True Detective - Season 3

[Ja'moke]

My prediction for how it'll play out. Your Hoyt Food boss man's daughter never got over her own daughter dying, so Mr Hoyt arranged with Lucy Purcell (who used to work for him) to kidnap her daughter, he paid her off, and they let the Hoyt daughter raise little Julie as her own in that pink room.

[BlodwynPig]

My prediction for how it'll play out. Your Hoyt Food boss man's daughter never got over her own daughter dying, so Mr Hoyt arranged with Lucy Purcell (who used to work for him) to kidnap her daughter, he paid her off, and they let the Hoyt daughter raise little Julie as her own in that pink room.

*yawn* I hope it's not that.

[BlodwynPig]

*probably is that*

lovely score at the end of that episode. Very Twin Peaks dark woozy.

[Rev+]

It would be a massive twist for it *not* to be that at this point.  It's a shaggy dog story distracting us from what happened to Amelia in the end.

[funtimefrankie]

My prediction for how it'll play out. Your Hoyt Food boss man's daughter never got over her own daughter dying, so Mr Hoyt arranged with Lucy Purcell (who used to work for him) to kidnap her daughter, he paid her off, and they let the Hoyt daughter raise little Julie as her own in that pink room.

this is pretty much confirmed isn't it?

it's just the rest of the questions that we need answering. Hays wife, Hays daughter, is roland part of the conspiracy, where is Julie, what did Hays figure out before his illness got worse etc

[up_the_hampipe]

I thought that was a great finale. Some of it was a bit on the nose, I guess, but it tied everything up without seeming like a completely resolved ending.

[Ja'moke]

I thought that was a great finale. Some of it was a bit on the nose, I guess, but it tied everything up without seeming like a completely resolved ending.

Same. And that final shot of Wayne disappearing into the jungles of Vietnam was very unsettling. (my recap for those interested: https://www.tvinsider.com/755264/true-detective-season-3-finale-recap/)

[BlodwynPig]

Excellent ending although a tad beige - would love to have seen Shub-Niggurath emerge from the Vietnamese Jungle at the end.

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

Same. And that final shot of Wayne disappearing into the jungles of Vietnam was very unsettling. (my recap for those interested: https://www.tvinsider.com/755264/true-detective-season-3-finale-recap/)

Just one small observation about your recap, which I mostly agree with. Wayne's daughter isn't really estranged. According to Pizzolatto himself, she was more in touch with her mother than with her father, and when Amelia died, they had less contact with each other, but nothing more. In Wayne's worried mind and broken memories, he supposes that it could be something worse, which the narrative decided to leave unclear until the finale.

Pizzolatto took a lot of time answering questions on Instagram, and here are a few samples.

Q: What is the point of a journalist? Who killed Tom? What is the result with Hoyt? Who were those two ghosts? A lot of understatement
A: The point of the journalist was to draw Wayne back into the case and provide impetus for its reemergence while at the same time addressing and discounting conspiracy theories. Harris James killed Tom. Feel like the result with Hoyt explained itself. The two ghosts were Junius and Isabelle.

Q: please explain Will & teenagers in the woods. Will & Julie were playing hide and seek in the woods with Hoyts daughter and Mr June, WILL ran into teenagers in his bike and asks where's his sister. Teenagers stole his bike, and chased him into the woods (all in evening). Then Will comes back to the spot, and gets killed in the accident (daytime) . The whole story makes no sense and doesn't fit in Freddie Burns story.
A: It makes sense. Will was looking for his sister and couldn't find her. He ran into the teenagers, who harassed him. When he eventually circled back to "a" spot (not "the" spot; there's no "the" spot), he found Isabelle trying to take Julie away.
There was a longer edit that showed all this in more detail. [...] my preferred cut was 88 minutes and included extended and deleted scenes. Happy with what we have, though.

Q: Does the address note make its way to the television producer?
A: No. They're done with her. But Henry's a brilliant detective... (which was demonstrated in a deleted scene. Sigh.)

Q: How did Amelia die? You never mentioned it in the show. Also it was never clarified what caused there to be a fallout between Hays and his daughter?!?
A: Lost scenes in having to cut down the finale:
* Amelia and Wayne living their lives in 2013, planning an extended vacation around the world. It culminated in Amelia's death (peaceful, but sudden, in her sleep). Nothing nefarious, just sad.
* Extended scene with Wayne and his daughter, Becca, indicating what her life is like, that she and Wayne don't have any problem other than neither of them is good at reaching out (Amelia was the parent who always called every week), and they've both been lonely without the other.
Hoping they're deleted scenes on the DVD. But that's the answer.

[Rev+]

A decent ending, and ending, and ending, and eventual ending.

The story was slight in the end but that's fine, as this is about the characters rather than the crime.  It was a decent enough job in that respect.  The final sequence is causing some arguments, and I suppose it was intended to do so.  For me, Hays disappearing into the foliage is him being fully erased by dementia.  The case was the only tether keeping his mind active and he knows he's done.

[rasta-spouse]

What was with that bar fight? I bet Dorff demanded that be in.

When I saw the hour and fifteen runtime I thought that'd mean there'd be some serious happenings. Hmmmm.

[Mobius]

Thanks for those Pizzo answers - are all of those questions compiled somewhere?

[up_the_hampipe]

Same. And that final shot of Wayne disappearing into the jungles of Vietnam was very unsettling. (my recap for those interested: https://www.tvinsider.com/755264/true-detective-season-3-finale-recap/)

Some great interpretations there. Like it! Love it!

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

What was with that bar fight? I bet Dorff demanded that be in.

The bar fight was Roland's way to express his anger after the death of Harris, in which he felt manipulated by Wayne. Roland may also be secretly an alcoholic (or a closeted gay, even if Pizzolatto doesn't support that theory), which may explain his concern for the father of the kids and the grief he feels after his supposed "suicide." He's supposed to hit rock bottom at this very moment.

Some people view the final shot as a symbol of Wayne's memories fading even more into the dark, which is not Ja'Moke's take by the way. Wayne may have Alzheimer's or a similar disorder (even if his physician states it isn't Alzheimer's or dementia), but, if the disorder is progressive, he was still in the early stages, without any clue of further deterioration of his condition during the episodes.

[up_the_hampipe]

The bar fight was Roland's way to express his anger after the death of Harris, in which he felt manipulated by Wayne. Roland may also be secretly an alcoholic (or a closeted gay, even if Pizzolatto doesn't support that theory), which may explain his concern for the father of the kids and the grief he feels after his supposed "suicide." He's supposed to hit rock bottom at this very moment.

Some people view the final shot as a symbol of Wayne's memories fading even more into the dark, which is not Ja'Moke's take by the way. Wayne may have Alzheimer's or a similar disorder (even if his physician states it isn't Alzheimer's or dementia), but, if the disorder is progressive, he was still in the early stages, without any clue of further deterioration of his condition during the episodes.

If Pizzolatto says he's not gay, he's not gay. He created the character.

[BlodwynPig]

(or a closeted gay, even if Pizzolatto doesn't support that theory),

eh? he wrote it.

Harry Potter is a terrorist and harbours a dark secret, even if JK Rowling doesn't support that theory.

[mjwilson]

If Pizzolatto says he's not gay, he's not gay. He created the character.

lol

Anyway I'm seeing that a lot of people on the Internet seem to hate the finale, which I... don't quite get. It seemed to draw things together fairly well and give us a nicely optimistic turn of events, which isn't something I was expecting from TD. Maybe the stuff with his wife and daughter mentioned upthread should have been included, but otherwise I'm not so sure what people are cross about.

[Mobius]

It was alright, but literally just having the ghost wife explain everything, and then having milky one-eyed man explain everything was a bit lazy.

The flashback scene where the brother banged his head in the forest and died was unbelievably shite.

Too much wife and husband arguing in this one.

[Rev+]

Wayne may have Alzheimer's or a similar disorder (even if his physician states it isn't Alzheimer's or dementia)

Didn't he just say that he suspected what was causing his memory problems?  That points towards Alzheimer's, as I think it's still the case that you can only ever have 'suspected Alzheimer's', a conclusive diagnosis involving popping your brain out after you've shuffled off.

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

If Pizzolatto says he's not gay, he's not gay. He created the character.

That was still a theory I saw a few times from various people. And he may have created the character, but Dorff might have decided to play the character as gay, supported by some of the directors before it was Pizzolatto's turn in the chair, and it wouldn't be the first time anyway that a writer brings more to his creation than he intended to.

[BlodwynPig]

That was still a theory I saw a few times from various people. And he may have created the character, but Dorff might have decided to play the character as gay, supported by some of the directors before it was Pizzolatto's turn in the chair, and it wouldn't be the first time anyway that a writer brings more to his creation than he intended to.

No matter. Take what you want from it.

[colacentral]

It was alright, but literally just having the ghost wife explain everything, and then having milky one-eyed man explain everything was a bit lazy.

The flashback scene where the brother banged his head in the forest and died was unbelievably shite.

Too much wife and husband arguing in this one.

Yeah, agree with your criticisms of the flashback especially. There was a similar moment early in the series - someone talking about Harris and it helpfully cuts to a quick shot of Harris from a previous episode to remind the audience who he is. CSI shite that. I feel like after season 2 took a critical mauling Pizzolato has bent over backwards at times to get the mainstream audience back on board, not always to the show's benefit. Though it did seem to be top level trolling by him to have Rust & Cohle shown on the laptop and the idea of a vast pedo conspiracy mentioned only for the conclusion to be "nah bollocks, no relation to this season at all."

The other two terrible scenes that stood out were the opener in the woods with Hoyt, which I thought was clunky to begin with but ruined further by the inappropriate and intrusive score; and the bar fight, in which somehow Dorff's character didn't end up smashed to pieces, lying in a coma with internal bleeding. (Though the scene was worth it for the later scene with the dog).

Apart from that, I really enjoyed it, and I'm sort of glad we didn't get the same global network of pedos ending that we had for the first two seasons. It seems that Pizzolato purposefully deployed some anti-climax here and it worked to put us in Hays' shoes - the mystery is what keeps the characters going, rather than the answer, which is always going to be disappointing.

It seems like this was also a comment on audience reactions to the first season's conclusion (and possibly the real reason for bringing Rust & Cohle into it) - Hays spends virtually his entire life trying to uncover a big nefarious conspiracy and in the end the explanation is about as mundane as it gets. "No closure." What did they expect? They're almost devastated to have got their answer. They, like us, invested so much time in theorising the answer that it was always going to be an anti-climax. In that respect, is there anything to be said for Hays losing his memory at "Julie's" driveway? Conveniently being unable to get full closure, avoiding another potential disappointment.

Overall I think this was my favourite season so far, one I'd watch it again, which I can't really say for the first two.

[a peepee tipi]

Thank you for being much better at saying what I wanted to say

[Moribunderast]

I probably missed a line that explained it at some point throughout but was Hoyt's death and/or leaving the mansion abandoned explained at some point? I'm a bit confused as to why he'd leave the pink rooms as they were as opposed to destroying them to cover the tracks of what happened there.

[Crabwalk]

Roland is as gay as can be. Trust the tale, not the teller.