True Detective - Season 3 (1 Viewer)

[SamT]

 

[TravisR]

Just bring back the 'interviews' so the plot can be followed and this season will be well-received.

 

[Sam Posten]

First two episodes were better than the entirety of S2, if a bit slow to get rolling. But tooooonns of hidden references!
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywoo...ests-of-leng-poems-meaning-season-3-premeire?

All in on this.

 

[TravisR]

Just bring back the 'interviews' so the plot can be followed and this season will be well-received.

Looks like they followed my advice.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I forgot this started, I need to catch up.

 

[SamT]

Great news then. I will watch it.

 

[Manisfive]

Really enjoyed the first two episodes.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Really enjoyed the first two episodes.

I'm assuming the two hour run time covers the first two episodes.

 

[Manisfive]

Yeah. An hour for each, I believe.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Very reminiscent of season one in ways both major and minor. I enjoyed it, but I hope it doesn’t wind up just being a carbon copy of what worked before.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

I'm on board. Definitely a step up (or back down to Southern Gothic) from S2.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Very much a return to some of the sensibilities of season 1; in particular - a Southern Gothic atmosphere, interviews, and a genuine sense of foreboding. The multiple time lines is a narrative device that will allow the show to tease out clues and pieces of the mystery until (hopefully) they finally coalesce.

Mahershala Ali is really carrying the weight of the series. Having an African American actor as the lead allows the show to explore elements of race relations in America. Something that episode two focused on in an effective (at least for me) manner. Curious to see how much of a factor that plays in the remainder of the season.

As a big fan of Jimi Hendrix, I particularly enjoyed the 'purple' hays reference. Nice one. I haven't seen Steven Dorff in a long, long time and while he is clearly second fiddle in this partnership he is holding his own in his scenes with Ali. Enjoying the performances by the supporting cast, in particular Hays' family members (wife and son especially.)

While I did enjoy season two, this is shaping up (at least so far) to be a stronger season. Definitely on board for the remainder.

- Walter.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Very much a return to some of the sensibilities of season 1; in particular - a Southern Gothic atmosphere, interviews, and a genuine sense of foreboding. The multiple time lines is a narrative device that will allow the show to tease out clues and pieces of the mystery until (hopefully) they finally coalesce.

Mahershala Ali is really carrying the weight of the series. Having an African American actor as the lead allows the show to explore elements of race relations in America. Something that episode two focused on in an effective (at least for me) manner. Curious to see how much of a factor that plays in the remainder of the season.

As a big fan of Jimi Hendrix, I particularly enjoyed the 'purple' hays reference. Nice one. I haven't seen Steven Dorff in a long, long time and while he is clearly second fiddle in this partnership he is holding his own in his scenes with Ali. Enjoying the performances by the supporting cast, in particular Hays' family members (wife and son especially.)

While I did enjoy season two, this is shaping up (at least so far) to be a stronger season. Definitely on board for the remainder.

- Walter.

I sat down and watched the first three episodes today and think it's on par with the first season so far.

 

[Sam Posten]

I agree. This episode went a little sideways until the end for me tho.

 

[Josh Dial]

I agree. This episode went a little sideways until the end for me tho.

I liked episode four a bit more than three, personally. While both episodes were on the slower side action-wise, the fourth episode provided a lot of really good clues:

• Lucy (the mother) said "children should laugh," which is similar to the turn of phrase used in the letter (supposedly) from the killer.
• Lucy said she has the "soul of a whore" which, to my ears, sounds like something the Catholic priest would say. This implies Lucy and the priest have had some interaction.
• Wayne eventually causes the death of someone who wears a suit--he hallucinates the people he killed, and amongst the Vietnamese soldiers is a guy in a suit.
• Roland gets injured at some point (he has a very bad limp in the middle time period).
• Dan O'Brien (the cousin from out of town in the big coat at the funeral) is dead.
• Lucy dies in 1988 outside Vegas.

Here's my very rough theory so far: Lucy gets involved with her boss at the chicken factory and Lucy gets pregnant. The child is Julie (at the funeral Lucy's mother-in-law starts raving about a rumour that Lucy had a child with another man). The boss, who recently lost his own daughter, seeks to "replace" the lost daughter with Julie. Lucy goes along with it because Julie "will have a better life" this way. The boss orchestrates a kidnapping using people from his factory, including a guy with a milky eye. The plan doesn't go as planned, and Will intervenes and is killed. It's possible there's a greater conspiracy at work here, and the boss is running a child sex trafficking ring.

My theory sort of breaks down here until we get more information, but I think the Wayne and Roland screw up a major part of the investigation during the early time period (or are complicit in shoddy work by the DA). Amelia figures it out during the middle time period, something happens, and Amelia helps cover up the coverup (or maybe she does something and Wayne covers it up). In between the middle and late time periods, Amelia and the daughter are killed. The daughter isn't "in California" doing music--she's dead. Perhaps Amelia was killed by the original killer as part of getting too close to the truth (the daughter is a bystander). Wayne's memory begins to fade, exacerbated by the tragedy. He has actually pieced it all together, but he's forgotten the killer and his involvement in the coverups or bungled investigation. The gun and the message to himself from the first episode foreshadows the ending: when Wayne finally remembers and re-pieces it all together and realizes his guilt...he will shoot himself.

 

[Sam Posten]

He -apologizes- to the guy in the suit, but not to the Vietnamese!

 

[Josh Dial]

He -apologizes- to the guy in the suit, but not to the Vietnamese!

Yup! Also, I spotted a long-haired teen boy in the deep background. Perhaps a foreshadow of the wrongfully convicted teen?

 

[The Drifter]

Great discussion on TD S03 - this is by far the most thoughtful discussion on this season I've seen so far online.

Big fan of True Detective S01 - S02. S01 was especially superb, and I feel it's WH & MM's best work. S02 was great as well, and took a completely different approach by having the storyline follow a more traditional narrative (i.e., not going back & forth in different time periods like S01).

So far, S03 is amazing as well, and may end up being almost as good as S01 - we'll see. The first four episodes we've seen so far are incredible. Very impressed by the acting, storyline, and haunting/brooding atmosphere. Very seamless transitions between 1980, 1990, and 2015. Elements of this storyline were obviously inspired by the infamous & heinous crimes that occurred in West Memphis, AR in the early '90's, which led to the imprisonment of the "West Memphis Three" teens.

As in S01, the theme of the older detectives remembering & being haunted by crimes they investigated earlier in their careers is a very strong element here. Having the two lead detectives (Hays & Dorrf) be veterans was interesting, especially given that Hays used his tracking skills (honed in Vietnam) to find the horrific crime scene.

I'm amused by the "Purple Hays" nick-name, which was an obvious reference to the iconic 1967 Jimi Hendrix track "Purple Haze"...a song that American troops in Vietnam - and state-side - would have been listening to in the late '60's & '70's.

Re: Episode 4, the interrogation scene with the long-haired "bad" kid is, again, an obvious reference to the fact that the authorities in the WMT true-crime case framed three teens for the crime, at least partially due to their being into heavy-metal music, etc. Not sure if it will happen the same way in the show, since they are changing a lot of elements around, including the era(s).

The finale of this fourth episode was amazing. Great penultimate scene when the Vietnam Veteran trashman spotted the trucks coming down the road & knew they were coming for him, so he threw off his bag & took off his shoes (so he could run faster) & hauled @$$ back to his home. He was obviously a munitions expert in Vietnam, and was ready for the vigilantes that were coming after him (presumably, he had somehow kept a lot of weapons he had gotten in the war). I especially liked how this episode ended - very jarring & sudden.

Going along with this, I'm certain that neither the veteran trashman - nor the teen boys - had anything to do with the death of the boy, or the kidnapping?! of the girl. As in the actual WMT case, they are just convenient scapegoats due to the fact that they're poor, can't afford decent legal representation, and live on the fringes of society.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Just two more episodes to go.

 

[The Drifter]

Caught up with TD S03 & saw episodes 5 & 6. Wow - truly incredible series. Especially gripping/creepy was the final scene of Episode 6. Several points/observations, that I got from the last several episodes:

-My certainty that the trashman (the vet that Hays was forced to kill) didn't have anything to do with the death of either child hasn't changed. The physical evidence re: the kids (that was found in his house after he died) was obviously planted by someone who got there after the firefight & just needed a convenient scapegoat....almost certainly the former LE officer (or someone working for him) that Hays & Roland interviewed, i.e. the manager of the chicken factor. Going along with this:

I think Josh Dial's post above which theorizes Lucy having an affair with her boss at the chicken factory - and his possibly being Julie's father - is spot-on.

In fact, not only do I strongly suspect the grieving/disturbed "father" wasn't Julie's biological father, he may not have even been Will's father, either.

-Going along with this, I wonder if Lucy's cousin - Dan O'Brien - is the father of Will?! When he was having the conversation with Hays & Roland in the diner, he implied that they were "close"...

-The sudden appearance & angry questions that milky eye asked of Amelia during her book signing (presumably sometime in 1990) were obviously not the ravings of a lunatic, but more someone who was trying to figure out exactly how much Amelia knew about the case. I.e., it's almost certain this milky-eyed man was involved in the crime(s) - in some capacity.

-Also as Josh Dial theorizes above, I suspect that Amelia dies because of something she finds out during her investigation of the crime. We don't know what her cause of death is, but we do know it happened between 1990 & 2015 - and I suspect it wasn't natural.