damn that was crazy good. potential greatness itt

There was a part where WH asks something like "wait why are you asking me about that dinner that has nothing to do with the murder" and then gives a knowing gesture of some sort signaling he understands he's not just in to talk about what occurred around the 1995 murder.

Combined with alluding to WH having an affair - hinting at a double life - I get the feeling that WH is a suspect (which he now understands), and MM is brought in to help the investigators pin it on WH. I mean, why bring in the drunk loose cannon who's gone off the grid to just "talk about it" when WH seems to have maintained some relationship with the PD and presumably left on good terms? I mean, yeah he could be a suspect it just seems too obvious that he would be the killer.

MM is already giving an EMMY caliber performance, love his understated stuff. Some of his line readings were unreal good, especially the one about "not talking about this kind of stuff at work".

About the child abduction, there was a billboard that they passed as they were driving away from the crime scene, pretty close by. The girl went missing in 1987, and when they found the "second" victim it was 1995. Something happened in 2002, and I think it's meant to be fairly clear that a murder probably happens about every 8 years, since the interrogation takes place in 2012. MM's anticipation of the next murder ("scheduled" for 2003) was probably driving WH up the wall, and that would be even more evident if they did head to the cliche of having WH do the murders while misdirecting toward MM (it will be very disappointing if one of them did it).

MM is clearly a suspect, and I remarked when I first saw his very odd crime scene investigation (way before that was clear) that I wondered if they were setting up that he did it or something. I discounted that, but based on the way he talked I felt like it was very much in him to do something like that. An old adage is that homicide detectives aren't that far from the line in personality to the people they are chasing (how true that is I don't know).

Echoing others, this is already an outstanding show, if slightly deliberate. It has a definite movie like feel, and I'm looking forward to seeing it amp up. It's also a pretty interesting storytelling style, using the interrogation as narration, telling most of the story in flashback. I'm looking forward to what made MM snap to the point where he just didn't give a crap about anything anymore (even though that was firmly entrenched in his personality in 1995, he didn't outwardly manifest it in any way like he was doing in 2012). The initial self-destructive behaviors in the 2012 interrogation were the smoking and the tattoo, but he later it was made clear that he did/had both of those in 1995.

I generally hate slo-mo, but this show has some incredibly beautiful slo-mo shots in it, yay for film.

ya I should've clairified I meant recent in regards to the original case they were working on.

ok ya that was my impression as well thought maybe I missed something tho based on the first response to my post.

ok thank you that makes some sense.
for the life of me I couldn't figure out how they connected a 5+yr old missing child case with their crime as they seemingly had nothing in common.
I do remember that billboard being prominently featured n if it had no relevance would be somewhat of a chekov's gun.

I can tell this show is gonna get better with repeated viewings.
really wish HBO would just release the entire season at once on demand n on HBO GO. esp since they don't seem to care about ratings since they are subscription based.

The girl on the billboard was Gerhart in 1987, the missing child was named Fontenot and she would've gone missing in '89 or '90. Don't think that timeline theory holds water. Not even sure Gerhart was killed by our guy, guess it could come into play later though.

I mixed up the sequence of events that led to finding the Fontenot crime though. They were just interviewing people from the area about the latest girl who was found when the old guy asked if it was the Fontenot girl that turned up. That was just before they interviewed the preacher, (Freamon) which yielded information about the meaning of the sticks. So MM just stumbled onto the Fontenot girl by interviewing the right old guy.

I decided I'm gonna wait and marathon as I think show in particular will be more enjoyable for me that way. Especially since it's 8 episodes and done. I'm sure I will get antsy along the way but it will be worth it I hope.

Yeh its this. I just watched it. Old timer in his front yard they interviewed asked if it was the girl that went missing 5 years earlier.

Later on MM says to the cops interviewing him something like 'call it a hunch or whatever but we followed up on the earlier missing girl' That led them to interviewing the crippled uncle (think uncle?) and finding the small devils tree thing in the shed.

****ing loved it. Harrelson absolutely brilliant. Some of his looks when MM starts getting deep were perfect.

This was great, especially liked MM's character. I also second the thought that he is not the killer. Woody was great too.

Made me excited to check out Dallas Buyers Club.

Just saw a gif of her taking off her shirt. That may overtake Season 2 of The Wire as best on screen tits.

i actually really dislike this model because we don't enough time to let this stew. sure, if this show is like house of cards or orange is the new black where i don't think requires as much in-depth analysis you could release it all at once. (i'm not sure how much love HoC gets around here but i think it's a tad overrated). I definitely enjoy the discussion we are having now and the multiple directions it could go, rather than binge watching all eps then discuss

Yeah, great show. Loved everything about it.


Gonna throw a few things out there. While they're obviously setting up MM sleeping with Woody's wife and Woody having an affair, I don't think that's the cause of the falling out.

I think the cause of the falling out is going to be pressure to close the case (possibly due to another body) that results on pinning the murder on someone which Woody goes along with while MM does not. This is why MM burns out and walks away from law enforcement completely. If it was just a falling out with Woody over women, I don't see MM completely losing his ****.

Which is also why MM is totally unsurprised and anticipates that there's been another murder. He knows they never caught the real murderer.


Another thing - WRT MM's back story. We know his daughter is dead, he's divorced and an alcoholic. And his career history in Texas is basically sealed. IMO, one of two things happened:

- MM DUI accident that resulted in the death of his daughter. Texas police covered it up on the condition MM GTFO.

- Daughter was murdered, MM extracted revenge. Texas police covered it up on the condition MM GTFO.


WRT the killer. Serial killers aren't borne fully formed. They work their way up, often their first murder is unplanned/impulsive/sloppy and they hone their craft. They then either work towards their ultimate fantasy or chase the rush of the first kill but like drug addicts the next high is never as good as the previous.

So very likely he's killed before, but not necessarily with the same signature, due to the elaborate nature of the staging. They also often start with animal killing, torture and dismemberment. So surprising no mention of the cats nailed to the church door ITT as that's a huge flag but I expect it's a bit of a red herring given the timeline (killer is obviously well past that stage) unless the new murder is a copycat, in which case - there you go.

Based on the language MM used, it sounded to me like the wife died, too, because she couldn't deal with the child's death. Divorce probably works too, though. Did he ever actually use the word divorce? I just remember him saying he was married once.

He said that the marriage didn't last long after their child died.

Yeah, this is pretty much how I see things.

Only thing is that I think there's a high chance that it's not a serial killer, but a cult. Powerful people could be involved-- maybe even the bible thumping glad hander. Not saying it's a lock, but I think it could be much more interesting that a lone serial killer.

Really good summary of the details of the case to date here...

http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueDetectiv...investigation/

loved MM's ramble in the car after WH asks if he's Christian, about human consciousness being a major flaw in evolution and how they should all just stop reproducing. I'm a realist, but philosophically speaking I'm a pessimist... not good at parties lol

Was the chick who you're all so eager to see topless the one that WH is clearly having an affair with?

Did I understand correctly that the Fontenot girl was confirmed to have moved on with her father or did the cops just assume that's what happened?

really cool show

Pretty sure it was just that the cops said that was the case, not confirmed.

excellent observations.

didn't they say the killer was caught in 95, but MM and WH broke off as partners in 2002? wouldn't think that caused the final falling out.

Jesus, HBO is so good at making TV shows

MM is killing it

**** yeah, this delivered. Cannot wait for more.

I would bet a lot of money on this.

I'm going to try to ignore that MM whistles about 75% of his S words and just enjoy this show

i have friends who don't work at walmart, but think 15$ a month is too pricey for hbo