‘True Detective’ Season 3 Episode 7 Recap: “The Final Country”

When Detective Wayne Hays finds the phone records and flight manifests that finally connect the Hoyt family to the many, many murders and disappearances associated with the Purcell case in the penultimate episode of True Detective Season 3, he tells his partner Roland West: “This is it.” And the next morning—one buried body and burned trashcan of clothes later—when Wayne prepares to enter the Hoyt town car idling outside his family’s home for what guarantees to be an unsettling drive, he tells his wife Amelia he has to do this “one last time,” and she responds: “This is it.”

Given the 2015 timeline, and a brand spankin’ new 2000 timeline, however…

We know that none of these times were it. Nor any of the times before or after them. When it comes to the Purcell case, nothing ever seems to be over Wayne Hays; not in 1980 with the forced conviction of Brett Woodard; not in 1990 with the alleged confession of Tom Purcell; it’s not even over in 2015 with whispers of high-up pedophile rings suggesting that history is simply repeating itself decade after decade, season after season. If time is a flat circle, then Wayne Hays seems like a toy train, destined to ride around this track forever.

But hark—there’s hope! When Elisa the documentary director expresses her disappointment that Wayne isn’t able to provide the missing pieces of the Purcell puzzle she seems to be looking for her, he tells her, “Young lady, my whole brain’s a bunch of missing pieces.” And yet, we know that Wayne is, in fact, often holding out on Elisa; gauging her clues, leads, and pieces much more successfully than she’s able to gauge his. In this lead-up to the Season 3 finale, True Detective needs to bring together a number of disparate threads from each timeline in order to weave together some sort of solid foundation from which the finale can immediately jump off, using every single minute to give us the answers we’re so desperate for…

And for the most part, it achieved that difficult task with riveting character moments, searing confrontations, and Daniel Sackheim’s best direction yet (although I’d have to give the MVP award to the booming sonic anxiety of T Bone Burnett’s score). With little fanfare, season 3 suddenly did away with being a whodunit the moment Tom Purcell flipped the light switch in that pink basement room, and started being a whydunnit…or a howdunnit…or a whogonnasolvvit…or something. And those are surely much trickier questions to offer satisfying solutions to in one single finale, especially if that finale plans to take down a conspiratorial cabal of Arkansas and Louisiana businessmen and politicians as the last two episodes have hinted at. And especially because the lead detectives on the case in 2015 are 70-years-old.

If it’s just one Arkansas family though…with just one pink room in their basement…and just one mind full of missing pieces to piece together in order to avenge two children…then maybe, just maybe Old Man Wayne and Old Man Roland can pull it off. After all, they really Hardy Boys’ed the hell out of getting that license plate number. Y’know, just before Wayne slipped into a fugue state, and all that.

But first! Episode 7 opens not with an immediate follow up to the cliffhanger that ended Episode 6, but with something even more shocking: another timeline. Presumably sometime in the early 2000s, Wayne drives up to a looming building to drop his now teenage daughter Rebecca off at her first day of college. They have a sweet little exchange about how they’ll both be okay and Wayne will feel better when he’s lifting something heavy. Which is to say, there’s nothing whatsoever that points toward the tension we’ve seen arise every time Wayne brings up Rebecca in 2015.

Rebecca gets out of the car, Wayne shifts his rearview mirror to look at her, and suddenly we’re back in 1990 as Wayne arrives at the Devil’s Den ranger tower where Tom Purcell’s body now lays. As you’ll recall, we last saw Harris James sneaking up behind Tom after he stumbled into the pink room in the basement of the Hoyt estate, saw something out of frame, and said, “Julie?”

Now Tom is lying on a landing of the ranger tower, two flights up with a bullet in his head, a gun in his hand, and a typewritten note beside him that reads: “I am sorry / Please forgive me / I’m going to see my wife and son.” In the 2015 timeline, Elisa asks Wayne if he ever considered that Tom might not have committed suicide, but still been used an easy (dead) scapegoat just like Brett Woodard, and he’s all, Aw shucks ma’am, that never occurred to me…

Quick cut to the 1990 timeline where Wayne tells Roland, “It’s like 1980 again, they’re gonna hang it on a dead suspect.” Roland does not like Wayne continuing to refer to Tom as a suspect, reminding him, “We did that—drove him to it.” But Wayne doesn’t like that. He tells Roland that they did their job, there’s just about now way Tom killed himself, and they need to keep doing their job: find the prints missing from evidence, the black man with one eye, and figure out what Dan O’Brien was trying to tell them about Lucy’s death. Roland blows up at Wayne, telling him that he didn’t bring him back on as detective to risk everything for a 10-year-old case; he brought him on as a favor to get his career back on track.

Roland tells Wayne to let it go, but this episode is flying back and forth through timelines, as if to remind us that no matter what he told the people he cared about, Wayne never, ever let this go. In 2015, Roland shows up at Wayne’s house while he’s filming Elisa’s documentary and tells Henry that his dad seems to be spending most of his nights in the study rifling through Amelia’s old notes…with a loaded gun on his desk. In 1990, Wayne and Roland get called to a motel where Dan O’Brien’s car has been found, but no Dan O’Brien—only a lingering shot of the water in the distance as the detectives agree that there seems to be something to Dan’s assertion that there are “people out there who don’t want you to know what I know.”

If those people had anything to do with Wayne being demoted in 1980 we might never know explicitly, but it seems that even when he was shut up, Wayne wanted the truth to get out. In a scene at Amelia’s apartment in 1980, after Wayne’s spotted some of her earliest notes on the case, he tells her he thinks she should write about it. We know he’ll have second thoughts about that as time goes on and dynamics grow tense, but for now, he tells her, “It’s not solved—somebody ought to point out what they’re saying doesn’t fucking hold.”

Indeed, Amelia did write a whole book on the case, but in 1990, even after its publishing, she’s still investigating. After the black man with one eye showed up at her book reading, she goes back to West Finger to search for some answers, and we finally hear from Margaret! That would be Margaret: Lucy’s best friend who has been quite present throughout the series but has hardly spoken a word. She’s making a wreath to honor Tom’s death while sitting in her house that is covered floor-to-ceiling in crafts, newspapers, and dolls when Amelia arrives. It seems that Margaret is just about the only soul who hasn’t moved on from West Finger, and when Amelia asks her why, she says: “Somebody’s got to stay; somebody’s got to remember.”

Amelia asks her about the mixed-race couple that the farmer mentioned seeing around Devil’s Den all those episodes ago, Margaret says she doesn’t remember Lucy hanging out with any black men. But the mention that he might have given the children dolls on Halloween does trigger something. Margaret gets a photo out of an album showing them at her house in their costumes on the very day they Julie supposedly got the dolls. In the background are two adult-sized ghosts just like the ones Mike Ardoin mentioned seeing Julie talk to. Amelia asks to take the photo to make a copy, but Margaret snatches it back saying she’d rather not let it go. But when Amelia goes to leave she calls her back, asking if she’ll promise to bring the photo back the next day if she takes it. Amelia agrees; an extremely unsettling series of bong-bongs echo in the score.

And finally, the moment all scourers of the HBO previews have been waiting for…

In 2015, Elisa shows Wayne photos of homemade dolls on her computer, saying that they’re often signifiers for human trafficking, just like a blue spiral is a code for pedophiles. Elisa tells him that two former Louisiana State Police stopped a serial killer in 2012, but despite evidence of a possible pedophile ring, the case never went wider.

Oh, that’s right—those two Louisiana detectives on Elisa’s screen are Season 1’s very own Rust Cohle and Marty Hart. Elisa seems to think the Purcell case could be connected to the same Tuttle-centric conspiracy from Season 1, and that one or both of the Purcell parents along with Dan O’Brien might have sold their children off to a pedophile ring. Elisa hopes that Wayne’s transfer from Major Crimes, leaving the force in 1990, and his record that indicates he never went along with what the Attorney General said happened to Will and Julie all add up to mean that he has the missing piece to make all of this make sense as a wider, higher-reaching case…

Wayne tells Elisa his mind is all missing pieces and he’s tired of talking. But when he meets Roland in the back of the house, he’s a live wire, telling him that Elisa said a new witness identified the one-eyed black man as “Watts.” It’s here that the story finally settles into 1990 where its seems that most of the missing pieces will lie. And the biggest lead yet is walking up just as Wayne is about to leave the police station with his desk already packed into a box.

An officer comes up to him saying that the phone records he requested from Nevada have just been faxed over—Lucy’s phone records from the three weeks before she died. He goes right back in the office, pours over the records, and finds…something. Then he pretends he’s Lieutenant Roland West, calls McCarren International Airport, and tells them he needs flight records for specific dates.

Wayne’s working through the night and ignoring all calls causes Amelia to have to take the children with her when she goes to question the Sawhorse owner about any connection Lucy might have had with the one-eyed black man. She finds out that he saw Dan O’Brien talking with that man back in 1980, but she also briefly fears that her own children have disappeared from the car outside in the process.

As Wayne and Amelia risk their own children’s safety, the clues are indeed coming together! Wayne shows up at Roland’s house (who’s having a morning glass of brown liquor), and tell him, “I got the whole thing.” It seems that Lucy called one number eight times in the two days before she “OD’ed.” That number belonged to Harris James’s personal line at Hoyt Foods, and the very next day, he booked a first class ticket to Las Vegas, returning two short days later, leaving a dead Lucy Purcell in his wake.

Roland says they can take it to the higher-ups, but Wayne wants to handle it “hard, like we used to.” Wayne starts waxing poetic about how they owe it to Tom, how they need to right by Tom, until Roland finally tells him to stop:

Roland may know Wayne is manipulating him into complying with his fondness for Tom, but comply he does; they wait outside Hoyt Foods, drinking from a flask until Harris James pulls out into the night. The score’s percussive bangs and uneasy plucks go completely nuts as Roland and Wayne track James down an otherwise empty road, and put their police light up on the dash to pull him over.

The detectives violently force James out of the driver’s seat. Next thing we know, Roland and Wayne have Harris in their beatin’ barn, and Roland is truly beating the shit out of him, but he’s giving them nothing. They tell him they’ve got Lucy calling him eight times, his flights in and out of Vegas on the day she died, they know he planted that evidence at Woodard’s, and that he got rid of those finger prints.

Harris tells them that’s a wild story, so Roland punches him in the face a few times. Harris says Lucy and Dan aren’t two people they need to be giving a shit about, so Roland kicks him in the ribs a few times. Harris starts panting and saying he can feel his ribs pushing into his lungs. The detectives demand to know about Hoyt: “Maybe there was a group of ’em. Friends of his, people into kids?” In between gasps for air, Harris takes the time to laugh at them: “You two are really up shit creek, huh?” Roland beats on him some more—this is a truly unpleasant scene. Even Wayne is apparently persuaded by Harris’ pleas about not being able to breathe because he uncuffs him…

And Harris tackles Wayne to the ground. He almost gets Wayne’s gun away from him, but Roland shoots him in the back, then Wayne shoots him in the chest. Roland and Wayne just killed Harris James in an incredibly illegal capacity.

The violence is tough to stomach, but the verbal argument that comes next is just as bad. Roland blames Wayne for manipulating him by “talking shit about Tom,” but Wayne tells him he didn’t force him to do anything. “I just killed a man, you dumb asshole!” Roland yells. Plus, whatever Harris James knew went along with him. “You manipulative, egotistical, uppity fuckin—” Roland cuts himself off. Wayne tells him to say what he’s going to say. “Guess what word’s running through my mind right now?” Roland spits…

Roland won’t say the word—he just wants Wayne to know he’s thinking it.

We’ve seen Wayne and Amelia have these kinds of fights; the ones where they weaponize their deep understanding of one another to say the most hurtful possible thing. To see it happen between Roland and Wayne is a whole new layer of painful. And yet, we know they make up; they move past it; they forget about it, or they pretend they do. They get to a place where Old Man Wayne and Old Mad Old Roland can stir some crazy Old Man Shit up together. It is incredibly fun to hear the former Hoyt housekeeper who they come to interview at her house say, “Why y’all still police at your age?” Roland’s response: “We ain’t good for much else.”

And even though they bungled the Harris interview, they take a slightly lighter approach in 2015. The woman tells them the Hoyt family had no luck outside of business: Edward’s daughter Isabelle had a husband and a daughter who died in a car wreck in 1977, and she was never the same afterward. She never left the estate until one night she took a car out and put it through a guard rail. After that, a man named Mr. June watched over her closely and drove her wherever she needed, but they mostly stayed in the basement level of the house: “Whole part of the house for Miss Isabelle, but Mr. June was the only one who could go down there.”

That is…so much information. But wait—there’s more!

The woman says she worked at the Hoyt’s for 30 years until around 1981 when they started restricting where they could go in the house, and being more secretive with Isabelle. They ask if Mr. June had a first name, and she says she’s not sure if June was his name at all, just what they called him. As for a description, she tells him there’s not much: “Just his eye; his left eye was white—dead, y’know.”

Somehow, Wayne doesn’t begin doing somersaults at this reveal; he’s gotten a faraway look in his eye, like he no longer remembers what they’re doing at this woman’s house. Her granddaughter comes up to ask if she can go swimming, and Wayne looks up startled: “Becca, you all packed?” he asks the girl. Roland distracts Wayne, telling him they’ll get her packed later. When they leave, Wayne says, “I shouldn’t have said that about Tom, I’m sorry.” Roland doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but it seems that Wayne is finally apologizing for pulling Roland into that violent evening in 1990: “What happened—I didn’t realize how different we were…I hope we can move past it.”

Roland says they already are. If Wayne remembers that there’s anything Roland did that he needs to move past, he doesn’t say. They’re already there.

And boy, is it fun to see them back in action again. At Wayne’s house, they go over all the information they’ve gotten on the Hoyts and Mr. June/Watts. They think maybe Harris could have met the family when he was on highway patrol during Isabell’s accident in 1977, and perhaps O’Brien and Mr. June made some kind of arrangement for the Purcell children at The Sawhorse. But then Wayne glances out the study window and whispers to Roland to come over; the car he keeps seeing is outside, and now, Roland sees it too.

“Humor a crazy old man, Detective West,” Wayne says, and the next thing we know, he’s walking toward the car with a baseball bat. “Hey, you looking for me,” he hollers. The car cranks up suddenly and squeals off down the street without Wayne getting a look at who’s inside…

But it was all a trick! Roland was sneaking up from the back to get a picture of the license plate while Wayne was distracting from the front! And I would love to see the celebratory drink they were sure to have, except Wayne is suddenly alone. In the haunting shot from the top of the recap, we see Wayne turn around and around on the street that was just occupied by cars and houses and Roland, only to find that he is now entirely alone. He sees a fire burning in the distance, and walks toward it.

Wayne is staring at his own back in 1990, standing almost naked in front of a fire in his backyard. He’s burning the blood-soaked clothes he was wearing when he killed Harris. 1990 Wayne turns around as if he senses someone behind him, but then Amelia is comes outside, asking what he’s doing. Wayne tells her he can’t talk about it; calmly but worried, she tells him they have to talk about in the morning…

And they do. Or at least they start to. Amelia and Wayne have probably the healthiest conversation we’ve heard them have since they’ve been married, with Amelia insisting that they have to be honest with each other: “Maybe we could turn it around.” But then the phone rings, and Wayne takes it.

It’s Edward Hoyt: “I’d like to discuss the events of last night, as I understand them—I could come inside if you like.” Wayne looks out his blinds just like we’ve seen him do so many times 25 years from now, and sees two black town cars. “I’d be pleased to meet your family,” a serenely threatening Hoyt says. “Your wife the writer, little Henry and Rebecca.” Wayne asks how about a little later. “You might not realize this, but I’ve been pretty damn patient with you already,” Hoyt responds.

Wayne says he’ll be out in five. He tells Amelia to trust him; this is the last time, then he’ll tell her everything. “One last time—this is it,” Amelia tells him. But we know this won’t be it…

Wayne walks outside, gets into Hoyt’s car, and it drives away into the unknown—into the finale. One more week…

THIS IS A RECAP, NOT A REDDIT THREAD, BUUUUUT:

Did Roland get his own Hoyt call? Is Roland the reason for Wayne’s Hoyt call? Who’s in that car in 1990? Who’s in that car in 2015?

Elisa’s second reference to the Franklin child prostitution allegations/conspiracy, plus Harris mocking Wayne and Roland’s guess that the Hoyts are operating a pedophile ring make me think that hints at a larger conspiracy involving season 1 are a red herring. (Okay, but mostly because I don’t know how they could possibly make that happen in one episode.) Could there be a smaller, yet not exactly simpler explanation for Julie being abducted and living the latter half of her childhood in the Hoyt basement?

How did Julie get out of the Pink Rooms?! WHERE IS JULIE IN 2015?!

It’s certainly worth noting the similarity between “Mr. June” and “Mary July,” the name two people have said Julie began going by in 1990.

Did it seem like Margaret changing her mind about giving Amelia the photo was a set-up to get her back the next day to anyone else??? Do I need to let my Margaret conspiracies go???

I’ve only just noticed after having to type it a bunch of times that Lucy’s place of work, The Sawhorse, has the word “whore” in it. Why do we think Lucy said she had the soul of a whore?

The one question that always hangs me up every episode is: which of the sketchy adults we’ve met or heard of could possibly have been playing Dungeons and Dragons in the woods with Will? My only guess is Isabelle…

What is going to happen to Rebecca?! WHERE IS REBECCA IN 2015???

Jodi Walker writes about TV for Entertainment Weekly, Vulture, Texas Monthly, and in her pop culture newsletter These Are The Best Things. She vacillates between New York, North Carolina, and every TJ Maxx in between.

Stream True Detective Season 3 Episode 7 ("The Final Country") on HBO Go