This post contains frank discussion up through Season 3, Episode 3 of True Detective, titled “The Big Never.” Proceed with care.

If we take the first two season of True Detective as a model to follow when looking for Season 3’s killer, then we want to have our eyes peeled for a minor character who cropped up briefly in an early episode. This is a murder-mystery tactic at least as old as Agatha Christie and certainly familiar to any Law & Order aficionado. In Season 1, we met the murderer Errol Childress (Glenn Fleshler) mowing a lawn in Episode 3. In Season 2, the detectives chatted with a set photographer as early as Episode 1, who wound up being the killer Lenny Osterman (Luke Edwards).

But as much as True Detective Season 3 is drawing inspiration from the structure of its first and most acclaimed season, I suspect creator Nic Pizzolatto is looking to mix up his formula when it comes to who abducted Julie and murdered Will Purcell back in 1980. I’d wager that any feints towards real crime inspirations or wide-ranging conspiracies are red herrings designed to distract from a killer hiding in plain sight. To quote Detective Wayne Hays (Mahershala Ali): “It’s like a thing’s staring right at us.”

Could the killer actually be Wayne’s wife, the brilliant writer and investigator Amelia Hays (Carmen Ejogo)? Seems a little unlikely at first, but we’ll take a deeper look at the potential of this theory, which was first floated to me by my Still Watching podcast co-host, Richard Lawson. You can hear us mull it over in the latest episode:

In this week’s podcast, guest Ray Fisher, who plays Wayne and Amelia’s adult son, Henry, joined us to explain that, for him, the ending of the season could be described as “bittersweet.” That does nothing to dissuade me that Amelia is the killer. Here is the evidence.