True Detective started off strong with its first season but tripped up a little during its second. However, as Lloyd told Harry in Dumb and Dumber, it "totally redeemed" itself with the third season. Starring Mahershala Ali and Stephen Dorff, the third season of HBO's True Detective honed its focus, intrigue, and characterization and felt closer to what the series set out to accomplish with its first season. It balanced the central case well with the personal lives of the characters while highlighting the relationship between Detectives Hays and West.

The story in True Detective's third season spans multiple decades and strongly hints at a conspiracy occurring in the area where the characters live. Unlike the previous two seasons of the show, the third season deliberately follows Detective Wayne Hays (Mahershala Ali) as a kind of narrator, except it's clear from early on that he might not be the most reliable narrator. Detective Hays suffers from Alzheimer's, although the disease hasn't fully consumed him. There are twists and turns throughout the series, just as any good mystery would have, along with red herrings, but by the end, it's obvious that this season wasn't about the case at all.

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How did True Detective Season 3 end?

By the end of the season, it clearly becomes a race to solve the Purcell case before Wayne's disease fully consumes him. Having not seen his former partner Roland West for over a decade after a falling out during the reopening of the case in 1990, the two finally reconnect and resolve to solve the case once and for all. They finally learn the truth, and after being able to look over all the clues, it makes sense. Some aspects of the case were simply circumstantial and sent them off on the wrong trail, but they also led to the same place.

All of the clues kept pointing to Hoyt Farms having some involvement in the murder and disappearance of the Purcell children, going as far as indicating that there was a pedophile conspiracy ring. Wayne and Roland discovered that everything was much simpler than that. Isabel Hoyt, the daughter of Edward Hoyt (Michael Rooker), lost her daughter, Mary, years prior to 1980. Lucy Purcell, an employee of Hoyt Farms at the time, brought her children to a work function, and that's when Isabel saw Julie. She gravitated toward Julie, saying she reminded her of Mary.

Isabel got permission from Lucy to meet with Mary in secret to play with her like Julie was her own daughter. Another Hoyt employee, Junius Watts, and Julie's brother, Will, attended the meetings as well. Unfortunately, when Isabel stopped taking her medication (Lithium), everything went downhill. Isabel thought Julie was actually Mary and tried taking her back to the Hoyt estate permanently. When Will stepped in to protect his sister, he was accidentally killed, but that didn't stop Isabel from taking Julie. She lived in a secured and fully furnished basement of the Hoyt estate until 1990 when Watts helped her escape.

Julie went to live in a convent where the nuns that took care of her helped fake her death, giving her the freedom of never looking over her shoulder again. Her childhood crush, who became the landscaper of the convent, discovered her, and the two eventually married and had a child of their own. Sadly, Wayne fell for the story that Julie died and didn't discover the truth until it was too late.

Wayne had an itch to keep digging after he started putting some pieces together. Julie dying from an STD didn't sit right with him, so he read through his wife's book about the Purcell case. That's when he realized that Julie faked her death. After getting her address, Wayne drove himself out to meet the adult Julie Purcell as a means of closure. Unfortunately, the moment he stepped out of his car, he forgot where he was and what he was doing there. He got to meet Julie and her daughter, but he clearly doesn't know who either of them are. It's possible Julie recognized him, especially since he was all over the news during the original 1980 case and the 1990 reopening of it. Her daughter most definitely recognized him since she just saw him and Roland West when they visited the convent, as she was there with her dad, the landscaper.

It's a powerful moment for the audience because they know the truth of it all, but the character, the hero who everyone was rooting for, is clueless and vulnerable. Instead, Wayne has to call for his son to come pick him up. Wayne was so close to having his closure, but his disease couldn't let him have it. And he'll go on living blissfully unaware or always having a nagging feeling that he's forgetting something.

What is True Detective Season 3 About?

The season stems from a missing persons case that occurred in 1980. Will and Julie Purcell, two children in a small Arkansas town, leave home on their bikes the same day that Steve McQueen died and were never seen again. Detectives Roland West (Stephen Dorff) and Wayne Hays (Mahershala Ali) are put on the case. It was a struggle to solve the case, and besides discovering the corpse of young Will, they never confidently closed it. However, evidence was found at the house of a scrap collector named Brett Woodard (Michael Greyeyes) after a shootout with the police. Higher-ups wanted to close the case soon due to the town panicking, so they pinned it on Woodard.

However, that never sat right with Hays, which led to his removal from the Major Crimes department and behind a desk where he wrote up reports. That lasted for ten years until Julie's fingerprints were found at a pharmacy after a robbery. Roland was put in charge of a new task force, and he brought Hays back into the fold, hoping he would get his old job as a detective back. Unfortunately, things go poorly for the two former partners and they fail to solve the case once again despite coming closer.

In 2015, an elderly Hays is interviewed by a small news crew for a 60 Minutes-like show about the case. While he recounts the events of the case with the director, his memory becomes sharper, and he's able to remember details he forgot about, which leads him to chase down more clues and hopefully solve the case once and for all. He's also reunited with his old partner once again, though it took some convincing due to the way their relationship ended in the '90s. It was hard for West to turn down his old partner since he couldn't remember everything that transpired between them.

What didn’t the Season 3 Ending Mean?

Time and memory are major themes throughout True Detective's third season. There's an underlying theme of rediscovery that reverberates throughout the season and the writers hammer home with Julie when the audience learns she spent a good chunk of her childhood believing she was Isabel's daughter Mary. Hays goes through a similar journey of rediscovery as his younger self his notably more cold and callous than the elderly version in 2015. It's hard to believe his relationship with his wife Amelia (Carmen Ejogo) was ever strained when the audience first meets 2015 Wayne. It's unclear if his change was because he merely matured or if he simply forgot those darker aspects of himself.

Then there's the final scene of the season, which may haunt fans for years. It's an ambiguously happy ending as an elderly Wayne is sitting on the porch of his home with his family and old partner, watching his grandchildren play in the yard. The scene cuts to a significantly younger Wayne from his time as a soldier in Vietnam. He's alone, looks over his shoulder, and then disappears into the brush. This can be interpreted in a few ways.

The entire season deals with memory, and time starts bleeding together for Wayne, where he's not sure what year certain events took place. It's a struggle for him to remember details clearly. His younger self vanishing into the Vietnam jungle could be a sign that the disease won. Instead of being clear about who he is and where he's at, he's lost in the shadows and can't find his way out. It's also possible that the flashback to Vietnam is a hint that none of the events actually took place.

Wayne worked reconnaissance for the United States Army, infiltrating enemy lines alone to gather intelligence. Perhaps being alone in the jungle for extended periods of time forced him to escape into his head, where he created false scenarios as a means to cope with the imminent danger surrounding him. This theory harkens back to season one when Rust Cohle discusses his time as an undercover agent and going under for longer than any department traditionally allowed. Jobs like that mess with one's head. The poetic symmetry of this falls into the audience's hands as, like Wayne, they don't know what is real.

True Detective

Mystery

Taking inspiration from the hard-boiled mystery genre, True Detective has told four separate stories about complicated men and women getting to the bottom of intense cases, all the while uncovering the darker sides of humanity. The latest season, Night Country, stars Jodie Foster and Kali Reis, and takes place in chilling Alaska.

Release Date

January 12, 2014

Creator

Nic Pizzolatto, Issa Lopez

Cast

Matthew McConaughey , Woody Harrelson , Rachel McAdams , Colin Farrell , Vince Vaughn , Stephen Dorff , Mahershala Ali , Jodie Foster , Kali Reis

Seasons

4

Streaming Service(s)

HBO Max

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