Before this episode aired, I read an incredible piece in the New York Times about the essentially lawless state of the modern sea. It tells the story of a ship called the Dona Liberta, which has left a wake of shattered lives, death, and oil spills as it passes from port to port, sailing under whatever flag is up for sale at the time. After navigating what must have been a veritable ocean of paperwork, clues, and sources, writer Ian Urbina shines a light on a shadowy Greek shipping magnate named George Kallimasias. He is a man described as a myth — “this guy is smoke,” says an engine parts dealer at one point in the story — a real-life Yellow King. And from this character, Urbina pieces together a conspiracy fueled by greed and inhumanity and facilitated by bureaucratic negligence.
The web of holding companies and money; the apathetic, complicit, or handcuffed law-enforcement agencies and bodies of government; and the powerful men who escape any kind of justice — Urbina’s story has all the makings of a True Detective season. Now, the last thing anyone needs is a Nic Pizzolatto character with an ocean to stare at. Just the site of a wilting avocado tree will send these cats into a soliloquy of Scrabble words and regret. But I bring up the Urbina story for a couple of reasons.
I feel like I now have a better grasp of maritime law than of whatever is going on between Jacob McCandless, various members of the Chessani family, Dr. Pitlor, Osip the Russian, the angel of death who strolled into Frank’s bar,1 the “foreign interests” trying to muscle in on the Vinci poker action,2 the bird-mask killer who pumped Ray Velcoro full of empty shells, the late-and-flatulent Detective Dixon, and a state senator. We are trying to figure out what happened to a set of diamonds stolen from police evidence, how they are related to a series of “hooker parties,” what blackmail material taken at those parties Ben Caspere might have stored on some hard drives (before he had his crotch blown off), and how it all relates to the disappearance of a girl named Vera.
