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Everything We Know About Wayne’s Past After Watching Last Night’s Episode of ‘True Detective’

wayne amelia eating dinner true detective

Last night’s episode of True Detective gave us more insight about how Wayne (Mahershala Ali) came to be the man he is today.

Another small clue to Wayne’s life comes right at the beginning of episode seven, where we witness a college-aged Rebecca (Deborah Ayorinde) being dropped off at school by her father. Amelia (Carmen Ejogo) is not with them, which begs the question, when did Amelia pass?

We’ve always assumed it’s later in life, and that Wayne’s son is telling his father the truth when he says Wayne has not seen Rebecca since her mother’s funeral. But all these assumptions could be false.

It’s possible that Wayne and Amelia divorced when Rebecca was a child—certainly the way this couple interacts every time the topic of conversation turns to the Purcell kids is enough to warrant a split. But with tension now mounting because of Wayne’s proximity to Hoyt (Michael Rooker), Amelia may have become a casualty of this case sooner rather than later.

Think about it, we see plenty of pictures of Amelia at every turn, but have we ever seen a picture of old Amelia? We’ve never discussed the timing of her death and there was certainly no sequel to the book she cared about so fiercely that she dragged her kids to the town bar while doing her research. Why is that? Old Wayne tells Eliza she had other things to do, but old Wayne is not a reliable source, regardless of whether or not he remembers the truth.

And Wayne does keep hallucinating an awful lot about her, indicating he feels a tad guilty about something that happened to his wife. Maybe his guilt isn’t about being nicer to her, but the fact that he might be responsible for her death.

Gulp. The final episode of True Detective airs next Sunday, February 24, at 9 p.m. on HBO.

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