Whew – take a collective deep breath. True Detective is back. After a disappointing second season that saw very little critical acclaim, the future of the show was cast in doubt. But, HBO elected to roll the dice and shoot season three. They cast Mahershala Ali as the lead, and from a story standpoint, it certainly seems like Nic Pizzolatto tried to take it back to its season one roots. So far, so good. Let’s hit the review.
Let this serve as your final reminder that there are definitely spoilers within this post. Episodes one and two both dropped last Sunday, and I’ve given y’all an entire week to catch up. But, if you don’t want the show spoiled, DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER.
OKAY – THOSE OF YOU LEFT, YOU SURE YOU WANT TO READ ON?
LFG
TRUE DETECTIVE S3E7
Boom – right off the bat, we’re hit with a flashback to Wayne dropping off Becca at college. Kinda sad to see how affected Wayne is at the whole ordeal.
But, if that didn’t tug on your heart strings, in the very next scene, we fast forward to 1990, and see Tom Purcell’s dead ass corpse. Motherfucker. I knew it. I knew it would happen. But, I was still taken aback. He got too close, and I’d be willing to bet our boy Harris James was behind it. Made a murder look like a suicide.
We then cut to 2015, and Elisa asks Wayne if he ever thought maybe Tom didn’t kill himself. Apparently, an independent examiner found that Tom had a swollen contusion at the base of his skull that a gunshot wouldn’t account for.
Wayne says he never thought of it that way, and we all know he’s full of shit and is totally just playing Elisa at this point.
We get a pretty tense scene from 1990 with Wayne and Roland arguing about Tom’s death. Wayne wants to keep pushing. Roland wants to take a moment. Roland insinuates that Wayne is there to “work out his shit,” and reminds him that he was doing him a favor getting him back on the case. Ouch.
It’s 1990 – Tom has a duffel bag and he’s getting the hell out of there. Roland parks in the driveway to stop him. It’s clear Roland is worried about Tom hurting himself. He tells Tom that Will and Julie wouldn’t want him to hurt himself, to which Tom replies, “No. No. They don’t want anything at all now. How could I get hurt worse? Ain’t nothing that could happen to me that wouldn’t be a relief.” Brutal, brutal stuff, and again, Scoot McNairy reminds us why he’s the unsung MVP of season three.
Amelia sits down with Lucy’s friend, and it turns out, SHE HAS A PICTURE OF THE GHOSTS that the kids claimed seeing on Halloween.
Wayne and Roland head out to the hotel that Dan was staying at to examine the scene there, but he’s nowhere to be found. The last time we saw Cousin Dan, he was on the ground begging Tom not to murder him. Wild stuff.
Fast forward to 2015, and Elisa tells Wayne that a black man with a dead eye was going around looking for Julie. Someone identified him as ‘Watts.’ Elisa thinks his job was to procure kids, and that Julie got away from him.
THEN – to the uproarious applause at everyone at my watch party – Elisa posits that it’s connected to a larger ring. Maybe even one down in Louisiana, and there it is! A throwback to Rust and Marty from season one!
Roland tells Henry that Wayne, “needs someone watching out for him” because of his advancing condition.
We finally hear what Elisa’s getting at. She thinks the Purcell kids were sold off with the cousin’s help, and now they’ve all been silenced….one way or another. She pleads with Wayne, asking him if he EVER saw anything that suggested obfuscation from above.
He did…….but he ain’t tellin’ her that!
He feeds her a bunch of crap about his brain turning to mush and how he’s tired of “walking through the graveyard.” That’s exactly the play he told Roland he’d make if things started to get iffy. Of course he’s bullshitting!
Rewind to 1990, and Amelia heads to the bar that Lucy worked at. She pokes around until she gets the manager to mention that he saw a black man with one eye with Cousin Dan one night (damn it). She’s getting too close to this thing, y’all.
Wayne shows up at Roland’s house and pleads with him to go after Harris James because he obtained flight records that show he went to Las Vegas the day before Lucy died and came back the day after. They go back and forth on what to do with this information, until Wayne brilliantly plays to Roland’s emotion and says, “we got to do this for Tom.” They’re going after Harris James, and ladies and gentlemen….that ain’t gonna end well.
Fast forward to 2015 – Old man Roland and old man Wayne are in a park talking to a woman who used to work for the Hoyts. Boy, do they learn some shit. She recalls seeing our boy with the dead eye around the Hoyts’ place, and they talk about Isabel Hoyt, who was “troubled” and never left the house. She ended up driving a car through a guardrail. I’m sure Harris James had NOTHING at all to do with that.
The next scene is something else. Wayne and Roland catch up with Harris James and start grilling him about the flights and the Hoyts and all of that. They end up at a barn in the woods, where they’re going to “interrogate” him off the books. Just when James is about to crack and spill some good shit, he ends up shot. He lures Wayne in to loosen the cuffs and as soon as he does, James tackles him. Roland shoots him dead and now they have a body to bury.
So, that’s what happened to Harris James.
We’re back in 2015, and wouldn’t you know? The car Wayne’s been seeing outside his house is legit. Roland sees it, they make a plan to confront the driver, and Roland snaps a photo of the license plate.
Back to 1990 and we’re at Wayne’s house. The phone rings. It’s mother.fucking. Edward Hoyt (shout out to Michael Rooker). “I’d like to discuss the events of last night.”
Well shit. Amelia knows something big and bad is going on. Wayne apologizes to her, and gets in the limo that Hoyt has parked out front.
And, that’s all she wrote, folks. One more episode – it’s going to be about an hour and a half long, and we have a lot of ends to tie up.
THOUGHTS
That was tense. This is the best show on television and it’s not even close. I don’t even know how to process it all. It certainly seems like Elisa’s theory is plausible given what we know about the Hoyts that she doesn’t appear to. Stricken with the loss of a granddaughter, maybe they tried to get themselves a new one in Julie, and Harris James and the dead eye man helped take her and cover everything up.
Then again, it’s True Detective. When do things fall together that neatly?
But, how, in 2015, do we get to that conclusion? And, what the rightful fuck is even happening in 2015?!?! We’ve got old man Roland and old man Wayne going cowboy on whoever was parked out front. It’s just pure chaos
I’m expecting a roller coaster Sunday night.
QUESTIONS MOVING FORWARD
From E1 and E2:
- Who did it?
- What happened ‘between Julie and her father’ that they allude to?
- How the fuck is Julie alive?
- What happened to Amelia?
- What happened with Hays’ daughter?
After E3:
- Who’s driving the brown sedan?
- Why does Wayne keep a gun with him in 2015?
After E4:
- What else, exactly, does the interviewer from 2015 know?
- Who killed Cousin Dan?
- What is Amelia hiding about her past and why is she hiding it?
- Did Lucy know anything about this happening?
- Did Freddy see something when he ran away into the woods?
After E5:
- Something happened between Wayne and Roland that Wayne doesn’t remember. What was their falling out over?
- What was Julie referencing when she called the police station and said, “I know what he did?” Could this be the “falling out” mentioned in E1?
After E6:
- Whose car does Wayne keep seeing parked outside his home in 2015?
- What exactly are the pink rooms and what does Tom find in them?
- What does Cousin Dan know about this whole thing?
After E7:
- Obviously, what happens in the limo?
QUESTIONS ANSWERED
After E4:
- The fuck was in that bag that Woodard went and got? Practically, a damn armory…
- Does the interviewer from 2015 possess new information/evidence about the case? In short, yes – we just don’t the full extent of her knowledge.
After E5:
- Who got blown up at Woodard’s house? A lot of damn people….and he also forced Hays to shoot him dead. Wild ass shit.
- Is Roland still alive in 2015? He is! And, for some reason, he’s living alone, deep in the woods, with a kennel full of dogs.
- Who do they incarcerate for it in 1980? Woodard.
After E6:
- What is he “withholding?” Or, specifically, what did he leave in the woods? Certainly seems like this is the murder of Harris James.
- What did Wayne and Roland do? “How you gon’ talk to them doing what we done?” See above.
- What happened to Harris James? See above, too. HE DEAD.
Feel free to posit your theories in the comments below!
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD and #BeBetter. “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Alabama Crimson Tide football, the WWE, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley
Check out the SoBros Shop. Subscribe to our Patreon. Give us money for no reason. Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter @SoBrosNetwork. Listen on SoundCloud. Watch on YouTube.
