Who's the King in Yellow, when he's at home? Just your average sister-fucking swamp person, given to amazing flights of rhetoric in a bizarre British accent, bouts of dog-kicking, and staring at little kids while licking his lips. He's got his daddy tied up and dying for burning his face, his sister-wife in another house busily working toward a special episode of Hoarders and, a bit further out in the property, an honest-to-God Carcosa that's every bit as damned and beautiful as you could possibly want.

I have not been this impressed with a person, or a performance, since probably Reggie Ledoux first stole my heart. He brings exactly the otherworldly menace and cursed wisdom that could trap you -- Dora Lange, Rust Cohle, the Ledoux boys themselves -- in that magic swampy darkness forever. Just phenomenal. Marty and Cohle are solid, of course, but whatever Milchian heights the show's been stretching itself toward the entire time have really broken through here. I could watch those parts over and over, it's great.

So following on from last week, the Sheriff Steve situation is tied up neatly: Once shown the VHS tape that drives you crazy if you watch it, he doubles down on passing the buck. Less predictably, his threats are answered with slight sniper fire as we learn that Rust's pal the bar owner has volunteered to kill Geraci and mail out all the evidence if the Boys don't come home from this final assault. The 2012 Cops are also brought into the situation as a just in case, and end up saving the day in a way.

After that bit of housekeeping, Marty and Rust track the King down -- admittedly through the most nonsensical and ludicrous sequence of clues yet -- and things shift into Lambs mode real quick, as an irritated Marty tries to get the sister to stop worshiping the King long enough to give him a straight answer about anything, while Rust climbs through maze after maze, half inside his own imagination, looking for the King. (Sound editing on this show, always a plus right up there with the gorgeous cinematography and clever, heartfelt direction, deserves a special shout-out here.)

The episode highlights everything good in the Boys' relationship through the ages -- particularly this last mission, as they've finally accepted each other's intuition and come to trust each other so deeply, and so believably -- so it's only fair that it ends in the heart of Carcosa, a beautiful stinking cavernous cathedral where the King puts a familiar knife in Rust and a hammer right in Marty's chest, before Rust finally takes him out for good. Marty and Rust cuddle up to die, at the bottom of this well, but eventually we see them both rescued.

The show's epilogue covers a lot of ground, as Marty is first welcomed back into his family and then offers himself up as a sort of John the Baptist to Rust's ragged prophet. It is acknowledged, by the men and the show at large, that they didn't really end anything about their horrible universe except this one gross dude, but that's only an obvious stop on the way to the story's final moments, as Rust explains his near-death experience of divinity (and one, note, that doesn't contradict anything else he's ever said, which is the real genius twist here) before offering up a simple, final prayer:

If the sky is a battle between dark and light, it's true the darkness has more territory and always will. But once, there were no stars at all: And that means the stars are winning.

A show that never shied away from breathlessly explaining its own profundity is certainly within its own limits to do so here. But this finale episode, and scene -- if not quite justifying the heavy load that came before it -- get a lot closer to transcendence, and beauty, than we'd explained to us anyway. Just an excellent ride, from start to finish. Well done.