This is the worst show on television.
Really.
Nah just kidding it's the best.
>>>Spoilers up to ep 5<<<
My favourite little detail is all the driving shots. The rear screen projection is so purpousely incongruous it reminds me of Alex driving in clork, and bill in the back of the cab in ews. The fact that Marty highlights the car as a place of "quiet contemplation" early on really places significance in the mental state of the occupants. It foreshadows the various flashbacks/hallucinatory trails that occur for rust in the car.
There's also a very interesting focus on the aerial top-down view of moving cars along the highway and other roads. Part of it is to display the iconic road/creek parallel lines we've seen from Easy Rider to FMJ. These are war zones in those narratives between cultures, and as Laszlo Kovacs says about the helicopter shot that ends easy rider, it's also a serendipitous illustration of the conflict between man and nature.
This show's focus on man's nature goes very deep. Apart from the fact there's at least one character who's obsessed with the topic, the whole narrative is now recognized for it's unusual focus on the two investigators. These are people whose job it is to uncover the true nature of others.
Here the title of the show comes into play. The entire structure described above is self reflexive, we watch the watchmen. This is echoed as the show progresses in various forms as circles and cycles become more apparent. Ledoux says that time is a flat circle, and rust repeats this as he tells the investigators that they are all doomed to repeat their lives. Played out against the retelling of their lives, we can see that there is some truth to this insight in their own predicament.
Marty is not immune to the recursive nature of time. He shows his beliefs at interesting moments like when he says in ep 5, regarding what happened between rust and his girl, "what always happens between men and women, reality". There is a humbly genius moment in ep 5 then, with this in mind, when Marty tells of that sweet moment at the roller rink with his daughters and wife. They finish a loop and he stays at the edge talking with his wife, "begging" for forgiveness forever, as the girls go for one more round, oblivious. Do you see this? He's trying to get out of his circle, and his wife you get the impression doesn't believe he can do it. Indeed, the modern scenes show him without his ring: he has been ousted from her circle for eternity.
There's more to say on the subject of fathers and daughters. Ep 5 gives us a tease about Marty and his daughter. We can think back to what rust says about his own daughter's death saving him from the sin of being a father. That dying young is the best way to go, before you become aware of and have to relive the hell of reality. Time will tell whether Marty gets to feel that ultimate regret. Those reflections in the locker room pointed out above are worth thinking about, especially as they play out over one of Rust's monologues about "the nightmare you keep waking up into."
Oh and then there's the yellow king.
What a show.
