True Detective Review: If You Have Ghosts (Season 3 Episode 5)
Words have consequences, as Wayne Hays (Mahershala Ali) finds out on True Detective Season 3 Episode 5, “If You Have Ghosts.”
Actions, too, even when forgotten and lost to time. The episode finds its best moments in showing what echoes through these characters’ lives over the decades.
Words and actions define some people, holding onto them and becoming their core. The Nic Pizzolatto written and directed episode shows us what clings to them the most, the damaging and the unforgivable.
One of the most effective scenes of the episode comes in the questioning of Freddy Burns (Rhys Wakefield) in 1990. Wayne’s threat from ten years before is like a weight around Freddy, and watching him turn on Wayne in the kitchen as though that moment is the moment which changed his life is fascinating.
After ten years, the threat of incarceration and prison rape has left Freddy with emasculated rage, and he blames his modest outcome in life on Wayne’s comments specifically. Given his direction in life during the 1980 scenes, this leaves a little to be desired in likeliness, but he’s convinced, and cannot move on.
Wayne’s reaction in the car, reflecting back on the confrontation, is a potent reminder of cause and effect, chain reactions being felt through all three time periods True Detective covers. Wayne’s defiance of guilt and burden is such a telling character moment, his disgust at even the thought of it blinding him to the matter at hand.
This defiance is felt even at dinner with Roland (Stephen Dorff) and his girlfriend Lori (Jodi Balfour). Once Wayne Hays has something in his head, like Amelia (Carmen Ejogo) going behind his back, there is no turning from it, for better or (almost always) worse.
One intriguing moment comes in the aftermath of Wayne and Amelia’s fight, where Wayne in the present views himself from the past. He opens the door more to see better, and in doing so, Wayne in the past sees the door move.
Is this a hint that what we see, this jumping back and forth, is a by-product of Wayne’s failing mind? It’s hinted at before, especially during True Detective Season 3 Episode 1 “The Great War and Modern Memory.”
The season has been a lot of cutting around, where present day Wayne’s memories may be the driving force for what we see as narrative. Perhaps there are pieces missing in the process, and Roland’s addition to 2015 will help spark the remainder of the season and give us the rest of the story.
If this is the case, it’s curious for Wayne to only remember the bad times with Amelia, and for the show to gloss over the good times with her. Is it because they are the most potent memories of her, and his memory of Amelia is reflecting on something he knows and we’ll find out later on? With Wayne’s memory, only time can tell; it is potentially a side effect of the unreliable narrator, where only the bad, and not the good, is our frame of reference.
But it’s in the final scene, of Wayne and Roland reunited twenty-five years later, where the episode holds its most power. Dorff plays the scene with past resentment in his every line, while Ali plays it with an eye toward the future. Their differences all fall upon Wayne unable to remember pieces of their past, while Roland can do nothing but remember it.
Dorff shows an incredible transformation as the older Roland West, abandoned to the woods with his dogs and drink. The three decades, one in surgery, another in charge of the spiraling case, and now in isolation, gives his character a nuance we have not seen thus far.
For the investigation, movement comes in the form of theories giving the illusion of closure. It’s possible Lucy Purcell (Mamie Gummer) sent the cut-out letter to her own home based on her conversation with Amelia (mentioned in her book), though we can’t say for certain.
There’s Will’s backpack possibly being planted at the Woodard home, though we can’t say for certain.
There’s also Julie potentially phoning into the tip line to demand Tom (Scoot McNairy), her father, cease following her. But each piece is beholden to possibility and filled with doubt. They are all possible, but aren’t a certainty.
Because of this, the episode struggles to keep the investigation interesting beyond moving the plot. It’s back to the characters as the driving force, which is to the episode’s benefit.
The results of the attack on the Woodard home which ended True Detective Season 3 Episode 4 “The Hour and the Day” is sudden and vicious, and Ali’s performance after is like he has been through war all over again, just on different soil. His agitated and preoccupied performance, especially as Amelia tries to tear him from the hospital, is a fantastic side to Wayne the show had not shown before. We have seen his focus, but not when he is completely shaken.
The only certainty comes in what impacts the main leads, and the damage done to them over the years. “If You Have Ghosts” shows some characters unable to let go of things, even if it’s to their detriment. Some things are best left to the past, and in this episode of True Detective, the present finds itself the most powerful by trying to forget that past.
What did you think of this episode of True Detective? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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True Detective airs Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.
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Kevin Lever
Kevin Lever has been following television closely for most of his life, but in starting to cover it, he has grown a further appreciation. He strives to give the blockbusters their due, and give the lesser known shows a spotlight to find more fans.