True Detective Pre-Finale Recap
Intro
Intro
I have now watched the first seven episodes of True Detective Season Three — twice. I’d say it’s almost as good as Season One (S1); both S1 and S3 allow us to track a murder mystery and two police officers’ personal lives. What set S1 apart were the rantings and ravings of Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey). Not sure any show will top that aspect. But one great thing about S3 is the strong female character of Amelia Reardon. Anyway, the finale is Sunday and I think I’ve figured it out. This obviously contains spoilers so the intended audience here is for superfans who are caught up on Season Three (S3). This is absolutely a TL; DR, but in my experience, we superfans can’t enough of the show and therefore are dying just to read and talk about it. So, maybe it’s an LR: TD. Long Recap: True Detective. Boom.
General
OK, so here goes. Take a look. Not saying I have this perfect. What do you think I have right? Wrong? What are your theories?
Some random observations:
What does the title of True Detective mean? Is one a true detective and the other not? Does this matter?
Throughout the season, we see no Confederate flags. Strange, huh? Needless to say, this is the American South and much of the storyline is tinged with a racial component.
The black Wayne Hays (Mahershala Ali) clearly has some probably justified issues towards whites, but the white Roland West (Stephen Dorff) genuinely seems to be Hays’ true friend.
The date of the abduction, November 7, 1980, is three days after the Ronald Reagan/Jimmy Carter election and yet there’s no mention of it at all — not in conversations and not even any yard signs.
“Time Is a Flat Circle.” Time is certainly a recurring and compounding theme, with Wayne Hays’ being constantly pulled into the past. In 1980, by Vietnam. In 1990, by the reopening of the 1980 case and by Vietnam. In 2015, by the film crew, by his dementia, by the film crew’s interviews of the 1980 case, and by Vietnam.
It cannot be overstated how beautiful Amelia (Carmen Ejogo) is.
Timeline of Events
As far as I understand it, here’s the timeline of events. I do my best to state facts and then follow those up with brackets that contain opinions, theories, and speculation, “which leads to projection,” as Hays warns. Here goes.
Before November 7, 1980
“They” establish a child prostitution ring. [Who’s “They”? Who all’s involved? How high does the conspiracy go? It seems the District Attorney is complicit but how?]
Isabel, the daughter of meat tycoon Ed Hoyt, loses her husband and daughter in a car wreck. She goes crazy and hardly ever leaves the Hoyt Estate. One night, she takes a car out for a spin and crashes it into a guardrail. Arkansas State Police Officer Harris James is on the scene as it happens in his patrol area.
Harris James is hired by Ed Hoyt in private security to carry out and conceal Hoyt’s behavior.
A lower-class suburban couple, Tom and Lucy, have two kids, Will and Julie. The kids are playing with somebody in the woods.
Nov 7, 1980
Somebody abducts the kids, Will (12) and Julie (10). [It reminds me of Stranger Things’ S1E1 — “The Vanishing of Will Byers.” A Will goes missing.]
Will dies from a blow to the head. There’s blood found on some rocks. Will is found in a cave with his hands folded on his chest.
Julie is abducted.
[Whom are the kids meeting in the woods? Who actually did these things? It doesn’t stand to reason that a 12-year-old and a 10-year-old would be meeting a Black Man with a Dead Eye alone in the woods. He’s too scary to be a playmate.]
There’s a trail of dolls leading to Will. Clearly, some clues were left for him to be found. [Some theorize that Will’s death was an accident — he slipped and fell. I don’t think so. I think They didn’t need him.]
They take Julie to the Hoyt Mansion and keep her locked in a pink room in the basement.
The night the kids go missing, and in every interaction afterwards, Lucy seems to be going through something more than just grief — it appears to be guilt. Conveniently enough, Lucy’s not home when the kids are abducted.
Between Nov 7,1980, and May 17, 1990
Arkansas State Police Detective partners Wayne Hays and Roland West question some local outcast teenagers (one whose names is Freddy Burns) who saw Will and Julie. They seem to be lying, but as Hays and West seem to determine, it’s just normal teenage lying vs. something bigger. They were underage drinking and trying to hide it. Their stories don’t quite add up, as one of them says that they pass the kids while driving, whereas we saw their sitting in Freddy’s parked purple VW Bug. They didn’t “pass” them. [Why are they just posted up in a car? Are they doing reconnaissance?]
Hays meets the alluring Amelia Reardon, one of Will’s teachers, at her school. They clearly are into each other from the get-go. Hays enlists her help, presumably as a way to get to know her. He gives her a drawing and the dazzling Amelia interviews some students, proving herself to be a good detective herself.
Hays and West question a priest at St. Michael’s Church of The Ozarks. He seems to know something. He may fit the bill as he’s clearly tied to Hoyt and these child prostitution rings generally seem to take on a mock religious bent. After all, Will’s hands were folded on his chest like a prayer. We make this connection because Hays finds a photo of Will with his hands folded like that. The priest mentions he took that photo. Interestingly, that photo album was lying out in the open the second time Hays and West search Tom and Lucy’s home. [Did Lucy bring it out? I think she’s feeling guilty and is trying to help the detectives solve the crime.]
The priest says Julie was excited to meet an Aunt. [Who could this aunt be? Is it Isabel? Is it Ed Hoyt’s wife?]
At the same church, West meets and chats up Laurie. (Both partners — West and Hays — watch as the other meets his love interest for the first time.)
The priest says a “dear, good woman” makes the dolls that Julie played with. They pay her a visit and the old, racist lady says a black man with a dead eye bought 10 of them from her at a fair.
A white man who lives on a farm adjacent to the state park where the crime was committed doesn’t let Hays and West search his home. He saw the kids several times and that a black man and a white woman were with them. They had an expensive brown sedan. [Is the black man the same as the one with the dead eye? Is the white woman Lucy or maybe Hoyt’s wife?]
Brett Woodard, the Native American garbage collector, who was seen riding near the kids (reminiscent of the villain in S1, who was riding a lawnmower when first interviewed by Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson), is suspected of the crime by the local white men, presumably because they don’t like a minority.
Hays and West question and beat up (in a barn) a white pedophile whom they learned of from a vice officer; the last we see him is in their trunk. We assume he lives.
Hays and West go seeking the Dead Eye Black Man (Let’s just use “DEBM.”) and a liquor store worker points them towards a trailer park. They talk to him but the locals get violent so they never finish questioning him. He says there are multiple black men with dead eyes and other injuries. [We do see a black man on the side of the screen at least twice. Is he involved somehow? He doesn’t have a dead eye but in murder mysteries, of course, the culprit has to appear on-screen at least once, whether in real life or in a photo.]
Hays and West meet a guy at the Ozark child foundation who’s a bit shady. The foundation had put out a reward for any info on the case. It’s on Hoyt’s property so clearly there’s a link between the Ozark foundation and Hoyt.
Somebody drops a letter in a mailbox to Tom and Lucy’s home. It’s made out of magazine letters. It states that Children Should Laugh, which is a phrase Lucy uses whilst drunkenly almost-confessing to the extremely elegant Amelia. [This seems like a very obvious plant by Lucy to assuage/placate Tom and also to get him to try to “let go,” which the letter also states.]
The white men drive over to confront Woodard; there’s a crazy shootout where 10 people die. Woodard spares West but ostensibly commits suicide by threatening Hays, who shoots him in self-defense.
Harris James plants evidence at Woodard’s house, including Will’s backpack. [Is it a fake or is it really Will’s backpack? If the latter, how’d James get it if he wasn’t involved in the crime?]
The ambitious Gerald Kindt, at the time the DA but later the Arkansas Attorney General, prosecutes Woodard posthumously. The case is closed. [Kindt seems to represent the Powers-That-Be or “They.” He seems complicit but does the conspiracy go higher and wider?]
At some point, Julie escapes the pink room and makes her way to Oklahoma.
In 1988, Lucy is killed in Las Vegas, with the circumstantial evidence strongly pointing to Harris James. [Why in 1988? Julie would be 18, so perhaps she waited until her child’s adulthood to make some kind of a move?]
1990
Julie is spotted in a Sallisaw, Oklahoma, Walgreens, where a pharmacy break-in took place. Her fingerprints are in the store and she’s seen on a security camera.
Given this shocking turn, Defense Attorneys Jim Dobkins and Alan Jones depose Hays on May 17, 1990, to ask in detail about the 1980 case. Dobkins and Jones have been hired by Woodard’s kids to clear his name. [Is this a setup? Is it a way for the Powers That Be to figure out what Hays and West know?]
The Woodard conviction is overturned.
There’s a press conference and Tom speaks on-camera to try to find his daughter.
The police receive a phone call from someone who claims to be Julie. Partial prints are pulled from a payphone. She says the man on the screen (presumably Tom) is not her father. At the time, this is very perplexing. [Is she captured again and doing this under duress? Best guess is that this call is not Julie; we don’t know what she sounds like so that’s easy to make up. Besides, the purpose seems to be to implicate Tom. It’s very convenient.]
This leads Hays and West to harshly question Tom, who has always seemed innocent. He appears to be genuinely distraught over his kids’ death and disappearance.
West does his best to help Tom, giving him money and setting him up with an apartment.
It is learned at some point that Tom is gay/bisexual but Will and Julie could of course still be his children. [Why does Roland help Tom so much? Any chance they have a thing going on? Doubtful but anyone can be gay… and anyone can just be nice. West just seems like a good dude.]
The exquisite Amelia takes it upon herself to start writing about the case and even goes to Sallisaw to dig up info. She flirts with the detectives and allows one to take her to dinner. This does not sit well with her husband, Wayne. She does learn that Julie’s prints are only in the aisles and not behind the pharmacy, though.
Wayne and that fly-ass chick Amelia go to dinner at Tom and Laurie’s house. As the good-looking Amelia keeps bringing up the case, Wayne has a meltdown over her doing so. We learn Laurie majored in Poultry Science.
When Hays and West appear to turn on Tom, he panics and starts doing his own investigating. He catches up with Dan, Lucy’s cousin who lived with them for a while. He then goes to the Hoyt Estate, where he explores the house and is being watched on security cam by Harris James. Tom makes his way down the stairs and past some very heavy metal doors, which clearly would be used to keep people out — or in. He finds the pink room and says, “… The hell? Julie?” and then James Harris whacks him over the head. He clearly either sees Julie or something that reminds him of her. Best guess is that it’s a photo of her.
Tom is found on top of the abandoned water tower at Devil’s Den, the site where Will and Julie were killed and abducted. There’s a suicide note, which contains the confession that he killed Will. It’s pointed out that this has happened twice — a major act of violence ends the case. The case is closed with Tom as the alleged (and later convicted) murderer.
It’s taken as read that Tom killed himself but the viewers, in a turn of dramatic irony, know this is not the case. He was murdered. [Why wait this long to murder Tom? Yes, he was snooping around Hoyt, but why not tie up that loose end much earlier? If his death was staged anyway by moving the body, why leave him out there?]
Dan, Lucy’s cousin, could be working with the cops. We learn this as Tom overhears a few cops talking about “our dirtbag.” Dan meets Hays and West at a diner to tell them it’s a conspiracy but he also stalls and asks for $7,000 so he can tell them more. [Could some corrupt cops tied to Kindt be using him to throw off Hays and West?]
Lucy’s best friend, the fat white woman, is living in their house to keep the memories alive. She very reluctantly gives to the really pretty Amelia a photo containing Will and Julie with two people dressed as ghosts on Halloween.
Gorgeous Amelia learns that Dan is meeting with the Dead Eye Black Man at The Sawhorse bar, where Lucy also worked. [I think this whole story may turn on Dan. Is he a mercenary? Playing both sides? Is he Julie’s father? He seems to suggest that he knows Lucy well, which could be sexual. After all, Lucy came to live with them, which may mean they’re not related. And even if they were, this is the South. Hey-oh!]
The DEBM shows up at the lovely Amelia’s book reading and angrily interrogates her in front of the room. [I know I may have missed a lot but I did catch it was his other eye this time! For him to do this so publicly seems staged. It appears the Powers That Be are trying to pin it on him or throw the detectives off. Or perhaps he’s Mr. June and is honestly distraught over all of this. Net/net, this is not the same DEBM as the one in the trailer. He’s a different person. The other dude was probably just some dude.]
Kindt, now the Attorney General, repeatedly impedes investigation by releasing info about the kids trick-or-treating during Halloween, possibly authorizing the theft of files from the storage room, and certainly by pressuring Hays and West to harshly interrogate Tom.
Between 1990 and 2015
Dan dies.
Ed Hoyt dies.
2015
A film crew, led by true crime documentarian Elisa Montgomery, interviews a 70-year-old Hays, who has dementia. [The dementia adds a whole ’nother element to this; we don’t know how bad Hays is or will get. He already sees things and has to write himself notes, like Guy Pearce in Memento.]
Tragically, we learn the stunning Amelia is dead. [How? She was an ace investigator who published a book about the crime, so was she murdered? Hays’ daughter doesn’t speak to Hays; this estrangement must be based on something very big, considering they had a great relationship when Hays dropped her off for college.]
Wayne Hays’ son, Henry, is having an affair with Elisa. This may be neither here nor there. [Did the Powers That Be send in an attractive woman to get close to Henry and finally get to Hays to learn what he knows? After all, somebody is still watching him in a car outside his house. Clearly, Elisa is trying to seek out what Hays knows. And Hays is trying to do the same; we learn that in the opening minutes of the season.]
Somebody in a parked car across Hays’ house is keeping an eye on him. Hays and West get the license plate number.
At Hays’ insistence, after many hours and days of interviewing, Elisa finally tells him that they’re looking into child prostitution rings; she shows some previous cases. In a fun throwback, we see McConaughey’s and Harrelson’s photos in the newspaper, as they’d worked on a similar case in Louisiana.
Hays and West meet with a black woman who used to work for Hoyt Industries. She confirms a DEBM used to take care of Julie in the basement and that she and the rest of the staff weren’t allowed to go to a lot of places on the estate. She said the Hoyts had no luck with children. Ed Hoyt’s daughter, Isabel, lost her husband and daughter in a car wreck.
E7, the penultimate episode, ends with Ed Hoyt’s taking Hays away in his cars. [How in the world did Hoyt learn so fast about “the events of last night”? There seem to be only two possible explanations: 1. There were security cameras in the parking lot that captured Hays and West’s following Harris. 2. West went home and told his girlfriend, Laurie, and she called Hoyt. Maybe she’s a spy working for Hoyt? After all, she’s poultry science major and Hoyt runs a chicken plant. And she attends the Ozark Church, which is connected to Hoyt.]
[We can guess that Hays figures Hoyt is behind it all and that Hoyt tells him to drop it so he’ll leave his family alone. Hays left the force in 1990; this would seem to be the precipitating incident. It’s possible Hays just doesn’t remember this.]
[We can surmise from how S1 unfolded that the crime will be solved in 2015. How much we learn is anyone’s guess. We never did learn the full extent of the conspiracy in S1 but perhaps we’ll find out in S3 as it feels like a loose continuation. From where will the missing link come, though? There seem to be three things going on: Hays is finishing the luscious Amelia’s book. Elisa is slowly revealing info to Hays. And somebody is still watching Hays. So, there could be a clue coming in one or both or all of those scenarios. My guess is this leads to Hays and West’s finally finding Julie. Perhaps West and Hays solve it together, as partners.]
Here’s what the climax has to be: We find Julie. Where is she? What happened? Is she OK? Did she say Tom isn’t her father? If so, why? Is it possible he’s not? What happened in the pink room?
Prediction
My best guess is that Hays learns something from Elisa or from comely Amelia’s book/voice that he still hears. This sets a series of events in motion. They learn the following:
Ed Hoyt’s daughter, Isabel, was in need of a kid, so Ed bought Julie from Lucy, who worked at Hoyt and was “banging her boss,” as Tom said. Given the clues that Lucy said she has the “soul of a whore” and that Julie isn’t Tom’s daughter, Julie may even be the lovechild of Ed and Lucy or Dan and Lucy, like a surrogate type situation. I’ll bet Hoyt paid Lucy: she and Dan had Julie for the Hoyts and the agreement was that they’d buy her and give money to Lucy. Lucy couldn’t go to the police as she’s heavily involved in drugs.
Will and Julie were playing with the mixed couple dressed as ghosts. The black man and the white woman were Mr. June and Ed’s wife, respectively (obviously).
They kill Will as Isabel only wants a daughter.
The pink room at the Hoyts’ place is indeed the site of a child prostitution ring, where Julie and a number of the other girls at the Ozark orphanage were “tricking.” In short, they were victims of a sex ring.
Hoyt, being so rich, paid off Kindt to not prosecute. Kindt may or may not be involved in actual sexual acts but he probably is. The conspiracy goes higher than just the local police department. It’s an international sex trafficking ring but we only learn a little bit about it — just more than we learned in S1.
Julie, at the age of 18, and with the help of Lucy, her mother, escapes and is on the run. Hoyt has James kill Lucy and Dan as punishment.
Roland learns Laurie was a Hoyt spy, so that’s why they split.
The season climax is Hays and West find Julie.
Well, whether True Detective mentioned politics or not, we’re going to need some serious excitement when this is all over. All I’m saying is next week would be a good time for Mueller to drop his Report.
Rajiv Satyal is a standup comedian and pop culture junkie. He resides in Burbank, California, 20 miles from the city of Vernon — the site of the horrendous True Detective Season Two.