Woody Harrelson’s Marty Hart is the "normal" one. He is a man who believes in family, football, and casual racism. He is a hypocrite—preaching fidelity while cheating on his wife—but he is a human hypocrite. He represents the lie we tell ourselves to get through the day.
The genius is that the show never decides who is right. Is Cohle a prophetic genius or a traumatized madman? Is Marty a stable father or a coward? True Detective refuses to resolve this tension. It simply lets them orbit each other for two decades, held together by a case that nearly destroys them both. true detective
By J. D. Rustin