True Detective Season 3 (SPOILERS)

[Iskaral Pust]

44 minutes ago, red snow said:

Crackpot theory. The phone call was not about her real dad. It was about the high up police officer (or someone else in the video conference) and that's the person who kidnapped her. The dialogue in that scene was pointedly vague so that we could assume it was about her real dad but had enough room for it to be about another person she saw on the screen. Crackpot i know but a broken clock can be right twice a day. Throw enough ideas out and one might be correct.

That's definitely how I was interpreting it as I was watching it.  I thought she was referring to the slimy politician/state's attorney guy who was at the podium before her father, because that guy had a history of interfering in the investigation and Hays was already suspicious of him.  But she did say something quite explicit like "that guy who was pretending to be my father" so that's harder to fit into this theory unless you contort it a bit and assume she meant that the politician/state's attorney was acting fatherly in his concern for her.  Also, I cannot recall if that guy was actually on the television broadcast, or if he was just speaking to the people in the room before the broadcast started.  My memory was already fuzzy about the timing in that earlier scene.

[Iskaral Pust]

50 minutes ago, red snow said:

I think dorf is going to come out of this the best. Everyone knows ali is excellent (from everything he's been in) but I'll be honest in "the vampire from blade" excelling. It also helos that his character is a lot more sympathetic. That's not to say ali/hays aren't great - the way his character is dealing with PTSD/anxiety in his negative thinking about his wife and how others see him is really well done. It might be the writers have done their research as a lot of neurodegenerative diseases have depression/other mental health issues before the later stages manifest.

 

The Hays character is so unlikable in his interactions with his wife in 1990.  His post-Vietnam remoteness/aloofness and his (prickly, according to West) sensitivity to racial animus seem appropriate and justified.   Although 2015 West claims that he was generally too much of an asshole and not a good friend. 

But the way he treats Amelia in 1990 just makes him much less likable or sympathetic as a character.  Whether it's the strain of marital problems generally, or distrust of Amelia's motivations with her book, or extended PTSD, or whatever else, the actor is doing a great job in portraying a grey character but the character is harder and harder to like.

[red snow]

6 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

That's definitely how I was interpreting it as I was watching it.  I thought she was referring to the slimy politician/state's attorney guy who was at the podium before her father, because that guy had a history of interfering in the investigation and Hays was already suspicious of him.  But she did say something quite explicit like "that guy who was pretending to be my father" so that's harder to fit into this theory unless you contort it a bit and assume she meant that the politician/state's attorney was acting fatherly in his concern for her.  Also, I cannot recall if that guy was actually on the television broadcast, or if he was just speaking to the people in the room before the broadcast started.  My memory was already fuzzy about the timing in that earlier scene.

if he kidnapped her he may have been pretending to be her father? I'm not certain whether the politician guy's statement was televised (I think it was) but he and the policeman with the medals and odd uniform were all behind the real dad when giving his statement

[red snow]

1 minute ago, Iskaral Pust said:

The Hays character is so unlikable in his interactions with his wife in 1990.  His post-Vietnam remoteness/aloofness and his (prickly, according to West) sensitivity to racial animus seem appropriate and justified.   Although 2015 West claims that he was generally too much of an asshole and not a good friend. 

But the way he treats Amelia in 1990 just makes him much less likable or sympathetic as a character.  Whether it's the strain of marital problems generally, or distrust of Amelia's motivations with her book, or extended PTSD, or whatever else, the actor is doing a great job in portraying a grey character but the character is harder and harder to like.

exactly, Hays is meant to be a dick although the writing and acting is good enough to show that the character usually knows he's being a dick but can't quite stop himself. eg when the kids said they had to say they love each other. Hays knows he's messing up but can't shake it. 

West on the other hand is appearing to be a much more sensitive fellow. Or he is until we find out some more about him.

[Iskaral Pust]

16 hours ago, Triskele said:

So when Hays makes the connection to "children should laugh" from both the book and the note was to point the finger at Amelia, and if so, maybe a misdirection?  

 

15 hours ago, Ran said:

Well, I think the idea is that it was Lucy, not Amelia, whom Hays takes to be implicated 

In the final scene with West, Hays tells him about finding the quote and says that he thinks it means Lucy wrote the note so that her husband would believe Julie was still alive and not feel so guilty/depressed/anxious about it.

But when Hays first saw the quote in the book, I initially wondered if he thought it implicated Amelia in some way.  A couple of times I thought that Hays' distrust and resentment toward Amelia (or her memory) implicated her more negatively than just achieving her success on the back of others' misery.  But I think overall that is probably the limit of her wrongdoing in this story.

[unJon]

On 2/1/2019 at 8:19 PM, Kalbear said:

To be fair, while it was a crime scene it was hardly a locked up place 24-7. I doubt they had posted guards or anything like that. A cop could have planted it (though the one that saw it seemed surprised about seeing it, and only noticed it when they did a flash of their camera), but it's not like a cop is the only one who could have gone there. 

I think the implication was that the dirty cop planted it and had something to do with the crime, since he disappears in the 1990s. Could be a red herring, but one Hays and West probably fall for as the last scene implies they were the ones that disappeared him. 

4 hours ago, 3CityApache said:

Your theory is interesting and I wouldn't be totally surprised if it was true, but would she be talking in such circumstances about "the person who acts like her dad" while not mentioning her real father at all? Somewhat doubtful.

Didn’t we establish the mum was sleeping around in the 1980s? Maybe she was sleeping around with the politician guy, and he tried to insert himself into Julie’s life as a father? 

 

May be crackpot, but think it could hang. 

[Iskaral Pust]

The grandparents of the kids said after the funeral that Julie was conceived when the dad was working and living out of state.  If true, someone else was her dad and may have tried to connect with her as such.  

[unJon]

So to tie this theory together:

The boy is Scoot’s kid. The girl is someone else’s kid based on the mum sleeping around on the dad. The biological father is the politician guy / AG. He plays with the kids in the woods. He kills the boy and kidnaps the daughter. He has the pull to get a dirty cop to plant evidence (backpack, shirt) on the crazy vet after he’s killed. At some point the daughter escapes and is at large in the 90s. 

[red snow]

4 minutes ago, unJon said:

So to tie this theory together:

The boy is Scoot’s kid. The girl is someone else’s kid based on the mum sleeping around on the dad. The biological father is the politician guy / AG. He plays with the kids in the woods. He kills the boy and kidnaps the daughter. He has the pull to get a dirty cop to plant evidence (backpack, shirt) on the crazy vet after he’s killed. At some point the daughter escapes and is at large in the 90s. 

I like this! So the phone call was deliberately misleading but in a different way to what i thought in that scoot dad was never her dad.

[Astromech]

So the basic plot of Gone Bay Gone?

[3CityApache]

13 hours ago, red snow said:

So the phone call was deliberately misleading but in a different way to what i thought in that scoot dad was never her dad.

But how would she know that? Obviously the dad wasn't aware ot this, so how could the daughter know? 

[unJon]

25 minutes ago, 3CityApache said:

But how would she know that? Obviously the dad wasn't aware ot this, so how could the daughter know? 

The daughter said the man pretending to be my father, meaning the AG. Not meaning Scoot. From the daughter’s point of views, her biological father is the one pretending. She doesn’t know the truth. 

[3CityApache]

Yeah, but why wouldn't she address her real father then, as she believed him to be Scoot?

[unJon]

17 minutes ago, 3CityApache said:

Yeah, but why wouldn't she address her real father then, as she believed him to be Scoot?

That point I agree with and am not sure. Maybe she didn’t see that part? She only caught the part with the AG on. We are told she’s not all there mentally. 

[red snow]

2 hours ago, 3CityApache said:

But how would she know that? Obviously the dad wasn't aware ot this, so how could the daughter know? 

The person who kidnapped her told her? Eg that man is not your dad, i am. He's an imposter pretending to be your dad.

[Iskaral Pust]

At this stage, this is the pivotal mystery.  The girl’s call in 1990 is a big twist that will have to be resolved.  Scoot has been presented as a character that is very unlikely to be guilty, but we have been fed clues that point to a possible other storyline that would still justify her statement in that call. 

[Astromech]

You're all wrong. The father has actually been hinted at in the background in photos. Arkansas. Government. 1980  

[dbunting]

A lot came out of this episode but still nothing much?

I didn't quite understand the scene where Hays lost time, it's suddenly dark and he's wandering through the house, sees himself and family on the bed and opens the door, then we get 90's Hays viewpoint of the door opening but no one there...meh..

When he read the passage in the book about children laughing, I took it that he thought Amelia was involved, not the mom, looks more like the mom though based on others views. 

Had similar thoughts about the woman calling on the phone. First off we have no proof she is even the daughter, that needs to be remembered. If it is, she could very well have been told that he wasn't her real dad, she was very young when taken. She likely knew her abductor long before she was taken so she would trust them. Looks like the abductor told her that her "fake" dad is the one who hurt her brother, a good reason for her to turn against him.

I still hate that we keep jumping time lines. IDK, maybe if it was just 80's and current, or 80's and 90's I'd be more ok with it.

Next week spoiler add on

Spoiler

Based on spoiler up thread about S1 detectives making an appearance this week, I assume they are going to tie in that same case with this group. It was always assumed that a larger group with power was involved in that case. Does this season tie it in and potentially wrap that one up?

 

[RenlyIsNotRight]

On 2/5/2019 at 3:18 PM, unJon said:

So to tie this theory together:

The boy is Scoot’s kid. The girl is someone else’s kid based on the mum sleeping around on the dad. The biological father is the politician guy / AG. He plays with the kids in the woods. He kills the boy and kidnaps the daughter. He has the pull to get a dirty cop to plant evidence (backpack, shirt) on the crazy vet after he’s killed. At some point the daughter escapes and is at large in the 90s. 

Somehow all the stuff about the AG kinda passed me by but I can definitely get behind this. The mothers apparent contempt for Scoot would seem to be the reason for her complicity ie giving her daughter a "better" life with her real father, though perhaps she didn't account for the son being killed? Idk. But I def like where this is going.

Loved old Wests' 180 too - thought maybe in the 90' timeline he'd become too big for his britches and curious about what led to him seemingly disowning the "good life".

[Wolf of the Steppes]

On 2/7/2019 at 3:34 PM, RenlyIsNotRight said:

Somehow all the stuff about the AG kinda passed me by but I can definitely get behind this. The mothers apparent contempt for Scoot would seem to be the reason for her complicity ie giving her daughter a "better" life with her real father, though perhaps she didn't account for the son being killed? Idk. But I def like where this is going.

Loved old Wests' 180 too - thought maybe in the 90' timeline he'd become too big for his britches and curious about what led to him seemingly disowning the "good life".

Yes, this theory makes the most sense.

Emboldened- Even more mystery to unravel with future episodes.  Perhaps it was something to do with what Hays did to him, and that is why he was so reluctant to pull the 180.

We do see some striking similarities between Season 1 and 3.  After all, why wouldn't we, after the acclaim and success of S1 and the dismal result of S2.  It's an easy go-to. That's probably been brought up.  Unfortunately, I haven't the time to read the entire thread, so apologies if this is the case.

Back to that point, we saw a very similar scene in the beginning of S1E6 (i believe), between Cole and Heart. Cole has to convince Heart to change his mind from "never wanting to see that sort of thing again", to wholeheartedly helping someone despite a seemingly insurmountable circumstance between partners.