S03.E04: The Hour and the Day

[formerlyfreedom]

Quote

Hays and West see a possible connection between the local church and the Purcell crimes. As the detectives search for one suspect and round up another for interrogation, Woodard is targeted by a vigilante group.

 

[formerlyfreedom]

[AimingforYoko]

Of course that's where they end it. Assholes.

I knew that bag was guns. I guess they forgot Woodard was in 'Nam. Where'd he get a Claymore, though?

[Drogo]

"Children should laugh." 

Either Mom wrote the note, or she was involved in the kids' disappearance, or that's one giant coincidence?

[Gobi]

8 minutes ago, Drogo said:

"Children should laugh." 

Either Mom wrote the note, or she was involved in the kids' disappearance, or that's one giant coincidence?

I wondered about that. But hadn't she already seen the note at that point? I thought she was quoting it. She did give another hint that Tom is not the daughter's father,  mentioning that she ran around on him.

[Drogo]

+1 coincidence: suspicious doll purchaser mentions the kill-line at the chicken plant.

[ghoulina]

Oooh, it almost got all West Memphis Three up in there again. I thought for sure we were heading toward another false confession. 

So much amazing acting in this episode. Ali just nailed it in the scene where he's all confused and back in the jungle. Alzheimer's/dementia has got to be one of the scariest things ever. And I felt it. 

Also, the woman who plays Julie Purcell had me in tears. When he she pulled out that plate. Gah. Our kids just love us. Even when we don't deserve it. 

Anyone else ever get the feeling Amelia was sometimes more into the case than she was into Hays?

Edited January 28, 2019 by ghoulina

[Diana Berry]

3 hours ago, ghoulina said:

 

Also, the woman who plays Julie Purcell had me in tears. When he she pulled out that plate. Gah. Our kids just love us. Even when we don't deserve it.

That's Meryl Streep's daughter.

[clack]

Something is up with Amelia. She continually evades Hays's questions about her past. She also seems to be frequently acting, trying on various personas.

Not that I think she's involved with what happened with the kids. Hays wouldn't still love her, as he seems to do even now.

[grawlix]

58 minutes ago, AimingforYoko said:

I knew that bag was guns. I guess they forgot Woodard was in 'Nam. Where'd he get a Claymore, though?

I would guess the same place he got his cache of weapons.  Ex-military types that sold military weapons on the black/grey market to other ex-military.

[WaltersHair]

That wife. Something is definitely up with her. She works absolutely everyone like a pro. She was once a bit of a mess?

I actually laughed when When Wayne asked his Vietnamese hallucinations if they still made that type of car. And he asked it as if expecting an answer.

The first two True Detectives revolved around powerful men and religious nuts. I want them to surprise me and not make it about those elements.

[Drogo]

47 minutes ago, ghoulina said:

Also, the woman who plays Julie Purcell had me in tears. When he she pulled out that plate.

Lucy Purcell.  Julie was her daughter. 

[scottiB]

1 hour ago, AimingforYoko said:

Of course that's where they end it. Assholes.

I knew that bag was guns. I guess they forgot Woodard was in 'Nam. Where'd he get a Claymore, though?

I’m wondering if it’s a tweak on this being episode four. The episode fours in the first two seasons had pitched gun fights. 

[SHD]

Additional suspects...the priest? Trailer park guy? The Mom? More suspicious actions from trash guy? The student? Seems like half the town!

[Drogo]

"Or what?!"

"Or I'm going to start crying."

Mahershala sure knows how to diffuse a marital situation.  

[WaltersHair]

Was Julie carrying something in her arms on the video footage from Wallgreens? A baby?

[mxc90]

Why did the group drive to trash man's home instead of attacking him on the dirt road? 

Any chance the interviewer is a relative of Julie or could be her daughter?

I hope they don't end up revealing it was Wayne's son having an affair with the interviewer.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Inside the episode:

[izabella]

2 hours ago, SHD said:

Additional suspects...the priest? Trailer park guy? The Mom? More suspicious actions from trash guy? The student? Seems like half the town!

That priest seemed awfully interested in getting Hays' confession.  I thought he was creepy and suspicious, and he'd be familiar with the pose Will was found in because of that picture. 

I can't remember who it was that said the way Will was arranged with the toys made it seem loving.  That made me wonder if it was Julie that arranged him that way in the cave.  Not that she killed him, but just that she'd want to see him "rest in peace" with his toys.

[Accidental Martyr]

I assumed the Vietnamese soldiers in Hays’ hallucination were people he killed in Vietnam but who was the man in the coat and tie?

[SHD]

12 minutes ago, Accidental Martyr said:

I assumed the Vietnamese soldiers in Hays’ hallucination were people he killed in Vietnam but who was the man in the coat and tie?

I was thinking the same thing. I couldn't figure out what the guy in the suit was doing in that group.

55 minutes ago, mxc90 said:

Why did the group drive to trash man's home instead of attacking him on the dirt road? 

Didn't the trash man run off the main road when he saw them and so they went around to his house figuring that's where he'd run to? That's what I thought.

[thuganomics85]

Oh, shit, those assholes are going to regret ever getting on Trash Man's bad side!  I just hope Wayne and Roland won't come out the worst for wear after everything gets "resolved" with that next week.

Credit to Brett Cullen, because I usually always love his characters, but I so wanted Wayne to punch his smug ass tonight.

Wayne and Amelia are an interesting couple.  I do think there is real affection and even love there, but there is also the sense that both are willing to risk their bond for other goals.

I guess we see the beginning of how Roland and Tom become more friendly in the 90s.

I could definitely tell David Milch co-wrote this episode!

Mahershala Ali continues to be the best at everything.

[Gobi]

7 hours ago, clack said:

Something is up with Amelia. She continually evades Hays's questions about her past. She also seems to be frequently acting, trying on various personas.

I loved the look on Hays' face when he asked the cop with the videos if he had talked to Amelia (without revealing his connection to her), and the cop said she told him that her "ex-husband" was police. 

4 hours ago, Accidental Martyr said:

I assumed the Vietnamese soldiers in Hays’ hallucination were people he killed in Vietnam but who was the man in the coat and tie?

I was assuming that he was someone else that Hays killed, probably as a cop and likely someone involved in this case.

 Random thoughts:

When they interviewed the doll maker, I thought she indicated her left eye when she said the man who bought the dolls had a dead eye. The man Hays and West found had a dead right eye.

 I'm loving West's snark. "You're using that prison rape threat a lot. Something you want to tell me?"

In the '90s, West had a picture of a woman in his desk, presumably his wife, and she looked like the woman he was hitting on at the church in the '80s.

There was a hint that something went wrong during the '90s investigation. Maybe Julie and her (real) father died? I definitely got the impression that Julie died. That could explain why the case is still being investigated by the TV show in the present - there was no real solution as to what happened. And who killed the peephole cousin and buried his body in the desert? Was it connected to the case? His whereabouts were unknown in the '90s. Was he already dead then? His death seemed to be news to Hays in the present.

Edited January 28, 2019 by Gobi

[ghoulina]

9 hours ago, Diana Berry said:

That's Meryl Streep's daughter.

Wow. I had no idea. She obviously inherited her mother's talent. 

 

8 hours ago, Drogo said:

Lucy Purcell.  Julie was her daughter. 

Thank you. I'm great with faces, but horrible with names. It took me 4 episodes to stop calling Roland, "Dorff". 

 

I had a thought last night that I forgot to mention. The teenage kid said he saw Will, but not the girl. Will was looking for his sister. It may sound far fetched; but is it possible that two separate things happened to them? Maybe she got snatched by a pedophile, but something completely different happened to him. An accident? Or another "bad guy" altogether. Maybe he got lost looking for his sister and some other creep came upon him. There's certainly no shortage of creeps in that town. 

[Drogo]

3 hours ago, Gobi said:

I'm loving West's snark. "You're using that prison rape threat a lot. Something you want to tell me?"

"You better train your ass to be an entrance" has a certain menacing poetry to it.  The writing is so good it's a crying shame the sound mixers decided to put background noise at a 10 and dialogue at a 4.

8 hours ago, izabella said:

That priest seemed awfully interested in getting Hays' confession.  I thought he was creepy and suspicious, and he'd be familiar with the pose Will was found in because of that picture. 

I'm thinking a priest killing a boy and posing him like his communion photo is a lot like a Burger King employee killing a boy and putting one of those gold BK crowns on his corpse.  I imagine he wanted Hays' confession so badly because he can tell Hays' is carrying around a lot of guilt and turmoil; by the looks of his Viet Cong hallucinations he never did get around to 'filling up' his confession list and getting to church.

3 hours ago, Gobi said:

In the '90s, West had a picture of a woman in his desk, presumably his wife, and she looked like the woman he was hitting on at the church in the '80s.

He also walked with a significant limp.  Wonder if that's from the Claymore's shrapnel.  Front toward enemy..

[Drogo]

"And you... how you gonna wear that badge?"

"It's got a little clip on it."

[Direwolf]

2 hours ago, Gobi said:

And who killed the peephole cousin and buried his body in the desert? Was it connected to the case? His whereabouts were unknown in the '90s. Was he already dead then? His death seemed to be news to Hays in the present.

Unless Hays forgot that piece of information from the 1990 investigation. If I remember correctly (will have to go back and check), the lady said the cousin "resurfaced in 1990" then was found dead in the desert. Roland assigned at least one detective to find his whereabouts when they reopened the investigation. 

[Tighthead]

3 hours ago, Gobi said:

I loved the look on Hays' face when he asked the cop with the videos if he had talked to Amelia (without revealing his connection to her), and the cop said she told him that her "ex-husband" was police. 

I was assuming that he was someone else that Hays killed, probably as a cop and likely someone involved in this case.

 Random thoughts:

When they interviewed the doll maker, I thought she indicated her left eye when she said the man who bought the dolls had a dead eye. The man Hays and West found had a dead right eye.

 I'm loving West's snark. "You're using that prison rape threat a lot. Something you want to tell me?"

In the '90s, West had a picture of a woman in his desk, presumably his wife, and she looked like the woman he was hitting on at the church in the '80s.

There was a hint that something went wrong during the '90s investigation. Maybe Julie and her (real) father died? I definitely got the impression that Julie died. That could explain why the case is still being investigated by the TV show in the present - there was no real solution as to what happened. And who killed the peephole cousin and buried his body in the desert? Was it connected to the case? His whereabouts were unknown in the '90s. Was he already dead then? His death seemed to be news to Hays in the present.

 

 

Pretty sure Amelia told Hays that she said “ex-husband” to “work” the agent. It jarred me at the time because I thought maybe they had actually been divorced. She really is always playing an angle. Boozed up mom was not wrong in that. 

In the task force meeting they said O’Brien briefly resurfaced, then disappeared again. I’m wondering if the mother’s guilt is from knowing that the uncle/cousin was abusing the daughter. 

I liked this episode. Moved the plot along, some character development, and not much mystical stuff. 

Also for the record, 1990 Amelia is an absolute smokeshow. 

Edited January 28, 2019 by Tighthead

[shapeshifter]

West walks with a limp in the 90s. I wonder if he ran to the Trash Man's door to stop the would-be murderer, and West's leg got seriously damaged.
And now I'm wondering if the Trash Man died in the explosion too (despite the instructions on the explosive device to face it towards the "enemy"), and that it was decided posthumously that Trash Man was the doer--at least decided for the 80s.

 

For me, the sound was much improved in this episode. Maybe it took them this many episodes to get the right kind of microphones in the right places.
What stands out for me in season 3--and especially this episode where I could hear everything--is the prose that inhabits the characters masterfully wedded to the actors with the chops to deliver it, like when 90s Hays and Amelia's argument devolves into her suggesting they have sex and Hays remarks that she's "got some major cognitive dissonance," and:

37 minutes ago, Drogo said:

"And you... how you gonna wear that badge?"

"It's got a little clip on it."

 

 

8 hours ago, mxc90 said:

Any chance the interviewer is a relative of Julie or could be her daughter?

That's an interesting idea. I hadn't considered that the interviewer had a motive for doing the story, but, yeah, of course she would have a personal interest of some sort.

9 hours ago, WaltersHair said:

Was Julie carrying something in her arms on the video footage from Wallgreens? A baby?

Maybe, although to me it seemed too small and flat for a baby. I thought the reason Hays was bugging out was because she was looking right at the camera--like maybe she wanted to be seen and rescued--but a teen shoplifter might just look at the camera hoping she wasn't being seen too. And if it was a baby, that would definitely give Hays pause and make him pause the VCR.
BTW, during that scene I was thinking of how much easier it used to be to fast forward through video tapes to find a scene. Of course with digital, screen grabs are easy-peasy.

Edited January 28, 2019 by shapeshifter

[AimingforYoko]

Was anybody else unnerved by the kids' knowing smile when Wayne and Amelia were going at it? How aware were you of your parents' sex lives at 9?

[clack]

Julie being alive eliminates some of the townfolk as suspects. The priest or the Trash Guy vet can't be hiding her -- she must have been spirited far out of town and is living under an assumed identity.

[grawlix]

9 hours ago, WaltersHair said:

Was Julie carrying something in her arms on the video footage from Wallgreens? A baby?

It didn't look like a baby to me.  She looked to be a normal shopper carrying a few small items to the check out.  Finding the fingerprints appears to be coincidental to the earlier reported robbery.

 

8 hours ago, mxc90 said:

Why did the group drive to trash man's home instead of attacking him on the dirt road? 

Any chance the interviewer is a relative of Julie or could be her daughter?

That was an odd piece of filming/editing.  It looked like the vigilantes were close enough to identify that the man running was Woodard, but there was no indication that they recognized who he was.  It could be that they filmed the sequences and the editor did what he could to preserve the story line.

 

Elisa being a relative of Julie is an interesting theory.  Seems to fit with what is going on this season.

7 hours ago, Accidental Martyr said:

I assumed the Vietnamese soldiers in Hays’ hallucination were people he killed in Vietnam but who was the man in the coat and tie?

There were also outlines of American soldiers in his hallucination.  Does that mean he killed Americans too?

I thought it was interesting that Hays purposely touched the man in the coat and tie and said he was sorry.  Was that a personal choice by the actor or is that something the director wanted?

[DarkRaichu]

One minor gripe: the priest saying if Hays went to services bugged me to no end.  Catholics call it a Mass, especially when talking to another Catholic (Hays already told the priest he was a Catholic by that moment).

 

Anyway, the acting was great like usual.

Amelia seems to be a person who solves any marital problem with sex
 

1 hour ago, AimingforYoko said:

Was anybody else unnerved by the kids' knowing smile when Wayne and Amelia were going at it? How aware were you of your parents' sex lives at 9?

Presumably those 2 fight & make up a lot??? Maybe the kids just noticed whenever their parents got angry, they would be fine after the thump thump thump sound.  They might not know what the sound was all about.

[Pike Ludwell]

They are stepping up the "race" aspects in the show, I suppose to fit in with today's BLM ideology and make the show "relevant".  I do think that the racial situation at that trailer court where they were interviewing that African American with the bad eye was a bit off.  The cops were too heavy handed - as these two usually are -- but within reason, and it led to the black guy way overreacting, assuming racism, and the crowd overreacting in the same way, and becoming riotous. Then the detectives guilt or whatever kicked in and they decided not to prosecute anyone for stupidly breaking their windshield. Funny racial thinking in the writing, I think - other times too.

Edited January 28, 2019 by Pat Hoolihan

[LoveLeigh]

I did not like this episode at all. I feel they are putting in too many suspects (even though in real cases there can be many suspects) and false leads and red herrings and so much becomes filler. They stretch what could be a 3 or 4 episode series into 8 episodes. And the fine acting and the layers of the characters gets lost in the redundancy of the story line. I don't even care any more.

What was great excitement and anticipation to find out the answers to the mysteries gets lost inside me when I have to wait a whole week for the next episode which is only an hour. That is probably why so many series are now put up all at once: so viewers can binge watch. Interest for me can sometimes deteriorate to just not caring. One child is dead and another is alive. The journey for answers is not enough to fill 8 episodes. 

[TrininisaScorp]

That dinner scene for Hays and Amelia's date was both cringe-y, hilarious, flirty, and awkward.  I think the two actors really played off each other well in this courting scene (fair warning:  Mahershala turning up the charm in any capacity is gonna make me swoon).  Contrast that with the continued 1990s argument in the kitchen and bedroom, and you see that it has been a tough ten years in the Hays marriage, yet they are still very attracted to each other, but go about things in a very different ways.  The fight felt very honest to me, very real...loving someone and knowing where to punch to make it hurt...I was almost uncomfortable that I was intruding.  

2015 Wayne is pretty great!  The writing and the actor have done a marvelous job in building a well rounded character whose layers are still somewhat a mystery.  All his 2015 decisions feel very in character. 

I'm very tense about this shootout scenario with Woodard and the mob.  I don't know whose fault this all is, right?  Like, that mob is racist, clearly, but Woodard seems a little weird with the kids.

I would love to understand a bit more about why the daughter is estranged from older Wayne.  Something about their mom?  Also, does Wayne's son have something going with the producer lady?  There seemed to be a great undercurrent between both conversations with Wayne/Henry and Wayne/Producer lady. 

Man, Mamie Gummer sold me on Lucy's traumatic experience.  She is a deeply unhappy woman living her life in a deeply unhappy way, and her kids were a constant reminder of that, and now they are gone and she probably feels like it is punishment.  I saw that Streep magic in that scene with Amelia, I tell ya!

[kicksave]

15 hours ago, ghoulina said:

Oooh, it almost got all West Memphis Three up in there again. I thought for sure we were heading toward another false confession. 

So much amazing acting in this episode. Ali just nailed it in the scene where he's all confused and back in the jungle. Alzheimer's/dementia has got to be one of the scariest things ever. And I felt it. 

Also, the woman who plays Julie Purcell had me in tears. When he she pulled out that plate. Gah. Our kids just love us. Even when we don't deserve it. 

Anyone else ever get the feeling Amelia was sometimes more into the case than she was into Hays?

 

5 hours ago, ghoulina said:

Wow. I had no idea. She obviously inherited her mother's talent. 

 

Thank you. I'm great with faces, but horrible with names. It took me 4 episodes to stop calling Roland, "Dorff". 

 

I had a thought last night that I forgot to mention. The teenage kid said he saw Will, but not the girl. Will was looking for his sister. It may sound far fetched; but is it possible that two separate things happened to them? Maybe she got snatched by a pedophile, but something completely different happened to him. An accident? Or another "bad guy" altogether. Maybe he got lost looking for his sister and some other creep came upon him. There's certainly no shortage of creeps in that town. 

Mamie Gummer...Meryl's daughter, very talented actress. I first saw her in the HBO series "John Adams" where she played Sally Smith Adams,  the wife of John Adams alcoholic son Charles. She's done some Broadway and other plays and other TV and movies. 

[wovenloaf]

3 hours ago, grawlix said:

That was an odd piece of filming/editing.  It looked like the vigilantes were close enough to identify that the man running was Woodard, but there was no indication that they recognized who he was.  It could be that they filmed the sequences and the editor did what he could to preserve the story line.

I think what happened was the one guy saw him out the window talking to the little girl, then went to round up his buddies.  A little later, after rounding up the buddies, they were all headed to Woodard's house.  At the time, Woodard was walking back to his house and, when he saw the posse coming, sprinted across the field to make it back to the house before they did.  I got the impression the posse knew that's where he was going (which is why they just went there, instead of trying to chase him through the field).

[shapeshifter]

45 minutes ago, TrininisaScorp said:

2015 Wayne is pretty great!  The writing and the actor have done a marvelous job in building a well rounded character whose layers are still somewhat a mystery.  All his 2015 decisions feel very in character. 

ITA. We already know Mahershala Ali is an award winning and deserving actor, but he should get an extra cherry on top for convincingly playing an elderly person with dementia when he, himself, is only 44.
The special effects of his hallucinations is pretty well done too--which is tricky to get just right without looking silly.

 

3 hours ago, DarkRaichu said:

4 hours ago, AimingforYoko said:

Was anybody else unnerved by the kids' knowing smile when Wayne and Amelia were going at it? How aware were you of your parents' sex lives at 9?

Presumably those 2 fight & make up a lot??? Maybe the kids just noticed whenever their parents got angry, they would be fine after the thump thump thump sound.  They might not know what the sound was all about.

It did give me pause, but it was the 80s, so the kids might have managed to see some pay-per-view (in the 60s it might have been a Playboy magazine), and yes, the parents seem to have a pattern of make-up sex, and, also, if it was a rural area, the kids might have seen a variety of animals making thumpy noises in a barn.
When Hays turned up the volume on the TV, I initially thought it was so the kids wouldn't hear the fight--but evidently not so much.

Edited January 28, 2019 by shapeshifter

[MrWhyt]

3 hours ago, Pat Hoolihan said:

They are stepping up the "race" aspects in the show, I suppose to fit in with today's BLM ideology and make the show "relevant".  I do think that the racial situation at that trailer court where they were interviewing that African American with the bad eye was a bit off.  The cops were too heavy handed - as these two usually are -- but within reason, and it led to the black guy way overreacting, assuming racism, and the crowd overreacting in the same way, and becoming riotous. Then the detectives guilt or whatever kicked in and they decided not to prosecute anyone for stupidly breaking their windshield. Funny racial thinking in the writing, I think - other times too.

What BLM "ideology" is the story being made to fit? Who would they arrest for breaking their windshield? should they have just grabbed a random guy out of the crowd?

[ShadowHunter]

"How you gonna wear that badge?"

"There's a little clip on it."

That got a good laugh from me.

This season has really sucked me in. I've got a bunch of theories rattling around for this story. And the performances are all top notch. Stephen Dorff continues to impress me. Scoot McNairy is really killing it in his role. 

"The fuck is a Donahue" also got a laugh. 

The reporter is to young to be Julie i think but I open to anything with this series.

[stacyasp]

5 hours ago, grawlix said:

It didn't look like a baby to me.  She looked to be a normal shopper carrying a few small items to the check out.  Finding the fingerprints appears to be coincidental to the earlier reported robbery.

 

That was an odd piece of filming/editing.  It looked like the vigilantes were close enough to identify that the man running was Woodard, but there was no indication that they recognized who he was.  It could be that they filmed the sequences and the editor did what he could to preserve the story line.

 

Elisa being a relative of Julie is an interesting theory.  Seems to fit with what is going on this season.

There were also outlines of American soldiers in his hallucination.  Does that mean he killed Americans too?

I thought it was interesting that Hays purposely touched the man in the coat and tie and said he was sorry.  Was that a personal choice by the actor or is that something the director wanted?

It was probably the cousin dan o brien who I think they or he killed

[Maire]

I’m pretty good at figuring things out and maybe it’s because I’m a little bored but I really don’t know what’s happening. I get the broad strokes but that’s about it.

[sjankis630]

This year is confusing to me too but I am not usually good at figuring out mysteries early. (I tend to go off on wild tangents lol) 

On another board I read about this show, there are a couple of people who think everything centers around the chicken plant. The mother worked there and I think even the black guy with the weird eye worked there too. 

They even went as far as to think that the "children should laugh" line from the note that was repeated by the mother points to the plant. (the idea being here that it may have been a company slogan in the past) 

They are kind of far fetched, but at this point it really could go in different directions. 

Edited January 28, 2019 by sjankis630

[Drogo]

7 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

West walks with a limp in the 90s. I wonder if he ran to the Trash Man's door to stop the would-be murderer, and West's leg got seriously damaged.
And now I'm wondering if the Trash Man died in the explosion too (despite the instructions on the explosive device to face it towards the "enemy"), and that it was decided posthumously that Trash Man was the doer--at least decided for the 80s.

Woodard's not planning to get out of this one alive.  Aside from the Claymore at the front door, he rigged a tripwire to a grenade outside the back entrance.  He's planning to go down and go down swinging.  He saw those detectives pull up and probably assumes he's either a) getting killed by vigilantes or b) getting arrested for a little boy's murder, but definitely one of the other.

"You like kids, generally?"
"What the fuck's the right answer to that?"  -> Says it all.  Woodard knows there's no winning for him, and hasn't been for a long time.

[shapeshifter]

9 minutes ago, Drogo said:

Woodard's not planning to get out of this one alive.  Aside from the Claymore at the front door, he rigged a tripwire to a grenade outside the back entrance.  He's planning to go down and go down swinging.  He saw those detectives pull up and probably assumes he's either a) getting killed by vigilantes or b) getting arrested for a little boy's murder, but definitely one of the other.

"You like kids, generally?"
"What the fuck's the right answer to that?"  -> Says it all.  Woodard knows there's no winning for him, and hasn't been for a long time.

Yeah.
My interpretation of the scene in which the Trash Man bargains with the kids for their empty soda cans was that he liked kids, but not in any deviant way. Perhaps he enjoys their lack of hardened prejudices. 
But I could be wrong. He could still be the season 3 version of the Lawnmower Man.

[DarkRaichu]

1 minute ago, shapeshifter said:

Yeah.
My interpretation of the scene in which the Trash Man bargains with the kids for their empty soda cans was that he liked kids, but not in any deviant way. Perhaps he enjoys their lack of hardened prejudices. 
But I could be wrong. He could still be the season 3 version of the Lawnmower Man.

Hmm, I thought Trash Man was baiting the redneck guy.  TM talked to presumably redneck's daughter(s) right in front of the redneck's house.

[Drogo]

2 minutes ago, DarkRaichu said:

Hmm, I thought Trash Man was baiting the redneck guy.  TM talked to presumably redneck's daughter(s) right in front of the redneck's house.

100% agree, but I believe as part of a kamikaze mission. 

[shapeshifter]

4 minutes ago, Drogo said:

 

7 minutes ago, DarkRaichu said:

Hmm, I thought Trash Man was baiting the redneck guy.  TM talked to presumably redneck's daughter(s) right in front of the redneck's house.

100% agree, but I believe as part of a kamikaze mission. 

Those were the Redneck Guy's kids? Are we sure? 
Huh.
Well that explains how he got everything rigged so quickly.
But I just thought he was your average undiagnosed PTSD, paranoid Vietnam vet who was always on the ready.
So it was a suicide mission?

[Drogo]

13 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

Those were the Redneck Guy's kids? Are we sure? 
Huh.
Well that explains how he got everything rigged so quickly.
But I just thought he was your average undiagnosed PTSD, paranoid Vietnam vet who was always on the ready.
So it was a suicide mission?

That was my takeaway. He stopped to talk to the kids right in front of Head Redneck's house, presumably HR's kids. He didn't bring his slow moving trash vehicle because he would have had to take the roads, he went by foot so he could cut through the yard on the way back. He knew those guys were going to come for him sooner or later- by baiting them he made sure it was on his schedule and he was ready.