True Detective Season 3: What Does The Ending Really Mean?

10. The Purcell Case Solved

It took 35 years, but the Purcell case was finally solved. As many had suspected, the Hoyts were behind it, even if Edmund wasn't involved. Isabel Hoyt's husband and daughter died in a car accident, which left her distraught, and she eventually became addicted to Lithium. One day, at an event for the Hoyt workers and their families, Isabel spotted Julie, and thought she looked like her dead daughter, Mary.

At first, Isabel simply wanted to spend time with the child, with Lucy paid off to allow it. Eventually, though, Isabel wanted more. To give Julie a supposedly better life. Near the cave where they'd go and play, a fight over Julie resulted in Will being accidentally killed. With him dead, Isabel and Mr June took Julie home to the pink room, and with the help of lithium (unbeknownst to Junius) started to erase memories of Julie, convincing the child she really was Mary. Harris James killed Lucy, Tom, and Dan to help keep this a secret.

When June discovered the truth, he helped Julie escape. The pair planned to meet up, but she fled, and he didn't track her down for another 10 years. He found her at a convent, where he was told she'd lived and died under the name Mary July. The name fit, so he believed that was the end of the case. Hays and West go to the convent, and discover much the same. There was no grand conspiracy; simply a mother in pain, a child killed by accident, and a runaway who'd been sold off by her real mother and drugged by her fake one, who died of HIV. Or at least, managed to trick everyone into believing she did.