Warning: Spoilers for True Detective: Night Country.
Summary
- Season 4 of True Detective leaves viewers with unanswered questions but a complete story worthy of praise.
- Annie’s killer is revealed, while the cause of death for Tsalal scientists remains ambiguous with heavy implications.
- The identity of “She” in the series, the symbolism of the spiral, and Navarro’s fate are left up to interpretation.
The finale of True Detective: Night Country aired on HBO on Sunday night, and while the season managed to answer some major questions, there were still a few without definitive conclusions. Nonetheless, Season 4 told a complete story worthy of praise despite criticism from the show’s original creator. Leading up to the final episode, viewers were left stunned after Peter Prior (Finn Bennett) reluctantly shot his father, Hank Prior (John Hawkes), to save Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster). While he stays behind to clean up the crime scene, Danvers and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) head to the ice cave in an effort to find out what happened to Annie K. (Nivi Pedersen) and figure out how it all connects to the scientists at the Tsalal Research Station.
As the finale unfolds, the identity of Annie’s killer(s) is ultimately revealed, while the cause of death for the Tsalal scientists is more or less left for the viewer to decide. However, there are heavy implications as to who (or what) killed them. The final episode definitely doesn’t conclude with a neatly wrapped bow, nor does it offer a definitive answer to every question in the way the show’s first season did. However, much like the themes of the finale, there’s more out there to see, and not every question needs an answer.
Who Killed Annie K and the Tsalal Scientists?
True Detective
- Release Date
- January 12, 2014
- Cast
- Mahershala Ali , Stephen Dorff , Carmen Ejogo , Scoot McNairy , Jodie Foster , Kali Reis , Matthew McConaughey , Woody Harrelson , Alexandra Daddario , John Hawkes , Colin Farrell , Vince Vaughn
- Seasons
- 4
As the finale progresses, Danvers and Navarro make their way into the ice caves and discover the missing scientist, Raymond Clark (Owen McDonnell), who has been hiding there for two weeks. In fact, the ice caves contain a secret tunnel that leads directly into the Tsalal Research Station, which is how Clark escaped the initial attack on the other scientists in the first episode. Thanks to his confession, Danvers and Navarro learned the scientists took Annie’s life after she discovered what their research really encompassed.
In a surprise plot twist, Tsalal was responsible for pushing the mine to produce more pollution because of its effect on the permafrost they needed to penetrate. After the scientists discovered the DNA of a microorganism, which they believed would save the world, they realized they could only successfully extract its DNA if the permafrost was softer. Otherwise, their research would be compromised. As such, they would falsify the mine’s pollution records if it increased their pollution output, which the mine clearly had no problem adhering to.
Every Season of True Detective, Ranked
With season four, Night Country, airing its finale, these are our rankings for the best seasons of HBO’s True Detective.
Because Annie and Clark were dating, she spent time at Tsalal, and one day, she discovered what the scientists were doing. As an ardent protester of the mines and their efforts, she immediately destroyed their research. When she was caught in the act, the scientists attacked her, ultimately stabbing her 32 times. Clark tried to prevent them from harming her but was subdued without much effort. When he believed her to be dead, he cried over her dead body only to realize she was still gasping for air. In response, he smothers her with his shirt, a detail he conveniently leaves out of the story he tells Danvers and Navarro.
After his confession, Navarro allows Clark to meet the same frozen death as his comrades did. Although angered that the only witness to the crimes is now dead, Danvers remembers a detail from his story in which he held the tunnel hatch closed while the other scientists were attacked. She discovers a distinct handprint missing two fingers on the hatch, leading them to Blair Hartman (Kathryn Wilder) and Beatrice Malee. As a cleaning woman at Tsalal, Beatrice accidentally discovered the hatch after spilling a bucket of mop water on the floor six years after Annie’s death.
When she realized what the Tsalal scientists did to Annie, she and the other women in the community took it upon themselves to enact justice. They cut the power to the station, gathered the men on a truck, drove them out onto the middle of the ice, and forced them to walk naked into its abyss so that “she” could take them if she wanted them. The men woke “her,” as the women claim, and they sealed their own fate when they dug into “her” home in the ice and killed “her” daughter. As such, it’s heavily suggested that “she,” in fact, took them, given the men clearly died from fear before they froze into the infamous corpsicle.
10 Best Anthologies to Watch After True Detective: Night Country
Leaning into the macabre and embracing chilling mysteries, these 10 anthology series are perfect to watch after True Detective: Night Country.
Who Is “She,” What Does the Spiral Mean, and What Happens to Navarro?
While the scientists believe “she” to be Annie, given what they did to her, the “she” discussed throughout the series harkens back to the local legends passed down by the Inupiat people. “Her” home is the ice, and when the Tsalal scientists tore into “her” home and then killed “her” daughter, meaning an indigenous woman, “she” was angered, and the men ultimately paid the price. The series walks a fine line between showing what actually happened and leaning into representing the reality of indigenous supernatural beliefs and the horror that could come. The season allows space for both components to be true.
The spiral doesn’t necessarily need a definitive explanation. Instead, its pervasive presence merely connects everyone throughout the season. It’s seen in the ice cave, Annie dreams about it before she sees it, it’s drawn on the body of a Tsalal scientist, and it shows up in a myriad of other places throughout the season. In many ways, the motif of the spiral seems to represent time itself, especially when the notion of time being a flat circle is mentioned. Time is everywhere, just as the spiral seems to be, as it connects us all. Time isn’t linear, as the series discusses numerous times. Instead, time is happening all at once because it’s a flat circle, just like the spiral.
Near the end of the episode, Navarro is seen walking out on the ice before Danvers is later questioned about her whereabouts. The fate of her character is somewhat left up to interpretation. She may have walked out onto the ice, never to be seen again. However, Navarro doesn’t seem suicidal by the end of True Detective: Night Country, and she is later seen either as a ghost or still alive with Danvers on the front porch of a house. Given how Danvers talks about Navarro at the end of the series, audiences can assume she is still alive.
In the end, Night Country purposely leaves many aspects of its conclusion ambiguous and open to interpretation, which perfectly fits the latest season’s narrative. If viewers can’t seem to find the right answer, then maybe they’re simply not asking the right questions. All episodes of True Detective: Night Country are currently streaming on Max.
