As HitFix pointed out, one doesn’t really need to be a “True Detective” fan to appreciate the number of parodies that have turned the show’s dour subject material into Internet comedy fare. All that’s relevant here is that Matthew McConaughey’s mustached character, Rust Cohle, unspools philosophical babble that’s close to the dialogue from the lost in translation scene in “Ocean’s 12,” and Patton Oswalt somehow does a pretty good job of embellishing it.
Subtly plugging the title of his forthcoming Comedy Central special, Oswalt rambles for a minute and a half about the idea that “Tragedy Plus Comedy Equals Time” (which, algebraically, is a little off from the old comedy convention that “tragedy plus time equals comedy“).
“Somebody told me that tragedy plus comedy equals time. Maybe time is a flat circle, and over here, that’s where comedy is. And then over here, it’s us contemplating the state of Florida, and frozen dinners, and children’s TV shows. And all of it is crushed into a single plane of existence that only exists because we’re imagining it as it happens.”
McConaughey’s character in the show does have a line that includes, “Someone once told me, ‘Time is a flat circle.'”
Watch Oswalt get even more esoteric and side-splitting funny below.
