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The Major Clue You Might've Missed During the Season 3 Premiere of ‘True Detective’

true detective episode 1 mamie gummer

OK, True Detective is good at dropping bread crumbs—sometimes even loaves—but while the wedding picture drawn by, we assume, 10-year-old Julie is a major clue, and something to bookmark for later episodes, and the creepy dolls in the forest that led Wayne (Mahershala Ali) to poor deceased Will, will no doubt lead us closer to the murderer-slash-kidnapper, the most overlooked clue seems to be the peephole in Will’s closet.

The smutty mags under Will’s bed have found their rightful owner (in episode two, for those who stopped watching halfway through premiere night), but who drilled the hole in the wall meant to spy on a ten-year-old girl?

Will and Julie’s mother, Lucy (Mamie Gummer) seems emotionally off-kilter, but between bar hopping and extramarital affairs, she also doesn’t seem interested enough in her offspring to spy on them in secret.

Could it be pervy Cousin Dan who stayed in Will’s room six months ago? It almost seems too easy, so because he seems like the obvious answer, we’re going to guess Dan is a red herring.

Their father, Tom Purcell (Scoot McNairy) is certainly not the picture of emotional stability and even tried to keep Wayne and Roland (Stephen Dorff) from searching the house on that fated day when his kids disappeared. But is he really sick enough to be checking out his daughter through a hole in the wall?

No conclusion is as satisfying as the perp we’ve grown familiar with, so maybe we need to keep our eyes peeled on Tom for more clues.

Who do you think drilled the hole in the wall, and do you think it’s an important factor in the murder?

Be sure to tune into True Detective on Sundays at 9 p.m on HBO. 


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