10 Reasons True Detective's Yellow King Will Be Lester From The Wire

If you're not at least putting some thought into the question, "Who is the Yellow King?," it means you haven't watched a single episode of True Detective, because there's just no way you could've started watching and just dropped off. It's the best show on TV right now--the one in which the guy who just won one that big Oscar plays the main character. It's highly addictive, with quality acting and incredible writing. So I'll be nice and give you a "spoiler" warning, because I'm about to offer my theory of who will emerge as the central bad guy on Sunday's season finale. Spoiler alert...

I'll start with this: it's only kind of a spoiler alert. I'm only making a prediction. I don't have any more information than someone else who's watched the show and combed the internet for clues. I can't really spoil the ending because I obviously don't really know it. But here's what I think, based on what I've seen. Until last night, I'd boiled it down to either Maggie's dad or the minister played by Clarke Peters--the guy who played Lester on The Wire. However, I discovered that one of these guys can't be our guy. At this point, I hope you're caught up; I'm going in.

All those hints that Marty's daughter saw or experienced some type of sex act during her childhood had to start somewhere, and they say it's usually a close, trusted person, so you don't have to suspend your disbelief to see how Maggie's dad, "Jake Herbert," could be the culprit. He's rich, he looks creepy, he's been introduced to us without much other context, and he has access. Him being right next to Marty during a walk and snarky little pow-wow in the backyard would go a long way in explaining the foreshadowing statement Marty gave to the interrogating state police about not taking a hint: "The solution was right under my nose, but I was paying attention to the wrong clues..."

But Jake didn't show up until near the end of the second episode. TD's creator is quoted as saying "So, wild speculations aside, we showed the killer’s face in Episode 1." Also, "There’s enough fragmentary history in Episode 7 that, like Hemingway’s iceberg, what is obscured can be discerned by what is visible."

After watching a couple episodes again and thinking it over--with all due respect to Clarke Peters--I'm going to keep it gangster/Wire, and say I think it's Lester the Minister (sorry CP--they haven't told us your real name). Here's why.

1. Lester the Minister had a brief scene in the first episode but hasn't been seen since, and I've always wondered why he was even introduced.
2. The two black detectives, Gilbough and Papania, are looking for him all of a sudden, at the end of the seventh episode. They're trying to find his church, which the guy we now know as the "green-eared spaghetti monster" said shut down after "the hurricane." Why are they interested again, and why start with him right before going into the final hour of the season, which we already know will be the end of this particular storyline? It doesn't make sense.
3. Lester the Minister is a well-known actor. He was on The Wire! Treme! Other stuff too!! The guy who plays Maggie's dad had insignificant roles in three movies--one of which has the distinction of starring George Clooney and still somehow bombing at the box office. Who is more capable of the artistic range that it takes to play the bad guy in a show that's received so much praise for its masterful script and acting? The guy who's played Othello onstage in Sheffield, England, or the guy who was in "the SyFy original film Ghost Shark"? My money is on Lester the Minister.
4. Lester the Minister is the only person who's ever seen those twig figurines found at the crime scenes before. He said his aunt called them "devil's nets," and that she "loved her some Jesus," but had a bit of "that Santaria in her." Weird.
5. Lester the Minister says something about how mutilated cats were nailed to his church's doors. Neither detective seemed interested, even in his complaints about no police being interested despite his reporting of the incidents. Not sure why he'd mutilate cats and put them on his own doors, then tell on himself--maybe as an alibi? Again... WEIRD!!
6. During his very quick time on camera, Lester the Minister told Rust and Marty that Marie Fontenot, the little girl who first went missing and who was on that VHS tape, had been to his church with the family. Um... ¡¡¡???WHAT??!??!!? Y'all are just going to charge that to the game and not find out more about his church and who else went there? How long before she was kidnapped they had attended church?
7. Race Card Theories: Excuse me for a second while I explore a hilariously ignorant (but possibly true!) set of thoughts on this whole thing. In all seriousness, there's precedent for suspect ethnic theories in the written works of 19th Century writer Robert W. Chambers, including "The King in Yellow," a "fictional" horror-fantasy poem that inspired True Detective, according to Think Progress. In main victim Dora Lange's diary, she'd written down a line from "The King in Yellow": "Strange is the night when the black stars rise." LESTER THE MINISTER! HE'S A BLACK STAR!! Well,... he's pseudo-famous... hell, he was on The Wire!! OK, maybe not. But the first episode is called "The Long Bright Dark." RACIST!!! No? OK, fine. I stand by this: I think the thing with that black grandmother who started acting crazy, talking about "Carcosa" and chanting that "Death is not the end," yeah... that was weird. Aside from them both being black, I have no idea how that might tie her to Lester the Minister, but that's just how I feel. Also, who's to say Lester the Minister can't be one of the illegitimate children of one of the Tuttles? Remember that part about there being a Tuttle-Childress family split? SUSPECT!! I mean, I know quite a few people with the surname "Childress," and they're mostly black people.
8. Speaking of names, they haven't told us Lester the Minister's real name on the show. I bet it's "Childress." We even have Maggie's dad's name, courtesy of IMDB. And again, why isn't Clarke Peters' name and photo up higher in the cast list? You have to click a link at the bottom to see more of the actors involved. Even the guy from Boardwalk Empire showed up in a second episode. Why are they quietly hiding this guy?
9. If you go back and watch Lester the Minister's scene, as he says something about keeping kids busy as they tie sticks together (I guess to make crosses), the camera zooms into the wooden cross on the wall behind the pulpit. I don't know why--maybe the rope is a clue of some sort?--but this seems noteworthy.
10. On the low, Lester the Minister kinda looks like the Green-Eared Spaghetti Monster, if he had a green-eared spaghetti monster mask, of course. But still! Don't tell me I'm the only one that sees the resemblance:

At this point who knows. I'm really just trying to be able to say "I called it!," in the ridiculously unlikely event that Lester the Minister is actually the Yellow King. True Detective has been a spectacular show. It deserves a spectacular ending. I'd love to say I told you so on Sunday night.

**Now, I do have another theory: this is an ongoing cult, and the "Yellow King" changes. Maybe it was Reggie LeDoux for a time, and one/some of the Tuttle family, etc. And now it's the "Green-Eared Spaghetti Monster. But then again, it could still be Lester the Minister. I'm telling you--it's him!!!

UPDATE: OK, I was a little bit off. I still think he was the mastermind of it all. They didn't catch everybody!!