True Detective Season 3 Theories From Episode 7: Some Mysteries Remain
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It's all over but the crying.
What do you think is going to happen in the final episode of True Detective Season 3? Check out our theories below, then scroll down to the bottom and leave a comment with your predictions! True Detective Season 3's finale airs this Sunday, February 24.
There's just one more episode left in True Detective: Season 3. And the penultimate episode, "The Final Country," pretty much told us the solution to the mystery, even though we don't have all the specifics.
We also don't know how deep the fallout is going to be. Is there retribution for getting so close to the truth? How much does Wayne stand to lose, now that he knows more than the rich, powerful people behind this crime want him to know?
Here are our latest theories for True Detective: Season 3, Episode 7. And we should clarify that we're no longer guessing about a lot of what we discuss. Barring some major final twist, we know, generally speaking, what happened. So spoiler warning: If you don't want the central mystery revealed, then read no further.
1. Season 1 Connection Confirmed.
We learn that the True Detective stories all exist in the same universe; the documentarian woman mentions the Season 1 mystery and shows a newspaper clip with Rust and Marty's faces on it. This has led people to speculate whether Will and Julie's murder case has similar cult and pedophilic undertones. Could the town's politicians be high-level members, who would benefit from having the case spiked?
But aside from connecting the universe, it's unlikely that this is a cult-affiliated "Yellow King" mystery. There's much more evidence, as we'll go into below, that this crime happened for personal, tragic reasons.
2. Isabel and Mr. June: Confirmed
This episode spends some time fleshing out Isabel, the Hoyt CEO's daughter, who we learn lost both her husband and her only child in a car accident. We learn from Hoyt's former housekeeper that after the accident, she became "troubled" and was not able to care for herself. And thus, a man called "Mr. June" was placed in charge of driving her and attending to other needs. We also learn that around the time Julie disappeared, the house routine also changed; the help was no longer allowed to go into specific areas of the house.
When you connect all the dots over the past seven episodes, it becomes pretty clear what happened. Isabel and Mr. June are the two individuals we heard about at Halloween, who gave Julie the straw doll. And ultimately, they're the ones who took Julie and kept her in the Hoyt compound--probably as a replacement for the daughter Isabel lost. The two of them fit the description of the duo that '80s Roland and Wayne were looking for: a white woman and a black man with one good eye.
This also explains how everything about the case got buried. To protect his daughter, old man Hoyt would have done anything, including framing Woodard and killing Tom, to throw the police off her scent. It explains why Harris James went along with Hoyt; in exchange for his complicity, he was gifted a cushy job, working security with the Hoyt Corporation.
3. A pay-for-play date?
One popular theory is that is that Lucy and (maybe) her cousin, Dan, sold the kids to the Hoyts. But what if it was something a little less evil? The housekeeper mentioned that Isabel was "troubled" after her family died. So what if the Hoyts had been paying Lucy and Dan to let the kids to have these "play dates" with Isabel, as a way for her to process her grief?
And then something tragic happened; maybe there was an accident where Will died, or maybe Isabel's "troubled" nature took over and cost Will his life. Mr. June then covered up the crime to protect his ward, and they both took Julie to the Hoyt compound rather that admit what happened.
4. Roland's In On It?
At the end of Episode 7; we learn a big secret: '90s Wayne and Roland killed Harris James, during a violent interrogation gone wrong. They then buried the body in the woods. The following morning, Wayne got a call from Edward Hoyt, requesting to see him; somehow, he knows what had happened with James.
Now maybe, someone was tailing the two detectives the prior evening. If so, that explains how Hoyt figured out the crime so quickly. But if there was no tail, then the only two people who knew about Harris James were Wayne and Roland, which means that Roland must have told Hoyt.
It's a disappointing possibility. We've been conditioned for this entire show to view Roland as "one of the good ones." To now learn he's on the take is going to break a lot of viewers' hearts.
5. Resolving a solved case?
If Roland's in on it, that also explains why Roland is still with Wayne in 2015: to keep forgetful Wayne safe and make sure he doesn't get too close to the dangerous people who perpetrated the crime.
It's entirely possible that Wayne had already solved the case as a younger man--and was somehow convinced to keep quiet--but due to his deteriorating brain condition, has simply forgotten that he did. Roland, however, hasn't forgotten, and he needs to be careful of what Wayne rediscovers. There's no telling if Wayne would feel obligated to keep a secret that he doesn't remember promising to keep.
6. What happened to Becca and Amelia?
This is the biggest loose thread still remaining: what happened to Becca and Amelia?
Amelia is definitely dead by 2015, but we don't know why--whether it was from disease, or an accident, or something more insidious, like the Hoyts silencing her for asking too many questions. Or maybe, she was retribution for Harris's death. We have the same questions about Wayne and Amelia's daughter, Becca; surely, at least one of their fates was case-related.
Episode 7 opens with Wayne taking his teenage daughter to college. We can guess that Amelia died before this scene; otherwise, Amelia would have been in the car as well.
After the season finale, we'll finally be left with more answers than questions. Let's check in next week to see how we feel about all this then.