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Relevant tropes:
- All a Part of the Job and Think Nothing of It: In the final scene, shortly before Wallace is executed, Potts pays his adversary one last visit goodbye. He is then seen leaving the prison, not wanting to stick around for the carrying out of the sentence. Potts suggests to the secretary that he has to get back to town to enjoy a home-cooked meal at the diner; ergo, he takes no pleasure in seeing Wallace executed ... he just merely wanted to see him brought to justice and knows that he (Wallace) has already been dealt with by the justice system. That, and Potts' sense of duty: Help the powerless.
- Angry Fist-Shake: One of Strickland's relatives does this when Potts takes Strickland away.
- Beneath the Mask: Wallace is a kind-hearted, charitable, benevolent philanthropist ... to most people in Meriwether County. Only those closest to him, or fall on his wrong side, know the man for who he truly is: a bloodthirsty, corrupt, power-hungry psychopath who will brutally beat his sharecroppers and kill anyone who betrays them, even going so far as to destroy their corpse to hide the evidence.
- Blatant Lies: When Potts asks Wallace how his clothes came to be stained with what appears to be gallons of blood, Wallace shows a tiny scratch on his arm and says he cut himself on a brier.
- Burn Baby Burn: How Wallace schemes to get rid of Turner's body ... by placing it in a large sack, setting it on a pyre, dousing it with gasoline and kerosene, placing jugs of moonshine around the perimeter and then throwing a flaming torch into the pyre.
- Classic Villain: Seemingly embodying every villainous trope there is: Greed, power, ambition, intimidation, narcissism … the list of vices is endless.
- Destroy the Evidence: What Wallace forces two of his farmhands, both African-Americans whom he has threatened with harm if they did not cooperate, to do: Cremate Turner's body in order to destroy evidence of the fatal brain injury suffered. However, in his own arrogance and over-ambitious attempts to get away with murder, he fails to realize that — after dumping the cremains in a nearby lake — there were still bone fragments and brain matter left behind; a crime lab would later identify these as human.
- Dispense with the Pleasantries:
- Potts doesn't let Wallace do any gladhanding when they meet, and immediately asks Wallace whether the blood-stained clothes he [Potts] found in Wallace's house are his.
- During the murder trial, Wallace tries to kiss up to Turner's widow, remarking about what a big boy his son has become. She simply walks away without a word.
- Embodiment of Vice and Embodiment of Virtue: A classic confrontation: Potts' determination, focus and follow-the-rules methodology to bring the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing Wallace to justice.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Wallace cannot understand why Potts will go to such great lengths to solve the murders and get justice for powerless individuals.
- Evil Laughter: After Wallace has set fire to Turner's body, he cackles evily and dares Potts to come after him now. His victory would be temporary.
- For the Evulz: Did we say yet that Wallace is the pure embodiment of this? Throughout, his public persona is the cover for a man who is the very definition of evil: Ambition, zeal, greed, envy, lust, wrath, hatred, bigotry, revenge, causing misery, jealousy, resentment, selfishness, misanthropy and much, much more. Or simply put: Indimidation — do not cross my path or pay severe, brutal consequences, and Turner paid the ultimate price. Potts, however, would never bow to Wallace and eventually brought him to justice.
- His Own Worst Enemy: In the end, Wallace becomes this. Already facing tough odds from a well-investigated case, in the real-life case (and depicted on television) Wallace's attorneys reportedly advised him to not testify in his own defense. Wallace, sure that the jury would ignore the testimony from an eccentric soothsayer or the two African-American field hands, or in the very least dismiss it as nonsense, went against this advice and delivered a rambling sermon professing his innocence. It was widely believed this eccentric testimony sealed his conviction. It didn't help that his over-ambition and arrogance in killing Turner in the first place (he forgot to see there were still bone fragments left behind after the body was burned) led to his eventual capture.
- Informed Ability: It is constantly mentioned what a great tracker Potts is.
- Jekyll & Hyde: Only Wallace is well aware of his two-faced personality: The charitable, personable, everyman face of the community that most people know him as, and the ruthless, vile, despicable man he is to his enemies.
- N-Word Privileges: Wallace constantly refers to the two African-American men that helped him dispose of (and destroy) Turner's corpse as niggers, the two men that will eventually bring him down.
- Nice Character, Mean Actor: In-universe; Wallace's charitable, down-home folksy self, as most people know him, is all a charade.
- Oh, Crap!: Several, as they relate to the murder of Wilson Turner:
- When Turner is released from jail and walks to his truck, seeing Wallace and his thugs waiting in a car parked down the street. He knows he's in deep trouble and makes a run for it.
- Essentially, Wallace's reaction when it becomes clear Turner's truck still has enough gas to make it to the county line, and that his driver had been unable to catch up to him. Later, when they realize that Turner likely died instantly after being pistol-whipped at the Sunset Tourist Camp, which was — by only a few hundred feet inside the Coweta County line — and that there were plenty of witnesses to the disturbance and struggle between him, his henchmen and Turner as Turner screamed pleaded for help.
- A look of pure shock and terror and horror come over the face an elderly man who directly witnessed Wallace delivering the fatal blow; Potts, who knows the man, comforts him when he arrives on the scene. The initial reactions of several others are seen as well.
- The two farmhands as it is all they can do to watch — in horror — the look of pure evil on Wallace's face just after Turner's body is set on fire.
- Pistol-Whipping: The way Wallace ends up killing Turner.
- Police Are Useless: Sheriff Collier is one of John Wallace's henchmen.
- Small Name, Big Ego: In the end, all the wealth and power that Wallace had and his self-professed being "Master of the Kingdom" couldn't save him.
