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| Photo: Warrick Page/HBO |
Now at the halfway mark, True Detective ramps up the action with (literally) explosive results.
But before ending on that fiery note, "The Hour and The Day" spends its running time following up on the crumbs dropped in last week's "The Big Never." In 1980, Wayne and Roland visit the church Will and Julie attended, interviewing the priest about the communion photo of the young boy in prayer pose, the same pose his body was found in. The priest--who Roland is no fan of because anyone who's not fuckin' something is not to be trusted--gives them the name Patty Faber, the maker of the chaff dolls found at the crime scene. Faber says she sold nearly a dozen dolls to a black man with a dead eye. That man (or at least one matching his description) Sam Whitehead, is wary of two officers showing up at his door asking about a missing white girl and her dead brother. The other residents quickly surround them, and shit goes sharply left as Roland escalates things by pulling out his gun. Wayne is caught in the middle of it all, criticized by Sam for being a cop but still needing to do his job and make sure he and Roland make it out in one piece. Despite of all this, he still asks his partner if they could blame their cracked windshield on vandals, not "irate Negros" as Roland puts it.
When not experiencing distrust from his own community, Wayne can always count on the casual racism of the good old boys' club that is Arkansas State Police. His superiors reek of it when they take pains to establish the pecking order in the 1990 reinvestigation, instructing him to stay his place and do as he's told, so he can redeem himself and possibly get back onto the major crimes unit. It's still not clear exactly what Wayne did or didn't do in the original 1980 investigation, but I'd be willing to bet ambition (the prosecutor's in particular--I mean a Donahue appearance? Really?) and scapegoating played equal parts in him landing in the public information office.
It's no wonder he's smiling like a man who just came back from the dead with he shares the news with Amelia. However, Amelia, still smarting from Wayne scolding her own giddiness about collecting intel, isn't in the mood to celebrate, and the two get into a fight, one it sounds like they've been having for years. Wayne accuses her of having her head in the clouds, using the Purcells' tragedy to propel her writing career forward; she counters he's been stuck in neutral, frozen in a state of wounded self-pity. He dismisses, she condescends. The argument ends up serving as some kind of cognitive, dissonant foreplay, and while they both apologize, makeup sex won't solve the problems in their marriage.
Though, as one of their early dates hints, the foundation for their dysfunction was laid a decade prior. The typical getting-to-know-you topics, such as family, childhood, past relationships, are covered, but conversation inevitably shifts back to the case. And while she's not pumping officers for information in her best dress just yet, her morbid fascination with the case is slowly affecting her behavior. She may have had good intentions when she stopped by the Purcell home to give back Will's school projects. But as she listens to Lucy berate herself for resenting motherhood and "running around," repeatedly saying she's done terrible things, her wheels can't help but turn, and she advises her to talk to Wayne. Lucy picks up on her insinuation and kicks her out of her house. While she may have felt genuine empathy toward Lucy, the drive to solve the case trumped her compassion, an emotional distance that will culminate in a bestseller.
In 2015, Wayne is still focused on Julie Purcell. He asks Henry if he could look up some names and find Roland. "This right now is my way of staying alive," he tells his son, and watching him talk with Elisa, asking her what she knows, evading her questions with a sly, disarming charm, it's clear the case gives him a sense of purpose. But, if decades of crime dramas have taught us anything, the ecstasy of discovery is tempered by the agony of self-doubt. Throw in a declining memory and you have Wayne alone in his office again, wondering aloud if he poisoned his children by letting his work consume him, momentarily entertaining suicide as his mind transports him back to Vietnam. He shouts the thought away, but seconds later he's talking to his phantoms, staring through his blinds at a car parked outside his house.
Elderly Wayne is in his own purgatory, a fate underlining the scripture the priest at the Purcells' church quotes at the beginning of the episode. "For whoever desires to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it." All these years later, Wayne is still looking for redemption, to be saved from the sins of failing Julie and Will, of failing his own children. Whether he will find it remains to be seen.
Other Thoughts:
- The show is taking its sweet time with the 1990 investigation; however, now that Wayne has found what looks to be a 21-year-old, Julie on the surveillance tape and 2015 Wayne is searching for Roland, just what happened and how the second case fell apart may finally snap into focus.
- The conflict between Brett Woodard and the rednecks comes to head, with Woodard barricading himself in his house. The melee ends (at least for now ) with one vigilante kicking in the door and setting off a homemade explosive.
- Lucy's "I got the soul of a whore" line just felt completely out of place, especially when the rest of the scene between her and Amelia felt so honest and raw, and gave the character some much-needed depth.
- It's notable Wayne, unlike say Woody Harrelson's Marty Hart, doesn't go all Hulk smash and start throwing things around during him and Amelia's fight; instead he begins to tear up. Like his confession he can't have sex with no strings attached, the moment reveals Wayne is a sensitive man, despite his stoic demeanor and gruff outbursts.
- This Week In Casual Racism: Tom referring to Wayne as "a nigger cop" during his latest bout of alcohol-soaked ranting. Though the fact he apologized both for uttering it and for the general bigotry Wayne endures I count for something I guess.
- Lucy punctuating her tirade against Amelia by calling her a "pickaninny." Quite a pair that Tom and Lucy.
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