True Detective‘s long-awaited third season premiered Sunday night with the first two back-to-back episodes. Fan response, like that of critics, was warily positive. After a bloated and sometimes incoherent second season, the HBO series stripped things back with its story of Mahershala Ali’s (in a stunning performance) Wayne Hays, helped by Stephen Dorff’s Roland West, investigating the disappearance of two young kids in Arkansas. Following Hays in three different time periods from 1980 on, the first two new True Detective episodes leave a lot to mull over. Fans have already started circulating theories, some more serious thanothers, about what we might see from the rest of the season.

Warning: Spoilers for the first two episodes of True Detective Season 3 below.

1. The Yellow King is back!

It’s hard to imagine, especially given that True Detective is an anthology series, that the new season will literally connect back to the much-hyped Yellow King of the first season. But viewers detected some serious Carcosa vibes in the new episodes. Those dolls made out of corn husk found in Devil’s Den near the Purcell son’s dead body were certainly… creepy.

Clever sleuths also noticed a subtle reference to the first True Detective season when Hays is being interviewed years later for a documentary, and the interviewer mentions the Crooked Spiral symbol tied to pedophile groups like those uncovered in the first season. This probably doesn’t mean we’ll see the exact same villains this time around, but pedophilia could play a role in this season’s mystery, and clearly we’re living in the same fictional universe.

2. The season reflects the West Memphis Three.

For those not caught up on their true crime, the West Memphis Three are three men who when they were teenagers were charged and eventually convicted of the murder of young boys (also in Arkansas) in what prosecutors theorized was a Satanic ritual. Many believe that the West Memphis Three, featured in the Paradise Lost documentaries, are innocent, and they were eventually able to leave prison in Alford pleas. There are many superficial similarities between that real-life case and the Purcell one in True Detective. While it would be a bummer if it ends up being a replica of that event, it’s hard to imagine creator and writer Nic Pizzolatto didn’t at least have the West Memphis Three in mind as he crafted this latest season.

3. Pay careful attention to Hays’ wife’s book.

The most compelling and sensible theory proposed so far for the new True Detective season may also be the least exciting: Follow the book, folks. As we learn in the later time periods, Hays’ wife Amelia (Carmen Ejogo) is a teacher turned author who wrote a book about the Purcell case that became acclaimed. In the final time period, Hays is struggling with memory problems and finally decides to dive into the book whose existence had upset him in the past.

As one Reddit commenter astutely wrote, “I bet Wayne will figure out the mystery when he finally reads his wife’s book… I’ve been thinking about the potential intersection between Wayne’s memory and his wife’s writing. There must be a relation between the two. Wayne’s wife has the book around the 10 year mark and by then Wayne’s memory is already deteriorating and there are references to his memory situation during the deposition. In reality, Wayne is the main character who is great at attention to detail, he is a tracker. I bet Wayne and his wife decided to write the book to capture his memories, the detail and clues about the case. The real question is who’s telling the story in the book?”

And as another commenter joked in response, “[SOLVED].” Maybe not yet, but we’ll get there, hopefully.

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