Wayne Hays (True Detective)

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Wayne Hays
True Detective character
First appearance"The Great War and Modern Memory" (2019)
Last appearance"Now Am Found" (2019)
Created byNic Pizzolatto
Portrayed byMahershala Ali
In-universe information
NicknamePurple Hays
GenderMale
OccupationPolice officer
Detective
AffiliationUnited States Army (1960s)
Arkansas State Police (1968–1990)[1]
SpouseAmelia Hays
ChildrenRebecca Hays (daughter)
Henry Hays (son)
NationalityAmerican

Wayne David Hays is a fictional character in the

crime drama television series True Detective on HBO.[2][3] The character was created by series creator Nic Pizzolatto and is portrayed by Mahershala Ali.[4][5] Hays was originally slated to be portrayed by a white actor while Ali was ready to play a supporting role.[6]

Ali was praised for his performance for which he received a nomination for the

Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie
.

Character overview

Hays is an

African American man born into a poor family. He grew up in Conway, Arkansas. As a child, Hays had dyslexia and later in life confessed that he is not an avid reader because of that experience besides reading some Batman and Silver Surfer comics. He served in the United States Army, completing two tours in the Vietnam War as a member of a long-range reconnaissance patrol (LRRP) team in the 75th Infantry Regiment. As a result, he is an able pathfinder and actively uses these skills while working as an Arkansas State Police
detective.

In 1980, he and his partner Roland West (Stephen Dorff) are assigned a missing persons case involving the disappearance of two children. During the investigation, he meets Amelia Reardon (Carmen Ejogo), a schoolteacher who had the missing children in her class. They eventually marry and have two children together: son Henry (Ray Fisher) and daughter Rebecca (Deborah Ayorinde), who later estranges herself from the family. In 1990, Amelia writes Life and Death and the Harvest Moon, a successful book about the missing children case Hays was investigating when they met. She is deceased as of 2015.

Hays is a peaceful, calm man tending to play a role of a good cop, while West, who is also a

Alzheimer's or dementia
. Nevertheless, Hays hallucinates, sometimes seeing ghosts from his past, and has to use a recorder to fix the events and discover new facts during the interviewing.

Early in the season, Hays confesses that the case split his life in two parts—before the case and after it; even though he had previously considered the Vietnam war to be the main event in his life. He thinks about the case all the time, long after the authorities exhausted all lines of investigation and had to close it.[7][8]

Character arc

Hays' character arc takes place in the

case resolved in 2012
.

In 1980, Hays and West find Will dead in a cave, and come to suspect a local Native American man named Brett Woodard (Michael Greyeyes). When Woodard gets involved in an armed standoff with his suspicious neighbors, Hays tries to get him to surrender peacefully, but Woodard commits suicide by cop by pulling a gun on Hays, who kills him. Woodard is blamed for the children's supposed death, and the case is closed. Amelia writes an article criticizing the case's conclusions. Hays' superiors try to force him to write a statement repudiating her article, but he refuses and is demoted. He tries to break up with Amelia, but then decides to marry her.

In 1990, Amelia writes a book about the case, which puts a strain on her and Hays' marriage; he believes she is trying to capitalize on the Purcell family's pain, while she thinks he is trying to control her. The case is reopened when the children's mother Lucy (Mamie Gummer) is murdered, and a woman claiming to be Julie calls the police, asking them to stop looking for her. Hays and West are assigned the case, making Hays a homicide detective again.

They suspect Harris James (

tamper with evidence to make it look like Harris left town. West resents Hays for putting him in a position that led to him killing someone, ending their partnership and friendship. The next day, Edward Hoyt (Michael Rooker
), owner of supermarket chain Hoyt Foods, blackmails Hays into dropping the case with pictures of Hays following Harris the night of his disappearance. Hays then resigns from the police force.

In 2015, Hays is a widower, Amelia having died a few years earlier, and suffering from worsening memory loss. After talking to Montgomery, Hays contacts West for the first time in 25 years to help him solve the case once and for all, before he loses his cognitive faculties completely. They interview a former housekeeper of the Hoyt family, who reveals that Edward Hoyt had a daughter, Isabel, who lost her husband and daughter in a car wreck in 1977, and was then involved in one herself. She lived in the basement, and only a black man with one eye, "Mr. June", was allowed to attend to her.

They track down Junius Watts (

AIDS
. A woman at the convent shows Hays and West "Mary July"'s gravestone.

Later, while reading a passage from Amelia's book, Hays realizes that the convent groundskeeper was a classmate of Julie's before she disappeared, suspecting that his daughter, Lucy, is Julie's child and that Julie is alive. Hays drives to their house, but when he arrives he cannot remember why he is there. While briefly remembering who she is, Hays elects to forget again, and calls his son to take him home. Julie (Bea Santos) takes pity on Hays and offers him water.

References

  1. Now Am Found". True Detective
    . Season 3. Episode 8. February 4, 2019. HBO.
  2. ^ "True Detective Season 3 Trailer: Mahershala Ali Goes in the Ozarks". /Film. December 11, 2018. Retrieved February 6, 2019.
  3. ^ Tobias, Scott (January 13, 2019). "'True Detective' Season 3 Premiere: New Mystery, Familiar Mood". The New York Times. New York City. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
  4. Northern and Shell Media
    . Retrieved January 30, 2019.
  5. ^ Desta, Yohana (September 1, 2017). "Everything We Know about True Detective Season 3". Vanity Fair. New York City: Condé Nast. Retrieved January 30, 2019.
  6. ^ Stidhum, Tonja Renée (4 December 2018). "Mahershala Ali Reveals His True Detective Character Was Originally Written as White". The Grapevine. Retrieved 1 February 2019.
  7. ^ Cumming, Ed (14 January 2019). "True Detective review: Mahershala Ali is compelling, but he's let down by this bloated drama". The Independent. London, England: Independent Print Ltd. Retrieved 4 February 2019.
  8. ^ Keveney, Bill (9 January 2019). "'True Detective' star Mahershala Ali: One troubled man, three eras in HBO's Season 3". USA Today. Mclean, Virginia: Gannett. Retrieved 4 February 2019.
  9. ^ Kleinman, Jake (January 13, 2019). "'True Detective' Season 3 Explained: One Important Detail You Missed". Inverse. New York City: Bustle Digital Group. Retrieved February 6, 2019.
  10. ^ "Starring Mahershala Ali and Created by Nic Pizzolatto, "True Detective" Returns for Third Season Jan. 13, Exclusively on HBO". The Futon Critic. New York City: Futon Media. December 12, 2018. Retrieved December 13, 2018.

External links

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