# Anybody watching True Detective season 3? (Spoiler free, please) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 15, 2019, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-watching-true-detective-season-3-spoiler-free-please/827829 "2019-01-15T22:32:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2019, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-watching-true-detective-season-3-spoiler-free-please/827829/41 "2019-02-28T20:52:13Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > This was a big Ringer theory. I simply didn’t see that, I think the commentators are reaching a bit there. > > [spoiler]The way I read it, Hays simply forgot. The final scene of him walking into the jungle was a metaphor of his brain totally giving out on him and the real “Wayne Hays” is gone, lost in the weeds. > > Maybe his son will use the note to finally close the loop though. If Hays really remembered and wanted to let it die, the writers wouldn’t have added this contradictory bit of uncertainty. > [/spoiler] Knowing something and choosing not to tell because it would only cause harm to make yourself feel better was brought up SEVERAL times the entire season, with his son’s cheating and with his wife and the case of the top my head. It fits perfectly and there was clearly a reaction when he drank the water. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2019, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-watching-true-detective-season-3-spoiler-free-please/827829/42 "2019-03-02T00:04:54Z")
> [@duality72](#): > > Yeah, I think saying it didn’t quite stick the landing is a good way to put it. The season’s been great and top notch acting, but the ending was kind of just…there. Way better than season two, but not quite the final dramatic oomph of season one. The finale for Season 1 was widely criticized as mundane and anti-climactic. All of the borderline-supernatural navel gazing was thrown out the window for the final episode, which was essentially a Law & Order episode with a higher budget. The season 1 finale was so hated it retroactively tainted the entire first season with its stink. The second season was all suck all the time, but this third season was a true return to form: Captivating season, disappointing finale. Not as disappointing as the first season finale – not by a long shot – but still not quite up to par compared to the other episodes. “Didn’t quite stick the landing” is a good way to phrase it. By contrast, season 1 shattered both knees and crumpled to the ground screaming in its attempt to stick a landing. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2019, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-watching-true-detective-season-3-spoiler-free-please/827829/43 "2019-03-02T01:10:14Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > The second season was all suck all the time,… It had a really cool theme song. Nevermind by Leonard Cohen. You have to give them that. :D ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2019, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-watching-true-detective-season-3-spoiler-free-please/827829/44 "2019-03-02T01:32:14Z")
I really don’t have much of a problem with the ending of season 3. ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2019, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-watching-true-detective-season-3-spoiler-free-please/827829/45 "2019-03-02T13:38:55Z")
Loved the ending(s). That was a ride worth taking. The only thing that really stuck in my craw was the glorification of cops beating the shit out of handcuffed suspects. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2019, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-watching-true-detective-season-3-spoiler-free-please/827829/46 "2019-03-03T01:22:23Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > This was a big Ringer theory. I simply didn’t see that, I think the commentators are reaching a bit there. > > [spoiler]The way I read it, Hays simply forgot. The final scene of him walking into the jungle was a metaphor of his brain totally giving out on him and the real “Wayne Hays” is gone, lost in the weeds. > > Maybe his son will use the note to finally close the loop though. If Hays really remembered and wanted to let it die, the writers wouldn’t have added this contradictory bit of uncertainty. > [/spoiler] I don’t see it as reaching at all. It seemed quite obvious to me. Hays’s eyes clearly show recognition and understanding when he drinks the water, and the music cue also gets more dramatic. He remembered who they were and chose not to say anything because really what would be the point? ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2019, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-watching-true-detective-season-3-spoiler-free-please/827829/47 "2019-03-03T02:07:08Z")
> [@GreysonCarlisle](#): > > The only thing that really stuck in my craw was > > the glorification of cops beating the shit out of handcuffed suspects. Because I was so underwhelmed with season 2 I waited for all of season 3 to air before binging the entire thing in a few days. Unfortunately, here we are a week later and now I’ve just binged all of I Am The Night excepting the finale, which airs Monday. This was bad timing, as I have trouble separating the two shows in my memory. I Am The Night stars Chris Pine as a war hero who frequently deals with ghosts of the Korean soldiers he killed in the war, and it’s presented exactly the same way Hays’ ghosts of the North Vietnamese he killed was presented. Worse, the I Am The Night guy keeps getting arrested, handcuffed and beaten while in handcuffs. Your comment reminded me of how similar the two shows are. I’d say True Detective 3 had a moderately better script and better acting, but I like India Eisley a lot so I think I’m enjoying I Am The Night more. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2019, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-watching-true-detective-season-3-spoiler-free-please/827829/48 "2019-03-06T07:59:15Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > The “it’s about the journey, not the destination” is some cop out bullshit. The journey matters, but so does the destination. It’s a little thing called plot, and when you make the plot exist solely in service of character development you only have half a story. It’s like auto racing, cars going in a (flat) circle. I’d rather go somewhere interesting with my car. There’s more than one type of auto racing, my friend. You’re talking about an oval track. This season was the Nurburgring. There was absolutely a plot, and it was very multifaceted and took many twists and turns. Granted, the non-linear nature of it, caused by the multiple timelines, made it a little bit scattered. But…hey, the show is called True Detective, the audience is supposed to try to think like a detective and put together the scattered clues to try to figure out what’s going on. I said, in my post that you quoted, that “it’s not really about the case.” I didn’t say the show is “not about the plot, just the character development.” It is about the plot. The PLOT is about more than the CASE. Now that I’ve addressed that - I’m late to this thread because I had to delay watching the finale, since I promised someone (who was away at the time) that I’d watch it with them when they got back, so I just now saw it tonight. All told, I think it was a satisfactory ending. No mind-boggling twists; but many great scenes and it ended with a sense of closure. I have a few thoughts, in no particular order: 1. I like that they built up Hoyt as this incredibly sinister character - I had pictured an icy and slick looking guy in a suit, the Arkansas version of a Film Noir power broker at the helm of a vast conspiracy. They cleverly subverted our expectations by having him turn out to be, basically, a rumpled drunk, worn out by the grief of losing his wife and then having his daughter go off the deep end…they humanized him. Everyone in this season has basically been humanized. There aren’t any mustache-twirlers; there are no Supreme Evils; there are no mindless psychopaths. Everyone’s basically just a flawed but relatable human. 2. I am not sure what to think about the final scene of flashback-Hays walking into the jungle of Vietnam. Does this mean - as some on the Reddit have suggested - that he’s “lost in the woods” finally, for good, in terms of his memory? Or is it just to suggest that - despite attaining closure and, apparently, some inner peace, the “tracker” is still part of him that will never leave…always pushing forward cautiously, always looking over his shoulder, always acutely aware of his surroundings…a reminder that no matter how much his memory may fade, his _instincts_ never will? 3. I really am glad that they averted the “lurid underage sex trafficking cult” angle. It would have been too much like S1 and they knew it, so while they may have dropped hints and speculations, as red herrings, the more astute posters on Reddit correctly predicted that the motivations behind the kidnapping would be something less predictable. I was, however, surprised by the death of Will having turned out to be an accident. To be honest, the death of Will was perhaps deliberately underplayed as a plot element, so that the viewer sort of forgets about the whole situation as the show progresses - when the true cause was revealed, I was honestly not expecting it at all. 4. Mahershala Ali is definitely top-tier, and I expect a lot of great things from him in the coming years. Dorff, though, was the “sleeper star” of the show. After years (decades?) of languishing in obscurity, he just came out of nowhere and knocked all of us on our ass with his performance here. Talk about a comeback. I’m hoping his career enjoys a major resurgence after this and he gets the chance to shine in further projects. ---
**Author:** ![duality72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duality72/32/3910_2.png) [@duality72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duality72)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2019, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-watching-true-detective-season-3-spoiler-free-please/827829/49 "2019-03-07T20:20:08Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > The finale for Season 1 was widely criticized as mundane and anti-climactic. All of the borderline-supernatural navel gazing was thrown out the window for the final episode, which was essentially a Law & Order episode with a higher budget. > > The season 1 finale was so hated it retroactively tainted the entire first season with its stink. The second season was all suck all the time, but this third season was a true return to form: Captivating season, disappointing finale. Not as disappointing as the first season finale – not by a long shot – but still not quite up to par compared to the other episodes. Well I might be remembering the first season with rose-tinted glasses, but as I recall the mystery ended with the discovery of a strange/dramatic location with unusual characters, a mysterious vortex, a tense gun fight, and the resolution of dozens of missing persons and murder cases. I wouldn’t call any of that mundane or anti-climactic. It was also the most highly watched episode of that series by a large margin. Looking back at some of the [negative](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-disappointing-finale-of-true-detective) [critical](https://io9.gizmodo.com/what-the-hell-kind-of-ending-was-that-true-detective-1540629251) [reaction](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/03/the-em-true-detective-em-finale-thats-it/284312/) at the time, I find myself more embarrassed for the critics than the show (not that it was perfect, just saying). ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2019, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-watching-true-detective-season-3-spoiler-free-please/827829/50 "2019-03-07T23:42:26Z")
> [@duality72](#): > > Well I might be remembering the first season with rose-tinted glasses, but as I recall the mystery ended with the discovery of a strange/dramatic location with unusual characters, a mysterious vortex, a tense gun fight, and the resolution of dozens of missing persons and murder cases. I wouldn’t call any of that mundane or anti-climactic. It was also the most highly watched episode of that series by a large margin. Looking back at some of the [negative](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-disappointing-finale-of-true-detective) [critical](https://io9.gizmodo.com/what-the-hell-kind-of-ending-was-that-true-detective-1540629251) [reaction](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/03/the-em-true-detective-em-finale-thats-it/284312/) at the time, I find myself more embarrassed for the critics than the show (not that it was perfect, just saying). Here’s a selection of posts in the SDMB thread for season 1 after the finale aired: > [@True Detective - HBO - McConaughey / Harrelson \[SPOILERS\]](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-detective-hbo-mcconaughey-harrelson-spoilers/660697/388): > > Well that was underwhelming. > > Carcosa was \*incredibly \*creepy though. Not a place I would ever want to walk through at night. _shiver_ > [@True Detective - HBO - McConaughey / Harrelson \[SPOILERS\]](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-detective-hbo-mcconaughey-harrelson-spoilers/660697/389): > > Production values: Astonishing > Cast and acting: Exceptional > Dialogue: Interesting (even with the occasional eyeroll at Rust’s Philosophy 101 and near-death experience) > Plot: I feel like I have seen this one billion times before > [@True Detective - HBO - McConaughey / Harrelson \[SPOILERS\]](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-detective-hbo-mcconaughey-harrelson-spoilers/660697/391): > > Yeah, the finale was very standard action flick. > [@True Detective - HBO - McConaughey / Harrelson \[SPOILERS\]](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-detective-hbo-mcconaughey-harrelson-spoilers/660697/392): > > Yeah, I wish I had taken Pizzolatto at his word a little more. I think this episode would have been much more enjoyable if I had just watched for a typical detective story, rendered with incredible style and talent, plus a soupçon of eldritch weirdness. I got too wrapped up in looking for clues and trying to predict what crazy things would happen. > [@True Detective - HBO - McConaughey / Harrelson \[SPOILERS\]](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-detective-hbo-mcconaughey-harrelson-spoilers/660697/397): > > Yup. I think[this Atlantic article](http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/03/the-em-true-detective-em-finale-thats-it/284312/)is pretty fair - lots of praise for the quality of the production, reflection about why it felt sort of flat at the end, and a bit of mea culpa for embracing the conspiracy-theory hysteria: > [@True Detective - HBO - McConaughey / Harrelson \[SPOILERS\]](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-detective-hbo-mcconaughey-harrelson-spoilers/660697/416): > > Speaking for myself, I wasn’t looking for an unexpected twist, but I was hoping for an ending that did not include thriller clichés like– > [snipped] > > And I was disappointed that certain questions were so strongly emphasized but not resolved, like: > [snipped] > [@True Detective - HBO - McConaughey / Harrelson \[SPOILERS\]](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-detective-hbo-mcconaughey-harrelson-spoilers/660697/418): > > All fair criticisms. If someone asked me if they should check out True Detective, I’d say, “Yes - it’s a bog-standard serial killer cop story, but told with a ton of style and excellent characterization.” However, I feel like the finale does rely on more pedestrian tropes without the artistic flourishes that made the first half of the season so mesmerizing. > [@True Detective - HBO - McConaughey / Harrelson \[SPOILERS\]](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-detective-hbo-mcconaughey-harrelson-spoilers/660697/485): > > I think it was one of the best shows ever made until the last tie episodes when it somehow became an ordinary, boring cop show. > [@True Detective - HBO - McConaughey / Harrelson \[SPOILERS\]](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-detective-hbo-mcconaughey-harrelson-spoilers/660697/488): > > Yeah, it was a pretty good ride until the ending. > [@True Detective - HBO - McConaughey / Harrelson \[SPOILERS\]](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-detective-hbo-mcconaughey-harrelson-spoilers/660697/490): > > Which is exactly why the last two episodes were so disappointing. The story you describe took a back seat to police procedural and a fucking shootout. ---
**Author:** ![tingbudong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tingbudong/32/520_2.png) [@tingbudong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tingbudong)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2019, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-watching-true-detective-season-3-spoiler-free-please/827829/51 "2019-03-14T05:57:19Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > Dorff, though, was the “sleeper star” of the show. After years (decades?) of languishing in obscurity, he just came out of nowhere and knocked all of us on our ass with his performance here. Talk about a comeback. I’m hoping his career enjoys a major resurgence after this and he gets the chance to shine in further projects. Totally. Last thing I remember him in was the 1st Blade movie and some vape commercials. He really surprised me. Sent from my SM-G920W8 using Tapatalk [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-watching-true-detective-season-3-spoiler-free-please/827829.md?page=2)