S03.E03: The Big Never

[formerlyfreedom]

Hays recalls his early romance with Amelia, as well as cracks in their relationship that surfaced after they married and had children. Ten years after the Purcell crimes, new evidence emerges, giving him a second chance to vindicate himself and the investigation.

 

[rebel2u]

This show is painful to listen to.  The accents are all over the place.

[Diana Berry]

I'm missing half the dialogue because I can't understand what they are saying.

Did I catch the wife say something about what he left in the woods?  I'm lost what is she talking about?

[Laurie14]

Closed captioning is my best friend. I leave it on all the time.

[Diana Berry]

3 hours ago, Laurie14 said:

Closed captioning is my best friend. I leave it on all the time.

Unfortunately , I can't figure out that option on my tv. I have to end up rewatching every episode.

[WaltersHair]

Quote

Closed captioning is my best friend. I leave it on all the time.

This. I watch on my laptop with headphones, and still I hear mumbling.

I don't have any idea where they're going with this. Which is good.

[Drogo]

So.. that was a body in the duffel bag, right?

[LoveLeigh]

11 minutes ago, WaltersHair said:

This. I watch on my laptop with headphones, and still I hear mumbling.

I don't have any idea where they're going with this. Which is good.

It is already starting to feel like red herrings and filler to what will be a conclusion that will be very disappointing. 

[WaltersHair]

Quote

It is already starting to feel like red herrings and filler to what will be a conclusion that will be very disappointing.

It does feel like way too much information is being thrown at the viewer along with Purple Haze's private life intruding and becoming part of the narrative. I really like Amelia, but I feel like she's going to write something totally untrue, but it will be accepted as truth publicly and split the marrriage.

They do get the emotions and the feeling of futility of the players just right.

[formerlyfreedom]

5 minutes ago, Drogo said:

So.. that was a body in the duffel bag, right?

That's certainly what they WANT us to think....I'm not convinced.

[Drogo]

23 minutes ago, saoirse said:

That's certainly what they WANT us to think....I'm not convinced.

Nor I.  

Have we seen Walmart Daughter in any of the present day scenes? 

[formerlyfreedom]

Just now, Drogo said:

Have we seen Walmart Daughter in any of the present day scenes? 

No - the implication in the earlier episodes seemed to be that she and Hays are estranged in the present day, IIRC? But then, I'm not sure what to believe with this show.

[MrWhyt]

1 hour ago, Drogo said:

So.. that was a body in the duffel bag, right?

no thats a gun

[AimingforYoko]

54 minutes ago, Drogo said:

Have we seen Walmart Daughter in any of the present day scenes? 

She's in LA, as per last episode. Doesn't sound like they're on good terms.

I wonder what Wayne did to derail his career? If he punched out Brett Cullen, I'd say it was worth it.

[sjankis630]

MrWhyt and a very large gun at that. I think he smuggled back some weapon from the war. 

[SHD]

If that bag the salvage guy pulled out wasn't a body, it was an artillery of guns, not just one, based on the heft of the bag and the way it bent. 

If it's a body, we know it's not either of the Purcell kids since they found one and we know the other turns up later. 

I like not knowing what's going on. 

I agree about the mumbling. It's not as bad as Sharp Objects was, but still.  I have the hardest time with old Hayes.

[Gobi]

7 hours ago, Drogo said:

So.. that was a body in the duffel bag, right?

I thought it was a rifle or other firearms.

[ghoulina]

The duffel bag COULD contain guns. It would have to be a big one, or a lot of guns. That wasn't just one, single rifle. My first thought? The family he sadly speaks about leaving him....didn't leave. 

Anyone else think Dorff looks older in the 80s scenes than the 90s ones? 

 

The sound is awful. I can find CC on my Direct TV; but there's always a significant lag. I can't deal with it. So I just try to decipher the mumbling. I'm confused about where Hays and Dorff work in the 90s. They're both still cops? But not working for the same department?

[Gobi]

The sound is terrible, Hays is the worst for me, I miss about half of what he says. In the 90s, Hays and Dorff are still cops, in different departments. Dorff was promoted. Hays was taken out of the major crimes unit. Characters have alluded to Hays having said the wrong thing to the wrong person, leading to his demotion. Someone with political pull, as Dorff mentioned that he twice asked for Hays to be transferred to his unit, and it was blocked each time (by the mayor, I think) and told never to ask again. Those requests must have happened before the girl's fingerprint was found in the 90s.

[shapeshifter]

3 minutes ago, ghoulina said:

The duffel bag COULD contain guns. It would have to be a big one, or a lot of guns. That wasn't just one, single rifle. My first thought? The family he sadly speaks about leaving him....didn't leave

He certainly cradled the bag in his arms with great care.

 

 

9 HOURS AGO, LAURIE14 SAID:

Closed captioning is my best friend. I leave it on all the time.

Me too, but no way for me to do this right now with this show.

9 hours ago, WaltersHair said:

9 HOURS AGO, LAURIE14 SAID:

Closed captioning is my best friend. I leave it on all the time.

This. I watch on my laptop with headphones, and still I hear mumbling.

I'm going to try the headphones next week. I forgot that has worked for me in the past when I couldn't use closed captioning.
I think the problem might be that both 1990 and old-man Hayes are beat down by life, and so Ali is literally stooped over for their scenes, but they didn't get the microphone in the right place for that. If that was the cause of the problem, couldn't they have remedied it in editing?

[Drogo]

9 minutes ago, ghoulina said:

My first thought? The family he sadly speaks about leaving him....didn't leave.

That was my original thought - bones?  Something incriminating is in that duffel.  He went straight home to get rid of it once the pick-up mob came for him.

9 minutes ago, ghoulina said:

Anyone else think Dorff looks older in the 80s scenes than the 90s ones? 

That's the 80s for you.

Spoiler

Kim Basinger 1986:

Kim Basinger 1991:

[Enigma X]

21 minutes ago, ghoulina said:

Anyone else think Dorff looks older in the 80s scenes than the 90s ones? 

Yes!

[Gobi]

24 minutes ago, ghoulina said:

 

Anyone else think Dorff looks older in the 80s scenes than the 90s ?

I think it's the wig he's wearing in the 80s scenes, like an old guy trying to look young. He looks much better in the 90s scenes.

[Tighthead]

Dorff’s 80s look isn’t the greatest. He reminds me of a detective in a sketch comedy show, or maybe a flashback scene on something like Brooklyn 99.

I’m enjoying the show, particularly the characters and the setting. I do find the dialogue a little hard to follow, on both an audible level and content. It’s borderline laborious to follow. 

I can’t say I’m captivated by the plot at this point. I found season 1 a little overlooked in that regard, but with great acting and compelling dialogue. For me, it was more sizzle than steak. Right now, the mystery of 1990 Julie is strongly holding my interest.  The creep factor of the dolls etc. is, to me, a little far fetched. 

[ghoulina]

22 minutes ago, Gobi said:

I think it's the wig he's wearing in the 80s scenes, like an old guy trying to look young. He looks much better in the 90s scenes.

Agreed. I think they gave him those bangs to try and hide the wrinkles that would make more sense in the 90s scenes. But it just ends up aging him. 

17 minutes ago, Tighthead said:

I can’t say I’m captivated by the plot at this point. I found season 1 a little overlooked in that regard, but with great acting and compelling dialogue. For me, it was more sizzle than steak. Right now, the mystery of 1990 Julie is strongly holding my interest.  The creep factor of the dolls etc. is, to me, a little far fetched. 

One thing I thought was a little hokey, or eye-roll worthy - when they found the photo album and there was a picture of Will with his hands folded in prayer. They had this big, "gasp" moment about it. And I didn't get that. It's a typical pose for any child making first communion. I don't think that necessarily has anything to do with him being posed that way in death. 

[shapeshifter]

19 minutes ago, Gobi said:

45 minutes ago, ghoulina said:

Anyone else think Dorff looks older in the 80s scenes than the 90s ?

I think it's the wig he's wearing in the 80s scenes, like an old guy trying to look young. He looks much better in the 90s scenes.

7 minutes ago, ghoulina said:

I think they gave him those bangs to try and hide the wrinkles that would make more sense in the 90s scenes.

I thought Dorf's 80s wig is supposed to look like West was dyeing/bleaching his hair--maybe in addition to the bangs being a style of a younger man.

 

At least the closed captioning scripts are online later. Tom Purcell looks a lot better when he's "Sober. Five years," and I understand the key role of the "higher power" in AA sobriety, but his prayer had some oddly inserted, animist, non-standard-Christian language within the style of Christian praying:
   God save me from anger.
   God save me from resentment.
   God, save me from my judgments and prophecies, my my need to control.
   I have known you by the hawk and the dove and I live at your infinite compassion.
   Lord, guard what I hold dear, and let me never hold too dearly anything of this world.
   Amen.

[12catcrazy]

Ok, so Im confused.  The guy with the short brown hair and facial scruff who prayed with the missing girl's father and talked to Hays in the bar was the blond haired guy from the 80s?    I thought he was somebody different and kept wondering why I didnt know who he was in the 80s.... I guess all the mumbling has confused the hell out of me...

[SHD]

Am I crazy, or did one of the kids' drawings that they took from the house look just like the kitchen behind the farmer when they were talking to him?

[12catcrazy]

14 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

I thought Dorf's 80s wig is supposed to look like West was dyeing/bleaching his hair--maybe in addition to the bangs being a style of a younger man.

 

At least the closed captioning scripts are online later. Tom Purcell looks a lot better when he's "Sober. Five years," and I understand the key role of the "higher power" in AA sobriety, but his prayer had some oddly inserted, animist, non-standard-Christian language within the style of Christian praying:
   God save me from anger.
   God save me from resentment.
   God, save me from my judgments and prophecies, my my need to control.
   I have known you by the hawk and the dove and I live at your infinite compassion.
   Lord, guard what I hold dear, and let me never hold too dearly anything of this world.
   Amen.

Very good point.  My eyebrows went up at the hawk and dove part but  from having lived in Arkansas I know that there are a number of break-off from Baptist or Evangelical churchs and was wondering if any used that kind of imagery.  Doesn't mean Animist, just some kind of "weird old America" preaching speak.

[Tighthead]

27 minutes ago, 12catcrazy said:

Ok, so Im confused.  The guy with the short brown hair and facial scruff who prayed with the missing girl's father and talked to Hays in the bar was the blond haired guy from the 80s?    I thought he was somebody different and kept wondering why I didnt know who he was in the 80s.... I guess all the mumbling has confused the hell out of me...

Yes that is West/Dorff. 

I can see how you missed the connection. It’s not obvious. You almost have to know the actor by sight. 

[crookedjackson44]

The scene in Walmart was terrific.  The tension and panic rose so very fast, and when Hays found his daughter, he responded with anger and his daughter cried, just as she should have.  Simple but authentic.

[Drogo]

1 hour ago, ghoulina said:

One thing I thought was a little hokey, or eye-roll worthy - when they found the photo album and there was a picture of Will with his hands folded in prayer. They had this big, "gasp" moment about it. And I didn't get that. It's a typical pose for any child making first communion. I don't think that necessarily has anything to do with him being posed that way in death. 

I think the intended takeaway is that Dead Will was posed by someone who had seen that photo in their family album.  But I also think it's a common funeral pose for a child. 

 

2 hours ago, ghoulina said:

The sound is awful. I can find CC on my Direct TV; but there's always a significant lag. I can't deal with it. So I just try to decipher the mumbling. I'm confused about where Hays and Dorff work in the 90s. They're both still cops? But not working for the same department?

I have a Bose soundbar which has cleared up the background-is-louder-than-dialogue issue for every show including this one... but Mahershala is the exception.  His lines are almost whispered into the floor.

[WaltersHair]

I keep going back to the rich owner of Hoyt foods. He 'lost' his grand daughter and that's why he put up a child fund. Maybe one of his own kids got knocked up or knocked someone up, and the baby was put up for adoption. The brown sedan could be the rich kid coming back to look for the lost daughter with the fund as a front.

I think the boy may have been playing the game with God. Asking questions and the answer is in the dice.

I don't know what to think about the farmhouse and mixed couple.

Also....eeeee....those scary Barbies from Season 1.

[12catcrazy]

The dice were Dungeons & Dragons dice I think.  Back at that time some people thought the game was Satanic or some such crap. 

I was living in Arkansas from '78 to '80 and friends of mine had the game (the husband was really into it), and some people they knew from church made some comments about it.  They kind of kept it on the QT that they played it after that.

Edited January 21, 2019 by 12catcrazy
Finish a sentence

[Gobi]

13 minutes ago, 12catcrazy said:

The dice were Dungeons & Dragons dice I think.  Back at that time some people thought the game was Satanic or some such crap. 

I was living in Arkansas from '78 to '80 and friends of mine had the game (the husband was really into it), and some people they knew from church made some comments about it.  They kind of kept it on the QT that they played it after that.

They showed the D&D rulebook when the kids' house was being searched. There was a lot of silliness back in the '80s, and earlier, about the game being "satanic".

[mxc90]

When the father was praying and the camera was panning the box of files, one folder had abduction spelled "Abdvction".  It was clearly a "v". Is this a show mistake or clue or just nothing?

I didn't pay attention to the kidnapper's note to see if there were any misspellings.

[Tighthead]

14 minutes ago, Gobi said:

They showed the D&D rulebook when the kids' house was being searched. There was a lot of silliness back in the '80s, and earlier, about the game being "satanic".

 

As I recall it wasn’t just Satanic, but their was a fear that D&D could take over your life.  I think there was a movie about it. 

[kicksave]

3 hours ago, crookedjackson44 said:

The scene in Walmart was terrific.  The tension and panic rose so very fast, and when Hays found his daughter, he responded with anger and his daughter cried, just as she should have.  Simple but authentic.

I so related to that scene! My son did that once at a store not too long after Adam Walsh disappeared and I was frantic. He was in the next isle and slipped out of my sight for two seconds when I went to get something from a higher shelf. I found him immediately and had a similar response to Hays...it was probably one of the more frightening moments of my life.

[Gobi]

53 minutes ago, Tighthead said:

 

As I recall it wasn’t just Satanic, but their was a fear that D&D could take over your life.  I think there was a movie about it. 

Mazes and Monsters, a TV movie starring Tom Hanks.

Edited January 21, 2019 by Gobi

[sjankis630]

Quote

So.. that was a body in the duffel bag, right?

I am also thinking that it isn't a body/bodies since it looked to be at his house.

He has already been questioned by the police detectives about missing kids and they told him they had been out looking around his place. You would think he would have hidden/buried any evidence knowing that there would be the possibility that other officers/ FBI could come poking around again and discover them. I could be wrong of course.

I see this playing out with him going postal and drawing attention away from the main investigation with the police thinking they have their man, but the two detectives continuing on their own and making discoveries. I keep coming back to ghost Amelia telling him about "something he left in the woods." I don't know if it was something he did to someone (remember how they treated the child molester) or something he missed or lost and was too obstinate to ask for help from the other police officers. He really is a lone wolf imho.

 

PS:

Does anyone get the impression that those notes found in the girl's notebook were passed through the hole in the closet by the uncle?

Edited January 21, 2019 by sjankis630

[Milburn Stone]

3 hours ago, Drogo said:

I have a Bose soundbar which has cleared up the background-is-louder-than-dialogue issue for every show including this one... but Mahershala is the exception.  His lines are almost whispered into the floor.

My mind goes to a pure speculation about the shoot, in which the sound guy lets the director know he can't make out Mahershala, and the director asks Mahershala to speak a little more distinctly, and Mahershala fires back, "Do you want it clear or do you want it RIGHT?" At which point the director sighs and thinks to himself, "Well, at least there'll be closed captioning."

[sjankis630]

I don't have trouble understanding what they are saying thus far, but I have always been good in that regard. I was always the guy in college who didn't have trouble understanding my professor's foreign accents (South Asian, Hungarian, German etc) Unfortunately despite that fact it didn't help my gpa much.....

I think that when a show is in surround sound it is harder to hear the voices when you don't have a soundbar/separate system as the voices are usually put in the "center" channel which is separate from the others. Sometimes when the voices have to compete with other sounds they can get muffled. I agree that Ali basically talks like a shy 5th grader doing his best impression of Clint Eastwood, but somehow I can hear him OK.

[ghoulina]

3 hours ago, crookedjackson44 said:

The scene in Walmart was terrific.  The tension and panic rose so very fast, and when Hays found his daughter, he responded with anger and his daughter cried, just as she should have.  Simple but authentic.

It was. I knew she was fine; but as a parent, that scene was super intense for me. I once lost my sons for roughly 10 minutes at the zoo and 10 minutes feels like 10 fucking hours. 

 

3 hours ago, Drogo said:

I think the intended takeaway is that Dead Will was posed by someone who had seen that photo in their family album.  But I also think it's a common funeral pose for a child. 

See, I come down on the latter. I don't think anyone would have needed to see their photo album to pose him that way. And why? Aren't there are dozen other poses, from other pictures, they could have copied? I just didn't see a plausible connection there. 

 

2 hours ago, WaltersHair said:

I keep going back to the rich owner of Hoyt foods. He 'lost' his grand daughter and that's why he put up a child fund. Maybe one of his own kids got knocked up or knocked someone up, and the baby was put up for adoption. The brown sedan could be the rich kid coming back to look for the lost daughter with the fund as a front.

I think the boy may have been playing the game with God. Asking questions and the answer is in the dice.

I don't know what to think about the farmhouse and mixed couple.

Also....eeeee....those scary Barbies from Season 1.

Oooooh, I like your first theory there. A lot. 

But wasn't the bi-racial couple seen in the fancy sedan? Or am I confusing two different sitings? 

[patty1h]

Law enforcement having the missing girls fingerprints on file is a little far-fetched and 'convenient for the plot' to me.  A little girl goes missing, they get her prints from her home and put them on file just in case they show up somewhere?  Then someone gets a hit on them 10 years later?   Was that common practice in the 80's-90's or ever, keeping prints of kidnapping victims in the system?  I've never heard of this done in any real missing child cases in the last 30 years.   

EDIT: It was really sad when Hays told his son that he would kill himself if they thought about putting him in a nursing home.  Luckily I was able to turn on my CC to understand Hays, otherwise, I'd be as lost as everyone else.  The problem I have now is visual - I watch from about 12 feet away from my TV and from that distance I couldn't read the little notes that Wayne found in the girls book.  Can anyone please give me an idea what they said - were they real clues or more red herrings?  Thanks.

Edited January 21, 2019 by patty1h
Asking for some help

[Gobi]

2 minutes ago, patty1h said:

Law enforcement having the missing girls fingerprints on file is a little far-fetched and 'convenient for the plot' to me.  A little girl goes missing, they get her prints from her home and put them on file just in case they show up somewhere?  Then someone gets a hit on them 10 years later?   Was that common practice in the 80's-90's or ever, keeping prints of kidnapping victims in the system?  I've never heard of this done in any real missing child cases in the last 30 years.   

The FBI was involved in the case, so it's plausible that her fingerprints were in the FBI's fingerprint database, which was around long before the '80s.

Edited January 21, 2019 by Gobi

[Drogo]

6 minutes ago, Gobi said:

The FBI was involved in the case, so it's plausible that her fingerprints were in the FBI's fingerprint database, which was around long before the '80s.

Lots of my friends' parents took them to events from LE where non-missing kids' fingerprints were taken, put on cards for the parents and added to the national database in case they ever went missing.  That was the 80's.  Recently the subject came up that they're lucky none of them committed a crime thinking their prints wouldn't come up in searches.

[tennisgurl]

See, its not the accents for me, I can understand the accents just fine. Its the damn volume that keeps getting me! Its like everyone lost their microphones or arent speaking into them properly, because I just cannot hear a damn thing anyone is saying! I had to use subtitles, and I hardly ever use subtitles for English language stuff! I just wanna yell "speak up, I cant figure out the murder if I cant hear any of the clues!" especially in the 80s setting. The 90s and 10s scenes I can hear a little better, but everyone in the 80s seems to be stuck on low volume. 

The best scenes to me were the Wall-Mart scene where Hays daughter wandered off, and the scene with old Hays and the memory of his wife showing up, and doing this whole speech about time lines and past present and future all interacting. The Wall-Mart scene was so intense, even knowing that the daughter would be fine, and was wonderfully acted by Ali, and the now dead wife scene was creepy and atmospheric, and reminded me a lot of the first season again, weaving some philosophy into the story adds a lot to what is otherwise a more straight up murder mystery. Its not to "Rust going on about time being flat" and stuff yet, but its interesting at least. Its especially interesting as the show itself is taking place in three different points in time, and Hays is still trying to still solve the case in the past, present, and future. And he was seeing all three time periods in one moment in that scene, seeing his wife as he first met her in the 80s, his kids as they were in the 90s, and he himself was the old man from 2015. I will be watching carefully to see if this actually becomes a theme, or if its just philosophical dialogue sprinkled in for extra flavor. 

Right now, I am mostly into the 90s mystery, and what happened with Julie at the store, and between her and her father. It seems like we have a whole sea of red hearings right now, but we wont get real answers until later, but I hope that we at least get some real clues first. 

[izabella]

4 hours ago, Drogo said:

I think the intended takeaway is that Dead Will was posed by someone who had seen that photo in their family album.  But I also think it's a common funeral pose for a child. 

The dead boy's pose, as I saw it, showed his hands sticking out from his chest, lifted up rather than folded flat.  Is that a common funeral pose for a child?  I have no idea, just asking.  If so, why?  It seems, uh, unnatural.

[Drogo]

2 minutes ago, izabella said:

hands sticking out from his chest, lifted up rather than folded flat. 

I thought I saw hands in prayer with a rosary.

ETA: My brain might be converging the communion picture and his death pose because it feels like I've watched 14 hours of this show but it's only been 3.

Edited January 21, 2019 by Drogo

[izabella]

1 minute ago, Drogo said:

I thought I saw hands in prayer with a rosary.

Are you talking about the picture, or the dead boy?  I wasn't referring to the picture.  I didn't see a rosary on the dead boy, but it's very possible I missed it.  I'm just trying to understand if it's really common that a child would have his hands sticking up like that for a funeral, the way we saw on the dead body.

Ugh, just typing that makes me feel like a ghoul!