True Detective Season 3: What Does The Ending Really Mean?
12. What Happens
The finale runs to around 80 minutes in length, with a lot of plot and character work to try and get through.
In the 1980s, Wayne Hays is given an ultimatum at work. He can either write an op-ed discrediting everything Amelia has written, thus ruining his chance of a relationship with her, or he can be forced to take a desk job as a pencil pusher. Eventually, Hays chooses the desk job, even though it still leads to him and Amelia getting into a huge fight and seemingly ending their relationship. Roland West, meanwhile, is clearly hurt by Hays' choice.
In the 1990s, we pick up with Hays going off with Edmund Hoyt. The two go to the woods for an extremely tense conversation, but where neither man is prepared to give much away. He returns to Amelia, where the two talk about how their marriage has been so defined by the Purcell case, and Hays agrees to let it go in order to protect his family. West struggles with their murder of Harris James, and starts a fight in a bar - a fight where he takes on a bunch of bikers and is winning, until the numbers overwhelm him. In one of the season's best scenes, he sits crying and bloodied outside, before finding companionship with a stray dog.
In 2015, Hays and West track down Mr June, aka Junius Watts. He reveals the truth about what happened - the Hoyts took Julie Purcell, and Will was killed by accident, and Julia ran off when she was a little bit older before dying at a convent - before begging the detectives to punish him, which they don't. Hays and West go to the convent and corroborate the story, until Hays goes back home and begins reading Amelia's book. With her memory, he realises that Julie is still alive and tracks her down, before a loss of memory means he forgets why he's there, and his kids come pick him up. Back at home, it's all happy families, and then Hays has a flashback to his and Amelia's reconciliation, when he tells her he loves her. There's then a shot of Hays in Vietnam, before the credits roll.