True Detective Huge Rewatch Nugget

Published February 7, 2019 · Updated July 6, 2022

Dear Big D, Gene, and King Bee,

First off, thank you for your phenomenal work. I stumbled across your podcast after searching “True Detective” in the iTunes Store. This season has been so good I just needed to be a part of some kind of conversation about it.

I’m rewatching the series with my friends (they’re a little behind). In episode three there are some *brilliantly* hidden nuggets I don’t think anyone has brought to your attention yet. Go back and check out Julie’s drawings that Hays is holding. A pink castle, complete with a pink kitchen. Wherever she was claiming to be princess of, she had been a resident of it long before she disappeared.

Ok, now that I’ve got your attention, I wanted to return to something from last week. You discussed how the line about someone “acting like my father” might indicate-as the detectives seem to believe-that Julie knows Tom is not her father. But what if she was talking about the other man from the broadcast? What if the man she’s referring to, the man she so loathes and fears, acting paternalistically as he urges her to submit to his custody, is none other than…the Arkansas attorney general?!

If you’ll indulge me one more, I’d really like to put on my tinfoil for a second and theorize about Emilia. In episode two, when we cut away from the note, we go directly to an old picture of Emilia that Wayne is looking at ruefully. I believe that, while she’s not the big bad, Emilia planted the note and her book holds they keys to many of the questions that have bedeviled us this season. I love your theory that Wayne has already read it-and that he’s repressing it. I even wonder if there’s something more to her death. While it’s often mentioned *that* she has died, we’ve heard nothing at all about the where, why or how of it.

All the best, guys, and thanks again,

Ben S

Stamford, CT

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