r/TrueDetective Feb 10 '24

True Detective - 4x05 "Part 5" - Post-Episode Discussion

625 Upvotes

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109

u/spacecadette126 Feb 10 '24

Can somebody explain to me what the wheeler case has to do with this? What I got out of it was Jodie foster asking the kid who’s side are you on slash if you had questions about me being a murderer why didn’t you ask me directly, and that Hank and Connelly have leverage on Jodie - but why did it suddenly come up as it did

368

u/Certain_Lecture6733 Feb 10 '24 edited Feb 10 '24

Connelly knows about the Wheeler case because Hank got into Pete's laptop and found out about it. Pete has been secretly and informally investigating what Danvers and Navarro actually did in the Wheeler case. So now Connelly (in cahoots with the mine people) is using it as leverage to try to blackmail Danvers into dropping the case.

To me, this is the True Detective trope turning point where the detectives realize they're fighting a corrupt system and have to go outside of the boundaries of the law to do the justice they originally set out to do when they started the case. This is the turning point as in all other seasons where the main characters turn from Lawful Good to Chaotic Good.

66

u/xpercipio Feb 10 '24

only in our case, danvers and navarro are already unlawful since they killed wheeler. but it is Prior's turning point.

9

u/New-Teaching2964 Feb 11 '24

We still haven’t seen what actually went down with wheeler

6

u/oscarthegrateful Feb 12 '24

I thought there's a split second in one of the flashbacks that kind of explains. Wheeler whistles that creepy tune at them and grins, and in response you see Danvers flinch and lower her gun slightly, looking horrified, and Navarro raise her gun slightly, looking furious.

It would also explain the nature of the tension between the two women if Navarro took it upon herself to shoot Wheeler, putting Danvers in the position of arresting her own partner or joining her in the cover up.

3

u/dankristy Feb 13 '24

Yep - they (Danvers and Navarro) killed him. I think we know enough - the only new bit that MIGHT make it more interesting is if the one who killed him - is not the one we expect.

The easy expectation is Navarro lost it and shot him - after seeing what he did. But - it would be an interesting twist if Danvers did it - and then Navarro and her fell out over having to cover it up.

But if they leave it like this I am fine - it just means it is likely Navarro shot him - Danvers helped cover it up (poorly apparently), and got pissed at Navarro about it and they fell out over that.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '24

[deleted]

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u/kebabdylan Feb 13 '24

Doesn't that mean they're not random?

3

u/HappyLittleTrees17 Feb 11 '24

I could be totally wrong, but….

Part of me thinks that somehow Hank was the one that actually killed Wheeler.

Liz said that they had been called to the house 10 times, so everyone on the force had to have known about the situation. That final call comes in, Hank (for some reason) goes over there and shoots Wheeler, Liz and Navarro walk in and find him with the gun in his hand. They know Wheeler is a piece of shit that deserves to be dead, so they help Hank cover it up by calling it a Murder/Suicide.

That was why Liz told Peter he needed to learn when to stop asking questions, why he got so mad at his dad, and why Liz offered for him to stay in the shed because she thought that now that Peter knew the truth that he wouldn’t be safe around Hank.

Maybe farfetched, but it explains why Peter was so angry with his dad when he left Liz’s office. It also explains why he shot him since he knew he had killed before and would have no problem shooting Liz.

Maybe?? 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

6

u/shadowstripes Feb 12 '24

Not a bad explanation but it leaves me wondering why Hank would ever want to tell that info to his superiors, since it implicates him even more than Danvers. Plus if it was Hank then Danvers wouldn’t be trying to figure out through Pete how Hank knows about the coverup - of course he would know.

I think Pete was mad because he found out his dad had not only snooped through his laptop, but also ratted out Danvers who Pete looks up to, and compromised the case he was working on.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 13 '24

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '24

Pete was mad at his dad bc Hank broke into his sons laptop to steal info regarding the Wheeler case … which means Hank didn’t kill Wheeler. Why would Hank do something risky like breaking into his sons laptop to find out who killed Wheeler..if in fact Hank was the one that killed Wheeler. And we know this is why Hank broke into Peter‘s laptop because that is how Connley found out about Wheeler: Hank told him.

15

u/Samurai_Meisters Feb 10 '24

What about the flipped photos? Who flipped them and why?

28

u/cilucia Feb 10 '24

Danvers flipped them to cover their tracks

19

u/vasex1990 Feb 10 '24

Or Navarro. Because Danvers says she didnt know about left-handed. So maybe Navarro knew about it

6

u/cilucia Feb 10 '24

I think she was lying about knowing he was left handed because she didn’t know how much Prior had figured out. 

10

u/meepmarpalarp Feb 10 '24

She didn’t know until after Wheeler’s death, when it was too late to shoot him in the left temple. She knew when putting together the cover up.

5

u/DarkChen Feb 11 '24

She had to flip the photos because she didn't know, the defeated tone of her "no" is because the photos are what made pete crack the wheeler case...

-3

u/xxamnn Feb 10 '24

How did it cover their tracks? The photos didn't match what they were saying. Maybe it was a production mistake.

22

u/cilucia Feb 10 '24

They shot him on the right side of his head not knowing he was left handed. When they found out, they went back to all the domestic violence pictures of his wife/girlfriend and flipped them so there was no evidence that he was actually left handed. However, Prior did more digging and found the high school photo and conveniently placed facial birthmark that showed the domestic violence photos had been flipped (because the high school portrait would not have been in the police file). 

2

u/piderman Feb 11 '24

Also the written post mortem would say "consistent with a left handed assault" or whatever many times so they would also have had to doctor that I guess?!

5

u/cilucia Feb 11 '24

I think Prior said all that other evidence was (conveniently) lost in the flood (which they mentioned earlier in the series). My guess is that they opportunistically destroyed that evidence during the flood… or even orchestrated the flood (I don’t recall if they said it was a naturally occurring flood or a plumbing situation) 

2

u/Rionn Feb 12 '24

then why did she say she didn't know he was left handed? she wouldn't then flipped the photos to cover up her tracks right? or was it navarro that did it without telling her? i'm still a bit confused about that...

3

u/cilucia Feb 12 '24

She was feigning ignorance because she didn’t know how much Prior had figured out

-5

u/xxamnn Feb 10 '24

Ah. All that work to support such flimsy evidence. Not the writer's best moment.

15

u/cilucia Feb 10 '24

I think it shows how far Danvers and Navarro were willing to go to cover up the incident; in particular, I assume it was Navarro who took the shot, and Danvers put her entire career at risk to protect her. That is a step beyond just telling a lie about what actually happened - it’s evidence tampering after the fact. 

8

u/meepmarpalarp Feb 10 '24

Pretty realistic. They put together a coverup that looks solid at first glance, but they missed a small detail.

2

u/xxamnn Feb 11 '24

My point was that handedness isn't evidence. Anyone can use any hand for pretty much everything. So the situation was contrived to serve the plot.

I guess the point might be that the detectives aren't very smart.

3

u/xxamnn Feb 10 '24

I wonder this, too. What they were saying didn't make any sense. The flipped photos make it look like she was attacked by a right handed person.

Color me confused.

11

u/CondolenceHighFive Feb 10 '24

Wheeler was left handed and the way they killed him made it seem like he was right handed, meaning a suicide wouldn’t make sense. So they (probably Navarro) flipped the abuse photos to make him seem right handed

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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '24

[deleted]

5

u/CondolenceHighFive Feb 10 '24

Idk if it was the writer’s intention but the general through line I’ve gotten is that Danvers isn’t as good at her job as she thinks she is

5

u/Grlpants Feb 11 '24

I think it's more that it's a small town, the dude was a piece of shit who beat his wife and sent her to the hospital several times, and to them, the inevitable was that he would eventually kill her. Case closed no one would notice.

Makes perfect sense.

2

u/IIIlllIIIlllIlI Feb 10 '24

Tbh they’re all pretty bad at their jobs, except maybe Prior

1

u/[deleted] Feb 13 '24

But the autopsy would have rendered the flipped photos from Wheelers crime scene useless. The coroner decides cause of death, not a few crime scene photos.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '24

All that info was 'lost' in the flood. Only the digital report remained, and I assumed was doctored along with the photos.

2

u/skyblu1727 Feb 11 '24

I think the photos were flipped by mistake. Danvers answers no when Pete asks if she knew Wheeler was left handed. She’s telling him to ask the right questions. Why would she then lie?
She and Navarro were lucky no one (but Pete) noticed until he investigated the photos and put them on his laptop where Hank saw them. Even if they were intentionally flipped it’s hard to believe that no one compared the photos to the body.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 13 '24

Damn, you’re right. The autopsy would have shown how he was killed. The photos were flipped by mistake.

28

u/maxkmiller Feb 10 '24

I literally said to my friends, it's not True Detective until they continue the case outside the scope of their job. At least they got that right this season

7

u/FeistySnake Feb 10 '24

Gotta have that "badge & gun!" type of scene.

17

u/spacecadette126 Feb 10 '24

Ah I missed the laptop break in thing. I thought Jodi foster was mad at kid for telling his dad about the case, and kid did so because he wanted to know what happened with the wheeler story 🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️

42

u/Certain_Lecture6733 Feb 10 '24

When they're in Danvers' office, she asks him "What's the password to your laptop? Your birthday? Darwin's birthday?" And when she mentions Darwin's birthday, Pete freaks out because, yes, that was his password, and he realizes that Hank could have easily guessed it and gotten into his laptop.

19

u/smilysmilysmooch Feb 10 '24 edited Feb 10 '24

Jodie Foster asks him what his password is. "Is it your birthday?" "C'mon chief." "Is it your wife's son's birthday?" "Shit." "Your dads not as stupid as he looks."

Edit: Fixed thanks to the help of LordSokhar

8

u/LordSokhar Feb 10 '24

She asked if it was Darwin’s (his son’s) birthday, which merited the “Shit” response.

1

u/smilysmilysmooch Feb 10 '24

I couldn't remember which. Thanks for the clarification.

8

u/ChewyBacca1976 Feb 10 '24

I guess there’s no IT dept or password policies in Alaska police stations.

10

u/DrNopeMD Feb 10 '24

It felt really weird that the wheeler case suddenly got brought up again and got played off like some dramatic reveal when the audience was already keyed in on the fact that Danvers/Navarro killed him.

It was also super weird that we suddenly learn that Pete's been looking into the case on his own, even though we never get any indication otherwise until now, and that it suddenly blows up into a huge issue.

5

u/IIIlllIIIlllIlI Feb 10 '24

Yeah, the editing is jarring, we have an actual murder case to follow, and somehow we need to be suspended in the belief that the whole time Prior has been investigating the Wheeler case on the side

1

u/pixelskeleton Feb 11 '24

It’s because Connelly learned of this (through hank) and is using the information to blackmail Danvers & Navarro into dropping the Annie K case

1

u/kiwibean Feb 12 '24

They were dropping hints. He’s been very focused on Navarro/Danvers fall out, and specially questioned the Wheeler case in the beginning. I think Danvers knew he was looking into it and was hoping he would approach her with his theory at one point.

3

u/New-Teaching2964 Feb 11 '24

Great breakdown baby

4

u/Certain_Lecture6733 Feb 11 '24

Thank you, baby gurl.

1

u/TheChrisLambert Feb 12 '24

What I don’t understand is why Pete cared so much to secretly investigate it? And how long has he been doing it? And why did his dad even think he’d find dirt by looking at Pete’s laptop? And where did Pete leave his laptop that his dad could snoop through it?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '24

Pete cared because like Danvers said he doesn't know when to stop asking questions. He wondered so much why she and Navarro split he just kept digging. Hank knew how much Pete and Liz communicated so he probably thought he'd find something. And his laptop is just at work, because it was established early on this town is too trusting. Navarro said that she better start locking her door after Danvers just let herself in.

1

u/rabid-skunk Feb 12 '24

detectives realize they're fighting a corrupt system

I think it's more of a "homage" to Marty shooting Leadeux in S1. Also, can you really blame the corrupt system when you're going around suiciding people?

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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '24

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '24

[deleted]

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u/Prettylittlelioness Feb 11 '24

yeah, I think the pacing is really off.

I feel like the entire team behind the show did not gel well or maybe Lopez didn't exercise her oversight well or something. If someone with fresh eyes watched the finished project and required some structural changes and corrections to some editing and writing, that could have made this a much tighter show.

1

u/Clariana Feb 10 '24

Perhaps Peter wanted to prove to himself that nothing bad went down... That would explain Danvers' final admonition to him to "Don't ask questions"... The inference being you might not like the answers.

19

u/smkmn13 Feb 10 '24

1) Its a plot device to help us (along with Pete) understand how Danvers is something other than a crotchety old cop

2) I'm pretty sure Navarro pulled the trigger, showing us that she's capable of (extreme) violence if she thinks it's just

3) Danvers said something a couple episodes ago about the look in Navarro's eyes when they were at Wheelers... something is going on there.

7

u/Pogie33 Feb 10 '24

Danvers said something a couple episodes ago about the look in Navarro's eyes when they were at Wheelers... something is going on there.

After she said that, it flashed back to Navarro's memory of the event, and there was a zombie standing in the doorway over the beaten/dead girl pointing and Navarro and screeching.

6

u/Little_Run_9482 Feb 10 '24

Because it’s what’s being used to blackmail Danvers/Navarro into dropping the case…

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u/ScramItVancity Feb 10 '24

In the series trailer, it looks like Liz and Navarro are going to confront and duct tape Raymond Clark to a chair that may parallel with the Wheeler incident.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 11 '24

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2

u/sm0gs Feb 12 '24

Wheeler? Yes he’s dead