Truth Be Told – Season 3 Episode 8 “Darkness Declares the Glory of Light” Recap & Review

Darkness Declares the Glory of Light

Episode 8 of Truth Be Told season 3 starts with Emily Mills giving an interview on TV. The investigation is over but as the photos are taken down off the whiteboard, Aames encourages the other officers to leave a few up as he recognizes one of Emily’s room, which feels “too perfect”.

Meanwhile, Markus is like a little pitbull and he clings to this Bill Ochoa character, trying to work out what’s up with him. He’s actually a VC with investments in plenty of different companies. But which one would Finney need? Markus mulls this over with Poppy, who reveals that Shreve is not her biological father. It’s news to him and it’s actually their secret, given she hasn’t told her siblings yet, as Poppy doesn’t want them to think differently of her.

Shreve puts his foot in it with Lee’s wife, revealing that he opened up the files and helped expose the ring. She warns Shreve that they need to keep this secret and under wraps; if investors find out then they’re not going to be happy.

Aames head off to see Emily Mills’ family, and confronts Peter. He shows off a picture of him speaking to Marv Lanelle in the parking lot. Now, Lanelle was Emily’s kidnapper and Peter’s coke dealer.

CCTV footage from the area sees Emily Mills not actually bound when she said she was, instead happily driving along. It turns out all of this was a big ruse, with Peter’s drug habit the catalyst that caused him to spiral into debt. Emily found out and contacted Marv with a mutually beneficial plan, deciding to work with Marv to frame the kidnapping with Marv to get reward money for her “disappearance”, which was all staged.

Aames is not happy with this whole charade, pointing out that they’ve taken resources away from the police and as a result, Peter is about to face the full brunt of the law.

Markus meets with his contact, Frankie, who happens to be working in the basement as a hacker. He works with him to hack into the security cameras.

Meanwhile, Poppy shows up to see Eva and her nonchalant attitude toward not broadcasting the podcast. Eva points out that she’s opened up her soul and done everything she can to speak her truth, and seeing Poppy just dismiss it like it was trash, speaks volumes about our main character. Poppy decides they have a new path and she doesn’t need to expose Eva, acting as if she’s doing her a favour.

Eva eventually points out the truth about Poppy, including her nonchalant attitude and how she enjoys the drama of it all. “You do not have a monopoly on pain.” Says Poppy, the woman investigating trafficking with absolutely no experience beyond the girls she’s met. Wow.

Poppy decides to go straight to the source and speaks to Andrew Finney about the dirty cops and the trafficking ring. Finney tells her he’s busy and can’t talk right now, but does write out on a pad of paper “can’t talk here, Gack’s Landing 8pm.” Now, to be fair that might not be Gack’s but the handwriting is pretty atrocious so forgive me if I’m wrong!

Trini shows up at the prison to see Aubrey, where they both hold hands (I thought there was a no touching rule in prison?) and they talk. Aubrey admits he feels really bad and does reveal that he knew about the mixer and what was going to happen. He believed that she’d say no but he got caught up in the whole charade.

Trini heads back home and admits to her mum that she needed to see Aubrey and gain closure on what happened. She admits she feels like she has no control over anything and needs to try and get a grip. “Why is it so hard with him?” Trini asks, trying to gain some semblance of normality.

Eva shows up to see Finney in the parking lot and confronts him about the past. She brings up her name used to be Tamara. He doesn’t take responsibility, telling her she should channel her anger into something more productive. When Eva turns and leave, Finney is followed by someone in a car that runs him down and leaves him for dead. In fact, they even reverse over him.

Aames rings Poppy and Markus, letting them know that Finney has been run down, perhaps by either Eva or someone else above him that didn’t want the truth to get out. Markus is convinced that this could have been Ochoa.

Markus starts to lose control, believing that his life is fuck up after fuck up and nothing is going right for him. “Keep the faith,” Poppy says, telling him to look at all the good things in his life… and just like that Markus kisses Poppy. Well, that came out of nowhere!

Poppy warns Markus that he’s throwing away 10 years of sobriety here, and Poppy begs him not to make her a homewrecker. “I’m not my mother,” Poppy says, as she walks away.

The trouble is, Markus is slipping big time and he starts drinking at his desk. Trini ends up spying him, while Poppy decides to get back on her podcast and points out that people in power have been misusing their authoritative stature.

Shreve shows and decides they should go and see Uncle Bug, who helps give Poppy some closure surrounding her family situation. Poppy heads off to see Eva next, and tells her what’s happened with Finney. She’s a bit rattled and decides to go and get some tea, as Poppy glances at her suspiciously.

The Episode Review

Much like most of this season, Truth Be Told has a serious problem with its pacing. This third season has been much more effective than last year’s effort but the tale could have been told across 5 or 6 chapters.

As expected, we now know that Finney wasn’t at the top of the blackmail ring and perhaps that’s been obvious for several weeks now. It could well be that Ochoa is the guy in charge but we’ll find out in the episodes ahead.

This chapter doesn’t really do a whole lot to progress the story forward, other than killing off Finney. But then it begs the question as to why Poppy didn’t just go there originally? If Finney is so open to divulging the truth, why wait until now?

Either way, I’m sure we’ll find out more in the episodes ahead, as this long season draws nearer to its conclusion.