"The Hour and the Day" is the fourth episode of the third season of the American anthology crime drama television series True Detective.
In 1980, partner detectives Wayne Hays (Mahershala Ali) and Roland West (Stephen Dorff) as they investigate a macabre crime involving two missing children, Will and Julie Purcell.
According to Nielsen Media Research, the episode was seen by an estimated 1.45 million household viewers and gained a 0.4 ratings share among adults aged 18–49.
Hays (Mahershala Ali) and West (Stephen Dorff) visit a Catholic church to question the priest (Seth Barrish) about Will.
They visit the parishioner, who says that a black man with a milky eye bought dolls at a recent fair, saying they were for his nieces and nephews.
That night, Hays goes on a date with Amelia (Carmen Ejogo) while West picks up Tom (Scoot McNairy) from a bar incident.
In the outskirts, Brett Woodard (Michael Greyeyes) talks to some children near the road, an encounter that is seen in the distance by an angry civilian.
Tensions remain between Hays and Amelia amidst the investigation on Julie's re-appearance, which extends into confronting their own personal problems.
The site's consensus states: "True Detective's halfway mark is a slow burn that culminates in a big kaboom, littered throughout with intriguing clues and unnerving ghosts from Wayne Hayes' past.
Club gave the episode a "B−" grade and wrote, "Television tries to sell us unlikeable, difficult, bigoted men all the time.
Co-written by Nic Pizzolatto and David Deadwood Milch, with the former making his directorial debut, it's simply another well-written procedural, funny where it wants to be — and ugly where it needs to be.
The plot makes sense; it has returned, appealingly, to the southern gothic of the first outing, and its stars are actually able to deliver their lines.
It is much more conservative in its ambitions, with a storyline that has lost its existential layer, and which instead relies on the well-worn Satanic Panic narratives of 80s America.
"[11] Ben Travers of IndieWire gave the episode a "B+" grade and wrote, "He's got his own damage to deal with, but that's not an excuse to take it out on others.
Creator Nic Pizzolatto wrote 'The Hour and the Day' with Deadwood mastermind David Milch, probably the second best addition to the show behind Mahershala Ali.
"[15] Tony Sokol of Den of Geek gave the episode a 4.5 star rating out of 5 and wrote, "True Detective's halfway point is completely compelling.
Dead ends are to be expected in the middle of an eight-hour whodunit, but that doesn't absolve the series's creator, Nic Pizzolatto, from the responsibility to keep plugging away.
It's not just the detectives in 'The Hour and the Day' who are losing their sense of direction — it's as if the show itself had unscrewed the cap on a bottle of Jack Daniels and gone for a swim.