We’ll need to consult some sort of medical doctor or mental health professional about it at some point but, for now, using only a layman’s perspective, I think it’s safe to say it is not too great to be haunted by visions of your deceased wife who is taunting you about potential misdeeds of years gone by. This would be true even if your misdeeds were, like, never getting the dishwasher fixed or forgetting your anniversary. It’s even worse when the haunting involves murder and missing children and things related to both you may or may not have “left in the woods” and are consuming you with guilt. And that’s before we even get to this:
“How much do I have to lose?”
“Everything, same as everybody else.”
So that’s not great for Wayne.
Also not great for Wayne? Most things, across many decades, but especially in 1990. That’s where we can really see all of this — his job, the case, whatever exactly happened between 1980 and 1990 that made him a pariah — getting to him. There’s a panic in Wal-Mart when his daughter briefly goes missing, which probably goes a long way to explaining the strain on their relationship in 2015. There’s him snapping at Amelia because she’s — in his opinion — a little too jazzed to be re-investigating the case. There’s, well, whatever there is between him and Roland. Something’s a little off there. And he’s drinking too much, often alone. I don’t know if that’s better or worse than “dead wife haunting you as you sit in your office with a gun on the table and your memories slipping away,” but it’s not ideal any way you slice it.
We’re at a fun point in the arc of the show, though. Every answer we get leads to about a dozen more questions. It’s great for now because it deepens the mystery and really ramps up the intrigue. Ronnie Boyle says the kids weren’t with him. Okay, then what were they doing in the woods and why did they lie? Something Wayne did tanked his career. Well, what? There may or may not have been a creepy sedan and a man with a scar, which was mentioned by a strange bearded man who lives off the grid but was apparently not investigated, according to the interviewer in 2015. What’s going on there? Roland has a pretty nice conspiracy wall going back in 1980 and I’m about to make my own just to try to keep up with the show.
At some point, though, and hopefully it’s some point in the not too distant future, the show is going to need to bring at least of few of these mysteries into focus, and that’s where it gets hard. Multiple weaving timelines with their own sets of questions and conflicts can be a blast for a while. The tricky part is paying them off in a satisfying and logical way without making it so obvious the audience gets ahead of you. Miss in either direction and you risk mass eye rolls and grumbling. I may have copied and pasted this paragraph from a Westworld recap.
But that’s a problem for another day. One that will come in a week or two. For now, let’s just focus on the hallucinations and creepy sedans. First things first.
The Timelines
1980 — The original investigation continues. Dice and a bag of strange toys are discovered in the woods not far from a rock with Will’s blood on it. The detectives find notes with disquieting messages on them (“Don’t listen,” “I’ll keep up safe,” etc.) and a Hoyt Foods bag filled with doll parts, both in Julie’s room. They meet the aforementioned bearded guy who lives in a big house in the woods and isn’t too keen on them searching his property without a warrant. At some point, all of this is going to end with an arrest and something about it will go sideways. The possibilities for both are endless.
1990 — We covered most of the important 1990 stuff already (the Wal-Mart thing, Wayne drinking alone a bunch, things getting tense with Amelia), so let’s clean the rest up quickly via bullet point.
- Roland is a big deal now, big enough to feel comfortable calling one of the guys handling the re-opened case “son” while defending his man, Purple Hays, and is using his power to bring Wayne back in for the new task force.
- Roland’s look in 1990 is in such dire need of a bolo tie that it almost took me out of the episode.
- Somewhere between 1980 and 1990, around 1985 if everyone’s math is correct, Roland helped get Tom Purcell clean, which led to him finding Jesus and losing the mustache. I mean, I’m happy for him if he’s happy. Dude has lived a tragic life between losing his kids and his wife dying in Vegas. But that upper lip looks nude, like a turtle without its shell. This is now a “Sam Elliott in the final season of Justified” situation.
This is the timeline that interests me most right now, probably because there are so many unknown on either side of it.
2015 — But this is the timeline where things are going to really go down, eventually. This interviewer is asking pointed questions like she thinks she might be onto something. And Wayne is trying to size her up for information at the same time she’s talking to him on camera. And why are the interviewer and Wayne’s son on such a seemingly cordial first-name basis? Feels fishy. We’re only three episodes in and I’m already side-eyeing everyone.
The Evidence
The dice and bag of toys in the woods — I do not know what any of this means or where any of it is going — were the kids playing in the woods by themselves a lot and, if so, where did the get the toys? — but I do know that weird non-cube dice are SATAN’S PLAYTHINGS, especially if they are being rolled IN THE DAMN WOODS. I do not like this.
The bloody rock — This is what I meant earlier about any answer right now leading to more questions. The rock has Will’s blood on it. How did it get there? What happened? How did his body end up in another location, posed almost exactly like the photo of his at his first communion? Which brings us to…
The communion picture — The implication here is that this is all a huge coincidence or someone close enough to the family to know about one photo in an album on a shelf was involved in this somehow.
The creepy notes — I would be a bad detective because if I found creepy notes and a bag of doll parts all at once I’d be like “Welp, too weird for me. Best of luck, folks!”
The Suspects
Trashman — I was all set to cross the Trashman off this list. He seemed like a solid if sad guy last week and he seemed legitimately hurt by the allegations the gang in the pickup lobbed at him between kicks to the torso. But then he ran into his house immediately after the beating and dragged a heavy green bag out with him. We know the bag doesn’t contain a Purcell child because Will’s body was found and we know Julie is alive in 1990. So then, like, whatcha got in that bag, Trashman?
Non-zero chance this is a John Wick situation and that bag is filled with weapons he will use to get revenge on the rednecks who attacked him.
The bearded guy in the house — Maybe I’m being unfair but I think you should never cross weird evasive bearded guys who live off the grid at the edge of some woods where creepy stuff happened and at least one kid died off of your suspect list until you see what that search warrant turns up.
The mysterious interracial couple in the mysterious fancy sedan — Well well well, hello there fancy new couple, and especially the man with the scar on his face. “A strange guy with a scar on his face was snooping around” is never something you want to hear. Let’s keep an eye on this.
Also: Not for nothing, but there are at least two notable HBO veterans who fit the description of “a black man with a scar on his face.” Both of them were in The Wire. What I’m saying is that if Michael K. Williams or Jamie Hector pop up later this season — either as new characters or as a version of Omar or Marlo who found a time machine and used it to go to 1980s Arkansas to do strange woods things with some kids — you heard it here first.
Potentially evil Volkswagen teens and/or Cousin Dan — No sign or mention of either this week. I don’t trust Cousin Dan. He’s up to something. And I that kid in the Black Sabbath shirt could have given the kids those Satan dice. Let’s bring him in and rattle his cage.
A bear — What if a bear killed Will on those rocks and then dragged him into the cave and folded his arms into a religiously significant position and Julie saw it all and was like “Oh HELL no, bears are into occult-influenced murder out here? I don’t want any part of this. I’m getting on my bike and peddling until I’m in a bear-free zone and I’m not telling anyone — not even my parents — in case the bear also has the phones tapped.”
Too soon to rule it out. All I’m saying.
Loose Ends
– Stephen Dorff has been surprisingly good so far. I don’t mean that as a knock on him. I just mean that he’s holding his own with Mahershala Ali in scenes with just the two of them and I did not expect that. It’s kind of cool. The most notable development to come from this is that I am now obsessed with his voice and would like to know exactly how many cigarettes or e-cigarettes — Dorff was way, way ahead of the vaping thing, never forget — I need to smoke to make mine sound like that.
– In the first episode, Wayne listens to the recording where he tells himself to remember the gun in the drawer. At the beginning of this episode, he tells his son that he’ll off himself before going to a nursing home. By the end, he’s sitting there with the gun on his desk when the Ghost of Amelia visits him and needles him about some hidden secrets that might be embarrassing or possibly of a criminal nature. Chekhov, I believe you might have something to say about all of this?
– The scenes with Ali and Carmen Ejogo were great, too. You can see the strain this is causing in their relationship. The case is thrilling to her, a puzzle to be solved, not just for her book but because a mystery like this is fascinating. For him, it’s all pain and bad memories, and seeing her light up when she talks about it is like a knife in his gut. It’s a shame it’s tearing them apart because they’re such a good team. Although parking perpendicular across three spots with your headlights on is probably not a textbook surveillance technique. Not the most important takeaway from the episode, but still. Come on, Wayne.
