Marty" Hart (Woody Harrelson). The season follows Cohle and Hart's hunt for a serial killer in Louisiana, across 17 years.
Both the character of Rust Cohle and Matthew McConaughey's performance have received critical acclaim. McConaughey won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series, and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film.
Cohle is introduced as a gifted, but deeply troubled, homicide detective from Texas who is transferred to a Louisiana state police department in 1995. After three months with the department, he and his partner are tasked with investigating a series of brutal, bizarre murders. A haunted, solitary man, Cohle believes that life is meaningless, human beings are merely "sentient meat", and hope is self-delusion. Cohle spends his free time obsessing over every detail of the crime, hoarding evidence in a storage locker and keeping extensive notes in a ledger, which earns him the derisive nickname "The Taxman" among his colleagues.
The series gradually reveals Cohle's backstory. He was born in South Texas but raised in Alaska by his father after his parents divorced. He became a police detective in his 20s. Years before the main story arc, his two-year-old daughter, Sophia, was killed in a car accident, a tragedy that destroyed his marriage. Devastated by the loss, Cohle grew ever more unstable and unpredictable in his work, eventually killing a crystal meth addict who had injected his own child with the drug. His superiors offered him a chance to avoid prison by working as an undercover narcotics detective, which he did for four years; Cohle notes that this was twice as long as most undercover detectives are kept in rotation. During this assignment, Cohle became addicted to drugs, and eventually killed three cartel members in a shootout, while being shot multiple times himself.
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