The final of True Detective begins with a bluff, then tells a new story

Wayne Hays understands triage. As we saw in Woodard Altercation, he is undoubtedly brave and intelligent on the field. But when he is really under fire – when the peace of his family is threatened – he understands how to prioritize. In the end, Hoyt's appearance adds little to the story, it's a compelling reason for Wayne to finally leave the police, and a compelling reason to re-examine his life and turn it into a life. that he wishes.

Sitting in the VFW with Amelia, talking about their marriage, Wayne Hays shows the kind of self-awareness and insight that most people achieve after years of therapy. "I just realized that I want your approval," he says to his wife, "and sometimes I do what is wrong because that's what you want." He does not blame her, he tries not to deny, he promised to tell him everything. He admits the mistake and agrees to change.

He promised more than that. Wayne is ready to leave his career with the state police so that Amelia gives up her teaching job at an elementary school and that the Purcell case is dropped. Throughout the season, we have seen this couple make fun of us with silent and painful precision. It is comforting to see them encourage each other with the same certainty and to see them come into contact with the simple and steady holding of hands.

"There has always been this great secret between us," he continues. "And it's that you and I, who are together, our marriage, our children, everything is tied up in a dead boy and a missing girl." For the second time in a few minutes, Wayne Hays escapes years of habit and matrimonial discussions. about the things they've been talking about for so long. "Let's leave this problem," he says. "It's not ours."

Even before their deep and productive conversation at the VFW in 1990,
Wayne and Amelia strive to be vulnerable to each other. When his
give it a simple choice: disavow Amelia's newspaper article
or get fired at the office, Wayne chooses demotion instead of treason. When
he leaves her drunk with resentment, she chooses to do a "do-over" – also at the VFW, in 1980. She
think that he was moved by Woodard's shooting, but that it is rather something bigger, better, scary. "I think I want to marry," he says, searching for words. "I did not think it would happen to me. I did not let myself go … I did not expect it. You. "

The first seven episodes of True detectiveThe third season was about restraint: restraint of detail, restraint of affection, time, care and attention. Wayne, Amelia, Roland, Henry and even the absence of Becca are retaining vulnerability. In the final, they all come out of their defense reserve. "Now Am Found" is a parade of hugs and handshakes that gently invite each other into a life together.

While Wayne and Amelia turn the 1990 crisis into an opportunity to heal their marriage (in reality, to discover the marriage they have somewhere under the suffocating fog of the Purcell affair), Roland West sublimates and spoils himself for a fight. Entering a bar of bikers, he chooses a likely opponent and starts to utter insults … but it is the nature of the insult that is significant. "I always wondered, all this human garbage on the buttocks is walking in the earth?" Who makes them?"Although Roland mocks the biker and his date, he makes fun of the very idea that they could be a family that will bring him his first punch, but even Roland gets a hug, the wandering dog's share, who walks around, and that's how Roland creates his own makeshift family.

Amelia tells Wayne that when you write a story, "It's important to know how you want it to end." When Wayne tells him that he thinks he'd like to marry her, she asks, "How would you like that to happen?" Amelia knows that the story of a lifetime It's not something that happens to you. It's something you make to arrive, because the story of a life is not limited to its events. The story of your life is the story of the choices you make.

"And if the end is not really the end?" Wayne asks the vision of Amelia, who is holding him behind in their dark study. "What if there is another story? What if something does not work? All this life, all this loss. And if it was really a long story that went on until it was healing itself? Would not it be a story to tell? Would not it be a story worthy of being heard? "

Julie Purcell's police report tells the story of a lost and untraceable girl. Her unpublished story was the dark fairy tale of a crazy-minded princess in a subterranean pink prison. His cover story was tabloid fodder, a fugitive robbed in the streets, dying young in a cloister. But her true story is that of the found family, the disappearance of the past and the building of a life for herself and her family.

Look at Wayne Hays' eyes as he drinks his glass of water, standing in front of him
the flourishing yard on Allegra Lane. I believe that he sees the truth standing
in front of him, just a moment before he walks away again. And me
to believe that he let it go as he chose to write his address
but not his reason for wanting it. Life is made of choice, and Wayne Hays chooses to let the answer that she has pursued all these years slip into the depths of her memory.

Like Junius Watts, if you came in this episode in search of a punishment, a bigger look in the abyss, you will be disappointed. Unlike previous seasons and previous episodes of the third season, "Now Am Found" is not about creating a case. It's about building a life. It's about starting a family, even if (like Roland West) you start late.

A happy ending! Whatever the case may be, the endings of prestigious cop shows become as happy as ever and any end, as any story, which is to say that there is no end at all . Not with Henry Hays –True detective, Jr. – put Lucy Purcell's speech in her pocket for later, not with that last persistent image of young Wayne walking in the lush and confused jungle of his own memories. Life, especially family life, is not a closed book. It's a story that continues until it heals itself, hurts itself and heals itself.

Observations lost

• It is men who choose their family in True detective: Roland chose to lie down with Wayne, Wayne chose to let him, Mike Ardoin (Nathan Wetherington) saving Julie from the convent, Roland making a brother close to Tom and Tom reciprocally. Isabel's attempt to buy Julie and Lucy's attempt to sell her destroy the lives of everyone involved; Becca's distance from his father is a stratagem used to give his character an extra dose of anxiety, easily dismissed when the time comes.
• It is not surprising that Mahershala Ali, who won his second Academy Award in this first broadcast, created
  a layered complex performance for the Wayne Hays character across
  ages. What is surprising is how much the rest of the distribution has gone
  to meet him, and this is no longer true of Stephen Dorff. I have enjoyed his work over the years, but for me, his character for a decade is one of the first to claim the most unexpected performances of the year.
• Henry's wife, Heather, is Sola Bamis, responsible for half of Mad MenThe most discreet sardonic exchange.
• For you, Steven Williams could be Rufus Turner or Virgil or Quentin Dickinson, but for me, he will always be Mr. X, and his gravity does the same invaluable work here, giving the illusion of depth to a subscribed character.
• Thank you for joining me for True detectiveThird season!