TRUE DETECTIVE season 3

i liked her line about 'you only stand upright out of habit' though.

yeah that was a thump to the chest

thought last night's ep was much better.

they're definitely having fun with the multiple era linkage

the scene where the older, senile Hays is looking for his family only to see a flashback to the '90s, and the flashback Hays is remembering his blood-covered self from a decade earlier in the window reflection was a interesting visual linkage

kind of felt like most of this episode was treading water though it did have two major things in it (the phone call from Julie and the reunion of the two detectives); but it took a long time to get there. guess it's the mid-point in the series though.

intrigued by Julie's "the man pretending to be my dad" comment.

also clearly by the 'present' time it appears that she has never resurfaced.

they may play it a different way, but given her phone call and the drifter kid's description of things she'd said, I get the impression that she was abducted and also brainwashed by whoever took her into thinking her dad was a horrible abuser

the cops seemed as if they were suspicious he might be culpable, though

i liked that episode! so bill clinton did all of this, right

Pizzolattogate

So, based on how this week's episode, it seems either the story does tie in with season 1, or else they're just imitating its plot a bit too closely. Still, it's nice to story is finally moving forward, and I did appreaciate the talk Hays had with his son about his infidelity and about fear, that was a good little scene.

"So, based on how this week's episode, it seems either the story does tie in with season 1" ??? how so?

My feeling is that this will end fairly unsurprisingly although probably in a satisfactory manner. My guess is the wife sold off the daughter, or gave the daughter to someone; or they took her for some reason. Perhaps dude wasn't the real father after all as implied. Wife was certainly paid to do something for those 8 years; guy new exactly which house to go to.

The scene of him entering the house was a little too You Were Never Really Here though.

unless you mean the secret society...in which case, yeah, maybe those do connect.

Yeah that's what I meant... Both seasons have rich and powerful local authority figures (Tuttle in S1, Hoyt in this one) kidnapping girls for sinister reasons... And we know Tuttle's conspiracy was active in the early '90s, so either there's a connection, or they're really just rehashing ideas from season one.

Maybe Pizzolatto is even trying to make up for how pointless and anticlimactic the whole conspiracy plot turned out to be in S1... I doubt this one is gonna end with a corny horror movie villain.

I'm really creeped out by pink prison basement

I was initially scared that the cop-turned-security guy was going to flip a switch and Tom would get locked in that room with the bank vault door without seeing a soul

I'm guessing Tom kills cop-turned-security guy which is why he vanished during the second investigation. not sure what's going to happen to tom though.

this is a show where my immediate response is "yeah, I hope he takes out that guy. had it coming."

My current theory is that Julie is safe in 1990 and is being put in danger by the investigation and that maybe even Hayes and West are being used by certain "nefarious men" to find her.

this season is not bringing me joy, less so than even season 2 :(

I like mahershadorff more than mattharrelson. so I will enjoy the last quarter of this season no matter what.

just hope mahershala says that time is a conic frustum before it's over

we got carcosa last night

googling around I was surprised to find so many people leaning on the theory that henry and elisa are having an affair (totally missed this) or that they are partners and there is no documentary

Theory? Wasn't it explicitly revealed in last week's episode that they are having an affair?

As for the other theory, why would Henry scam his dad instead of, you know, just asking Wayne to tell him about the case? Sounds far-fetched.

The way everyone in this episode emphasised the pedophile ring theory, together with the corrupt cop telling the detectives they don't know what's really going on, makes me think that Pizzolatto is gonna pull a twist ending and it's not a pedophile conspiracy, nor related to season 1, but something else.

They spent an awful lot talking about Hoyt's daughter for that to be irrelevant, so maybe the kids were for some reason meant for her? She was probably living in the pink room seen in the previous ep.

They said Hoyt's daughter lost her husband and kid in a car crash and went kinda nuts after that... So maybe Julie was kidnapped to become a replacement daughter daughter for her? And if she was brainwashed to believe the daughter is her real mom, that would explain the confused phone message she left for the cops.

My wild ass theory is that this season will bleed directly into the next, somehow.

The way everyone in this episode emphasised the pedophile ring theory, together with the corrupt cop telling the detectives they don't know what's really going on, makes me think that Pizzolatto is gonna pull a twist ending and it's not a pedophile conspiracy, nor related to season 1, but something else.

Yeah, there's something to this. The replacement daughter scenario definitely feels more likely than pedophile ring...That said, I'm not getting the sense the ending will be a full scooby doo style retcon of the season 1 mythology.

(I should say, the mythology as interpreted by Rust...who is in a lot of ways a mirror image of Wayne. Rust has lots of self-knowledge, is a kind of super-hero detective, remembers everything, incredibly introspective...the opposite of Wayne, for whom this story seems to heading in the direction of a rather severe self-reckoning.)

just watched ep 4 and you guys weren't wrong, it was bad. the race stuff was just terribly written/conceived. makes me wanna bail but i'll watch 5 tonight and see how i feel.

I don’t know why, but I find nic pizzolatto hanging out in his comments telling people that their true detective theories are wrong extremely funny pic.twitter.com/kFkYY8cOY1

— Nick Usen (@nickusen) February 18, 2019

oh man

I haven't read it but apparently there's an interview where he gets angry about people reading things into the subtext that he didn't intentionally put there

at some point a good writer tends to say things like "that's not what I intended, but.." or "that's interesting, I hadn't thought about it that way" but he's out there fighting fires

i could see it being annoying tho. people watch tv and use the same great minds that brought you the flat earth or pizzagate to interpret what's happening in a show

iirc the question was whether there was a homoerotic subcontext between Tom and West in season 3

I mean, maybe something jumps out later that makes it a definitive no, but given what we've seen you could definitely interpret that

it reads more like empathy from a long-term alcoholic for a closeted gay man who has drinking problems. but hey, ambiguous subtext

"Theory? Wasn't it explicitly revealed in last week's episode that they are having an affair?" If it was I completely missed that scene which is entirely possible since watching TV at my house means also having to take breaks and tell my dogs to stop fucking barking because the neighbor dared to close their car door too loudly

yeah it did happen last week. him and his dad talked about it

iirc the question was whether there was a homoerotic subcontext between Tom and West in season 3

I mean, maybe something jumps out later that makes it a definitive no, but given what we've seen you could definitely interpret that

it reads more like empathy from a long-term alcoholic for a closeted gay man who has drinking problems. but hey, ambiguous subtext

― mh, Tuesday, February 19, 2019 11:16 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i guess this isn't the most unreasonable fan theory I've heard

it's a really great example of a possible subtext that changes how you could perceive aspects of the show differently without really affecting the overall plot

this looks shipped. i can tell from some of the pixels and from seeing quite a few ships in my time.

I don't know what that means.

i have a theory that the room is fuchsia

and the man with one eye has two eyes, one of which is cloudy

going back and reading things I realize I can't remember about 1/2 of season 1. maybe I should revisit it.

A couple episodes behind atm but in case y'all were wondering, it seems the true detective is me because from the second they showed the cop pulling the backpack out of the goddamn enormous hole left in the floor by a goddamn landmine explosion I asked 'why tf isn't that thing at least a little singed around the edges?'. Which I believe puts me about a decade ahead of the investigators on the actual case.

always gotta be the smartest guy in the room dontcha

Somebody's gotta be, goddamnit! (throws case file across the room, stalks out to punch the dash of his squad car between pulls on a flask of cheap whiskey)

[]iirc the question was whether there was a homoerotic subcontext between Tom and West in season 3

I mean, maybe something jumps out later that makes it a definitive no, but given what we've seen you could definitely interpret that

it reads more like empathy from a long-term alcoholic for a closeted gay man who has drinking problems. but hey, ambiguous subtext

― mh, Tuesday, February 19, 2019 1:16 PM (four days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink[]

Woke up this morning thinking about the ep I watched last night (still one behind) and I'm now about 93% sure West is gay. His particular affection for Tom, the comments he's made about Hays's allusions to prison rape, the thing about never having been married even though we saw a scene which seemed to suggest otherwise (church lady was a friend/beard, perhaps helping him to pray the gay away). And I'm guessing this revelation is what led to the partners falling out. Probably should ask Pizzolatto and see how pissed off he gets.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/02/true-detective-roland-gay-tom-theory-daniel-sackheim

the article I was alluding to

Why tf is Pizzaman actively debunking theories about his show as it airs, does he not know how TV works? That really bugs me a lot for some reason. Like an author standing over your shoulder as you read and ponder the meaning of his words.

death of the author can’t come soon enough sometimes

SPOILERS!
.
.
.
That was... quite good for a season finale, I thought. Definitely better than the Season 1 ending. It was a bit disappointing that the solution to the mystery was exactly what you'd expect it be, based on the hints last week, but the mystery was never the biggest thing here, so it's okay. Some of it felt overwrought and over-explainy, like those soap-operaish flashback scenes showing exactly what happened to Julie, or Amelia's ghost tying the loose ends for Wayne (and for the viewer I guess, but at that point it was already pretty obvious what had happened even without all the exposition), but I did like her explanation that "sometimes the story goes long enough that you become unbroken". And the way Wayne's memory issues tied to the final closure/non-closure was a nice touch. So yeah, good season, decent ending, nothing mind-blowing but I wouldn't mind seeing more of this, if the quality stays up.

There were a couple of weird dramatic choices, though. Like, what was the point of having some creepy/suspenseful music play when Wayne drives to see whether Julie's still out there? We know Hoyt and her daughter are dead, and Junius Watts proved to be harmless, so was there really anyone threatening them anymore? Also, I'm sure someone smarter me can explain the meaning of the very last scene of Wayne in the jungle... The scene before was played like it would fade to the end titles, so I didn't really get what purpose that one extra bit served?

RESPOSE TO SPOILERS!
.
.
.

I liked the ending too, but kinda wish the final reveal had been built up more – more earned, instead of it fed to Hays in that weird dream/hallucination (it was sort of hinted at with "does this feel over?" remark). the grounds keeper over-explaining his family history with maintaining properties was a little eye roll-y with what went down in the first season. and maybe i'm thick, but i didn't see the happy(ish) ending coming.