Detectives escorted the girl’s mother, Ashlee Buzzard, off the property to another location “that would not interfere with their ability to conduct a thorough search,” the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office said.
Along with the search at the home in the 500 block of Mars Avenue, authorities also searched a storage locker and the rental car that the girl was last seen in. Authorities said Melodee was missing on Oct. 14 after a prolonged absence from her school. Officials believe she was last seen as recently as Oct. 7 and may have been driven to Nebraska by her mother, the Sheriff’s Office said.
Sheriff’s detectives and FBI agents served a search warrant at the Buzzard home where a makeshift memorial on the sidewalk includes a picture of the curly haired girl.
“We appreciate the FBI’s assistance in today’s searches,” Lt. Chris Gotschall from the Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. “In cases like this, every detail matters and it is invaluable to have additional resources and specialized expertise. Collaboration with our federal partners allows us to ensure we’re using every available tool to help bring resolution to this case.”
The Lompoc School District contacted the Sheriff’s Office to report the girl’s prolonged absence from her independent study program Oct. 14. Authorities then visited her home that day, but Melodee was nowhere to be seen and Buzzard refused to cooperate with their investigation, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Relatives on the girl’s father’s side of the family said they have not seen the girl in years.
“She hasn’t let us see her for a few years,” Melodee’s aunt Bridgett Truitt told local news station KEYT. “And all of us have tried. But we never stopped thinking about her or loving her or praying for her.”
Local authorities were unable to confirm any sightings of the girl within the last year. The FBI joined the investigation four days after her school district reported her absence.
Melodee is described as 4 feet 6 inches tall, weighing about 60 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.
Staff writer Clara Harter contributed to this report.
A “Real Housewives” star and her husband were arrested in Maryland on allegations they lied about a burglary, according to the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office.Wendy and Edward Osefo were arrested on Thursday, the sheriff said in a statement.Wendy Osefo, 40, was indicted on seven counts of insurance fraud, eight counts of conspiracy insurance fraud, and one count of false statement to a police officer, according to court documents obtained by sister station WBAL-TV 11 News. She has been one of the main cast members of “The Real Housewives of Potomac” since joining the show in 2020.Edward Osefo, 41, was indicted on nine counts of insurance fraud, eight counts of conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and one count of false statement to a police officer, the court documents show.Burglary, theft report in 2024 leads to investigationThe sheriff’s office said deputies were called on April 7, 2024, to the couple’s house in Finksburg for a reported burglary and theft.Authorities said the homeowners told deputies that they returned from vacation in Jamaica to find their home broken into and numerous items had been stolen.According to the court document, the couple told a deputy that “they found their bedroom and both closets to be ransacked, and several designer handbags and jewelry had been stolen.”The couple reported approximately 80 items of jewelry, luxury goods, clothing and shoes were stolen, worth a total of more than $200,000, the sheriff’s office said.The court document says the Osefos’ alarm system was activated while the couple was on vacation and that it detected no motion inside the house while they were away.What investigators say happened sinceThe court document says the Osefos filed three insurance claims for the alleged losses suffered while they were away.The sheriff’s office said detectives found that more than $20,000 of the items that were reported stolen were actually returned to the store where they were purchased for a full refund.The court document states: “Edward Osefo gave recorded statements to two of the insurance companies regarding a list of stolen items he provided. He was asked whether any of the items on the list had been returned, which he denied. He was asked if he had other insurance, but failed to disclose to Homesite and Jewelers that he was also making a claim with Travelers Insurance.”After the burglary was reported, investigators said Wendy Osefo’s Instagram account showed photos of her wearing a diamond anniversary band on her left finger before the burglary.”This ring was reported stolen in the burglary. Then, after the reported burglary, on April 27, 2024, Wendy Osefo is wearing the same ring on her left finger,” the court document states.Court document: Investigators obtain email between coupleThe court documents detail an email the deputies obtained in which Edward Osefo is accused of sending a list of reportedly stolen items to Wendy Osefo.”The email asked if there were ‘additional high-value items we can add to this inventory listing (i.e., Chanel shoes, etc.)? I’m trying to get the total to exceed $423,000, which is our policy maximum,’” the court document states.At the time of their arrests, deputies executed a search and seizure warrant in the house and found at least 15 items that appear to be the same ones claimed stolen during the alleged burglary, according to the court document.The sheriff’s office said evidence was presented to a grand jury on Thursday that led to the couple’s arrests. They were both taken to Carroll County Central Booking, from which they posted bail, which was set at $50,000 each, and were released on Friday.The sheriff’s office has planned a 3 p.m. update that will be streamed on their Facebook page.
A “Real Housewives” star and her husband were arrested in Maryland on allegations they lied about a burglary, according to the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office.
Wendy and Edward Osefo were arrested on Thursday, the sheriff said in a statement.
Wendy Osefo, 40, was indicted on seven counts of insurance fraud, eight counts of conspiracy insurance fraud, and one count of false statement to a police officer, according to court documents obtained by sister station WBAL-TV 11 News. She has been one of the main cast members of “The Real Housewives of Potomac” since joining the show in 2020.
Edward Osefo, 41, was indicted on nine counts of insurance fraud, eight counts of conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and one count of false statement to a police officer, the court documents show.
Burglary, theft report in 2024 leads to investigation
The sheriff’s office said deputies were called on April 7, 2024, to the couple’s house in Finksburg for a reported burglary and theft.
Authorities said the homeowners told deputies that they returned from vacation in Jamaica to find their home broken into and numerous items had been stolen.
According to the court document, the couple told a deputy that “they found their bedroom and both closets to be ransacked, and several designer handbags and jewelry had been stolen.”
The couple reported approximately 80 items of jewelry, luxury goods, clothing and shoes were stolen, worth a total of more than $200,000, the sheriff’s office said.
The court document says the Osefos’ alarm system was activated while the couple was on vacation and that it detected no motion inside the house while they were away.
What investigators say happened since
The court document says the Osefos filed three insurance claims for the alleged losses suffered while they were away.
The sheriff’s office said detectives found that more than $20,000 of the items that were reported stolen were actually returned to the store where they were purchased for a full refund.
The court document states: “Edward Osefo gave recorded statements to two of the insurance companies regarding a list of stolen items he provided. He was asked whether any of the items on the list had been returned, which he denied. He was asked if he had other insurance, but failed to disclose to Homesite and Jewelers that he was also making a claim with Travelers Insurance.”
After the burglary was reported, investigators said Wendy Osefo’s Instagram account showed photos of her wearing a diamond anniversary band on her left finger before the burglary.
“This ring was reported stolen in the burglary. Then, after the reported burglary, on April 27, 2024, Wendy Osefo is wearing the same ring on her left finger,” the court document states.
Court document: Investigators obtain email between couple
The court documents detail an email the deputies obtained in which Edward Osefo is accused of sending a list of reportedly stolen items to Wendy Osefo.
“The email asked if there were ‘additional high-value items we can add to this inventory listing (i.e., Chanel shoes, etc.)? I’m trying to get the total to exceed $423,000, which is our policy maximum,’” the court document states.
At the time of their arrests, deputies executed a search and seizure warrant in the house and found at least 15 items that appear to be the same ones claimed stolen during the alleged burglary, according to the court document.
The sheriff’s office said evidence was presented to a grand jury on Thursday that led to the couple’s arrests. They were both taken to Carroll County Central Booking, from which they posted bail, which was set at $50,000 each, and were released on Friday.
The sheriff’s office has planned a 3 p.m. update that will be streamed on their Facebook page.
When his date pulled out handcuffs, the man thought it was for consensual sex.
He submitted to having his wrists cuffed and ankles bound together. Then the other man pulled out a baseball bat.
The Feb. 22 incident, recounted in a detective’s affidavit, began on Grindr, a hookup app for gay men. It ended with the handcuffed man badly injured — but alive.
With his cooperation, detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department said, they identified his alleged assailant as Rockim Prowell, 34, and suspected it wasn’t the first time he’d lured a victim using Grindr.
Prowell was charged in September with killing two men whose deaths had gone unsolved for years, authorities said.
“We needed to connect the dots,” said Det. Ray Lugo of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Prowell has yet to enter a plea to charges of murder, attempted murder, carjacking, robbery, burglary and assault. His attorney, Deputy Public Defender Carlos Bido, didn’t return a request for comment.
The trail of evidence that led detectives to Prowell began in 2021, authorities say, when a married father of five left home at 1 a.m. for a date with a man he’d met online.
Inglewood police officers found Miguel Angel King’s white Toyota CHR parked on Queen Street the afternoon of July 22, 2021. The vehicle’s hatchback area, Lugo said, was covered in blood.
King, 51, had been reported missing by his wife and children days earlier, Lugo said.
A native of Tijuana who came to Los Angeles as a child, King raised five children, including three girls he adopted from foster care, said his daughter, Angela King. He worked hard, running a child-care business and helping his sister with a burger restaurant, she said.
As the family waited for news, Angela King said she tried to convince herself that her father was just taking an unannounced vacation.
“I didn’t know what to think,” she recalled. “I was scared. My father was home every single night, every single day.”
Lugo and his partner, Det. Leo Sanchez, reviewed King’s phone data and learned it was last active near a lagoon in Playa del Rey. Sheriff’s divers searched the water but found nothing.
On Aug. 14, 2021, police discovered a decomposed body in the Angeles National Forest above Glendora, Lugo said. Two weeks later, the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner identified the remains as King’s. The cause of death was a single gunshot to the head.
Then the case went cold.
Robert Gutierrez left home in South Los Angeles the evening of Aug. 21, 2023, an LAPD detective wrote in a search warrant affidavit. He told his nephew he was meeting someone he’d encountered on Grindr.
Launched in 2009, Grindr is now a publicly traded company that claims more than 14 million users in 190 countries and territories.
In a written statement, a Grindr spokesperson said the company cooperates with law enforcement and encourages people to use its video calling feature to verify connections for safety before meeting in person.
“We take our role as a connector for the queer community seriously and work diligently to provide a safe environment for our users,” the spokesperson said.
Police around the world have investigated homicides where killers met their victims on Grindr. In London, authorities investigated the deaths of four men in 2014 and 2015 who were drugged, raped and killed by a suspect they’d met on Grindr, the BBC reported.
In 2023, a Scottish father of two was killed by a 19-year-old he’d met on Grindr. Only after Paul Taylor’s death did his family learn of his double life.
“I will never have the opportunity to hear from Paul about his lifestyle choices,” his widow told a court, according to the BBC, “but I do not judge him.”
Two days after Gutierrez left home, his nephew reported him missing.
According to a search warrant affidavit, LAPD detectives searched impound logs and city license plate readers for Gutierrez’s black Infiniti FX35, finding nothing. His bank records showed someone had used his credit card to pay the $132.60 monthly rent for a storage unit in San Bernardino.
When detectives got a court order to search Gutierrez’s Grindr account, they saw he’d made plans to meet someone at an apartment building on Imperial Highway in Inglewood, according to the affidavit.
The man’s name: Rockim Lee Prowell.
Prowell had a modest criminal record, but nothing to indicate violence. Detectives from the Beverly Hills Police Department arrested him in 2021 for burglary and theft, according to a probation report.
The previous year, police were alerted to an intruder at a vacant five-bedroom house. They found a shattered sliding glass door and two televisions missing, the probation report said. In April 2021, a real estate agent showing a $19-million, 7,500-square-foot home arrived to find the property burglarized and three televisions stolen, according to the report.
From surveillance footage, detectives identified the suspect’s car as a black Toyota Prius. In the video, the suspect appeared to be a white man with long curly brown hair, according to a law enforcement source who wasn’t authorized to discuss the case publicly and requested anonymity.
Two weeks later, Beverly Hills officers spotted the Prius at Lexington Road and Beverly Drive, the probation report said. The car was outfitted with a stolen license plate.
Prowell was behind the wheel. Inside the car, detectives found a brunette wig and a rubber mask resembling a white male that the law enforcement source said looked realistic enough to be “movie quality.”
According to the probation report, Prowell, who is Black, admitted burglarizing the houses in Beverly Hills. He was homeless and had “fallen on tough times,” he said.
He looked up properties that were listed for sale, knowing they’d be vacant, and burglarized them for televisions that he sold online, Prowell told police. With his background in construction, he said he knew that turning off the homes’ circuit breakers would disable their surveillance systems.
The law enforcement official said Prowell was linked to burglaries in North Hollywood, Van Nuys, West L.A., Santa Monica, South Pasadena and Newport Beach, but there is no record of him being charged for those alleged crimes.
Charged with burglary, grand theft and vandalism for the Beverly Hills break-ins, Prowell was released on bail May 6, 2021. He pleaded no contest four months later to two counts of burglary and one count of grand theft.
When it came to the sentence that Prowell would receive, a probation officer wrote that his “callous and premeditated” crimes would have continued if he hadn’t been caught. But with no prior criminal history, Prowell was eligible for probation.
The judge agreed with the officer’s recommendation of no jail time, sentencing Prowell to two years’ probation.
By then, authorities allege, Prowell had already killed.
Around 3 a.m. on Feb. 22, 2025, LAPD officers raced to 59th Place in South L.A., where they’d been dispatched by a report of “unknown trouble,” a detective wrote in a search warrant affidavit.
They found a 40-year-old man with a broken leg, according to the affidavit and a statement by the L.A. County district attorney. The man, who is not named in the affidavit, told the officers a harrowing story.
After messaging for months on Grindr, he and a man made plans to meet for the first time. His date, whose name he didn’t know, sent him an address. When he arrived, the man said he allowed himself to be handcuffed and have his ankles bound, thinking they were going to have consensual sex.
Instead, his date pepper-sprayed him, beat him with a metal bat and demanded the PIN to his bank cards, he told police. After covering his eyes with a blindfold, gagging him with a sock and taping his mouth shut, the suspect dragged the man to a car, threatening to put him in the trunk.
The man said he managed to get his legs free and ran out the garage door, screaming.
The suspect — identified by police as Prowell — started the car and crashed into the man, breaking his leg. He got out of the car and tried to persuade the victim to come back inside, even removing the handcuffs, the affidavit said.
Instead, the victim took off running and asked a neighbor to call the police. By the time the officers arrived, the suspect alleged to be Prowell had vanished.
The victim recalled his date’s Grindr username, and detectives served a search warrant on the company, court records show.
It’s unclear how detectives identified Prowell as the suspect, but Lugo said the surviving victim’s account was the break authorities needed.
“Our case was a lot of circumstantial evidence,” Lugo said.
When detectives searched a home associated with Prowell in Inglewood, they found Gutierrez’s Infiniti in the garage, according to a statement from the L.A. County district attorney’s office. His body has still not been found.
Last month, prosecutors charged Prowell with murdering King and Gutierrez and attempting to kill the third victim who described being bound, assaulted and hit with a car.
If convicted, Prowell faces life in prison without parole or the death penalty, prosecutors said in a statement. The district attorney’s office has yet to make a decision whether to seek capital punishment.
Angela King said she wanted her father to be known for more than how he died.
She cited the Gospel of Matthew: “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”
The text was every parent’s worst nightmare: A 17-year-old said he had been abducted, shot and wounded by a group of men on a Florida highway.
Law enforcement scrambled to the scene. A statewide alert went out to locate the boy. After it became known that the teen had said his abductors were “Hispanic,” an outpouring of outrage followed online.
But none of it was true, authorities now say.
In a text to his mother last week, the teen — identified as Caden Speight — claimed he had been shot and abducted by four Latino men on Highway 484 in Dunnellon in Marion County, Fla.
The claim prompted authorities to issue a statewide Amber Alert and sparked furor against Latinos on social media.
“It’s time to act, no more words,” one user wrote on X, tagging President Trump. “Unleash the hounds of hell.”
Another shared a drawing of a stick-figure family — the males clad in sombreros — with the caption, “Big or small, deport them all.”
On Sept. 25, deputies from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office arrived near Highway 484 and found Caden’s vehicle, but the teen was nowhere to be seen and his cellphone had been discarded, according to a news release from the agency.
The report triggered further investigation.
Caden was eventually found in Williston, Fla., authorities said, and his tale of abduction unraveled under closer scrutiny.
Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods said in a video statement Monday that detectives have collected evidence showing “the initial details that Caden texted to his family, were proven to be false — completely made up.”
“We did find evidence of a single gunshot where Caden left his truck,” Woods said. “However, his claims that he had been shot and abducted were quickly disproven. We then learned that he had purchased a bicycle, tent and camping supplies just prior to him reporting this.”
Caden bought a red-and-gray tent from a Walmart in Ocala, Fla., before he reported that he had been shot and abducted, Woods said.
“Caden simply rode away towards Williston while the rest of us were left to think the worst and my team was working in overdrive to solve this case,” Woods said.
The teen had a handgun with him and shot himself in the leg before he was found, authorities said.
Woods alleged Caden did this to “continue the ruse,” adding that authorities believe, “There is zero chance that Caden’s gunshot wound came from any type of an assailant.”
Woods said it wasn’t “off the table” that the teen might face criminal charges. The investigation is ongoing and detectives have questions for Caden, he added, but his parents haven’t allowed investigators to speak with him.
The update from law enforcement triggered a fresh wave of social media commentary, ranging from condemnations to calls for patience and unity.
“The fact that he tried to make it about four Hispanic men abducting him and not caring that that could have caused some real harm to innocent men that [were] doing nothing wrong in itself is despicable,” one Facebook user wrote.
“I think we just need to all be supportive and an actual community and not act all crazy and jumping to conclusions,” another said. “A lot of people make things up. All we have to do is pray.”
Whenever we crave a murder mystery, we always seem to think of Maureen Johnson. The thrill of gathering clues and figuring out the investigation hits different with all her books. This month, she teamed up with illustrator Jay Cooper to give us a solve-it-yourself mystery—You Are The Detective: The Creeping Hand Murder!
This new murder mystery by Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper comes out just in time for you to plan your Halloween parties and themed dinners this fall. We had so much fun reading along to You Are The Detective: The Creeping Hand Murder, and here’s why!
Image Source: Penguin Random House
Book Overview: You Are The Detective: The Creeping Hand Murder
Content warnings: death, blood, bodies, references to drug use, addiction, and overdose, heavy drinking, drowning, stabbing, poisoning (Read at your discretion!)
Summary:Dear Detective,
Surely you have seen the papers and read about the dreadful murder of the American novelist—stabbed while in a room with six other people, and yet no one went near him or saw the murder occur. The crime is so devious, so logistically impossible, that it seems to have been committed not by a person but by a disembodied hand.
I must confess that we are at a loss. Who wrote the poison pen letters that lured these seven people to this deadly gathering? A poet, an earl, an actress, a cook, a telephone operator, and a lothario . . . What do they have in common? And how could a man be stabbed in a room full of suspects, even though no one went near him or saw a thing?
We have had our best people on the case, Detective, and we still can’t make heads or tails of it. We are giving this case file to you. Can you decipher the clues, decode the witness statements, and identify the murderer? You are our last hope. Can you help us crack the Creeping Hand Murder?
Yours truly, Detective Chief Inspector of the Metropolitan Police
Interacting With The Mystery
If you’re anything like us, an interactive murder mystery makes for a great way to pass the time. You Are The Detective: The Creeping Hand Murder by Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper tested our memory and attention to detail. The photos of the crime scene combined with each suspect’s testimony made us feel like we were there when it happened. We kept flipping back and forth through the pages to try and catch any clues we missed the first time around.
The Detailed Illustrations
The illustrations in You Are The Detective: The Creeping Hand Murder really sealed the deal for us. We especially love the floor plans and the photos of everyone at the crime scene. Every part of the illustrations is intentional, especially when certain photos come up later in the investigation. (No spoilers here!) We’re not ashamed to admit that more than a few details went over our heads. But trust that the incriminating evidence was there the whole time.
Final Guesses
Before we got to the big reveal in You Are The Detective: The Creeping Hand Murder, the authors gave us a pause to lock in our final predictions. Although we thought our two guesses had great odds of being the killer, we were ultimately wrong. Even when we try not to fall for the most obvious suspects, we couldn’t pick up on the real killer. We aren’t too worried, though. That just means we need to hone our detective skills a little more. And we’d be happy to do that with another solve-it-yourself mystery book! *wink wink*
Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper’s interactive mystery, You are the Detective: The Creeping Hand Murder, was so entertaining and rich in detail. We were stumped until the end!
You are the Detective: The Creeping Hand Murder by Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper comes out September 16th, and you can order a copy of it here!
How did you enjoy Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper’s solve-it-yourself mystery? Were you able to find the murderer in You are the Detective: The Creeping Hand Murder? Let us know on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram!
A woman in Northern California was killed this week in what appeared to be a dog attack, and authorities are investigating whether any of the 25 Great Danes found roaming the area may be behind the fatal mauling.
Just before 2 a.m. Thursday, a resident came across a body on Blackhawk Trail in Feather Falls, not far from Lake Oroville. He called the police, and deputies responded to the scene, according to the Butte County Sheriff’s Office.
The woman was later identified as Davina Corbin, 56, who lived in the area. An autopsy found numerous bite marks and other injuries that pointed to a domestic dog attack, authorities said, and the evidence indicates she was out on a walk when she was mauled.
Sheriff’s detectives launched an investigation, but did not have to go far. Corbin’s body had been discovered directly in front of a home, and upon serving a search warrant, detectives found themselves in a startling situation that involved 25 Great Danes.
“Deputies and detectives spent the entire day capturing the dogs, who were running loose in the area,” the Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Friday. “To date, approximately 23 dogs have been captured and turned over to animal control. Detectives are currently attempting to capture the two outstanding dogs.”
A lab analysis confirmed that Corbin’s clothing was covered with DNA that was consistent with at least one domestic dog, and authorities are in the process of doing additional testing to determine which dog, or dogs, might be guilty of the attack.
Great Danes are usually known to be gentle and friendly, despite their imposing size. Once fully grown, the dogs are taller than most people when standing on their hind legs and can weigh anywhere from 110 to 175 pounds — making them one of the largest recognized dog breeds.
According to the American Kennel Club, Great Danes were developed once upon a time by German nobles to hunt ferocious wild boars, and they later became beloved protectors of their home and loved ones.
The death of an infant on the 405 Freeway near Culver City may be connected to a Topanga-area slaying and a deadly crash in Redondo Beach, the Los Angeles Police Department confirmed Monday.
Officers were dispatched to the 6200 block of Variel Avenue in Woodland Hills around 7:35 a.m. Monday, where they found an unresponsive man in his 30s. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Detectives later learned of two incidents that had occurred earlier in the morning and might have ties to their homicide investigation, LAPD said.
Around 4:30 a.m., officers were called to the northbound 405 Freeway near the Sepulveda Boulevard/Howard Hughes Parkway exit, according to the California Highway Patrol. An infant girl about 5 or 6 months old was found in the roadway, and a 9-year-old girl was found on the right shoulder.
The infant was pronounced dead at the scene, and the girl was taken to a hospital with minor to moderate injuries. A 911 caller reported seeing a black sedan near where the girls were found, according to City News Service.
“At this time, Valley Bureau Homicide detectives are working with the California Highway Patrol on the incident involving the two children and believe it is connected to the Topanga homicide scene,” LAPD said on X.
In a further twist, the LAPD and CHP are collaborating with the Redondo Beach Police Department to determine whether the two violent scenes are connected to a fatal car crash in the beach city that involved a black sedan, L.A. police said.
The collision occurred around 5 a.m. Monday when a female driver crashed into a tree. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
CBS News reported that detectives identified a suspect in their investigation as the mother of the children found on the freeway and the wife of the man found in Topanga.
The LAPD did not confirm this information when reached by phone.
The running bit in True Detective: Night Country has been Liz Danvers repeatedly telling her protégé Pete Prior to ask the right questions if they’re going to solve the case. (“ASK ME QUESTIONS. QUESTION ME. ASK ME QUESTIONS. YOU WANTED TO KNOW. ASK ME THE FUCKING QUESTIONS. ASK THE QUESTIONS, PRIOR.”) Well, I’ll do my best with that. Here are eight crucial questions to ask ahead of the Night Country finale.
If Kate McKittrick and Silver Sky Mining are behind the killings, why are they so gruesome?
We are first introduced to Kate McKittrick as “mine bitch” in Episode 2, when Danvers asks McKittrick to thaw the corpsicle of naked Tsalal scientists stashed at the Ennis hockey rink (which is owned by McKittrick’s company, Silver Sky Mining). McKittrick doesn’t make many appearances beyond that until Episode 5, when she very conveniently spins the story that the root cause for the Tsalal scientists’ deaths was a “weather event.” She then tells Hank Prior to kill Ennis drifter Otis Heiss to keep him from leading Danvers and her partner, Evangeline Navarro, to Ennis’s subterranean ice caves—dubbed “night country” by the locals. It’s a bit of an awkwardly sudden reveal, but it’s still a reveal, which forces us to ask: If McKittrick is the kingpin behind all of this, why is she stabbing people—or at least ordering these stabbings—32-plus times, cutting out tongues, and stripping scientists naked in the freezing cold? Does she have an even darker side that will be revealed to us in a snappy conversation between her and Captain Connelly in the cold open of the finale?
(It just can’t be Kate McKittrick who killed all these people. We’ll get to more on this later.)
Will Pete Prior, the epitome of innocence, be able to rally after killing his own dad (and then cleaning up the body)?
It’s over, Petey. The story about you blowing a hockey game for a kid whose father just suffered a stroke is cute and all, but the knight-in-shining-armor schtick wears thin when you kill your own father and agree to dispose of his body without much hesitation.
Look at the positioning of Hank’s gun when Pete fired a bullet square into his dad’s temple at point-blank range:
Screenshots via HBO
That’s a little too quick and a bit tooaccurate for my taste. Yes, Hank was raising his gun to shoot Danvers minutes after shooting and killing Heiss, but convince me Pete can’t adjust the aim just a tad to rock his dad with a shoulder or even a chest shot. Is there some risk that middle-aged Hank takes either of those gunshots in stride and still shoots Danvers? Maybe! But even if he does, he’s hitting her in the hip or thigh at best with that gun positioning. I know a killer when I see one. (Hank literally said he wasn’t one, even if that’s technically no longer true.) Even if Pete was a choirboy before all of this, the soft, pillowy exterior propped up by his youth and relatable juggling of an overdemanding boss, a marriage, and a child died with Hank that night. I’m not saying the next installment of True Detective—let’s call it Day Country—will have an Episode 5 reveal that Pete is a serial killer who targets anyone that reminds him of his dad, but I’m not not saying it.
Kidding aside, the arc of Pete trying his best to not be Danvers just to end up in a worse place than she ever could be is a nice touch from the show’s creators. In the same episode in which Pete scolds Liz for covering up the William Wheeler murder, Pete in turn murders his dad and jumps at the opportunity to cover it up. Do I think this would realistically have some pretty gnarly permanent effects on my boy’s psyche beyond the occasional one-eyed polar bear flashback? Yes. Do I also think the show will tie it up a bit prettier than that to the point that killing his dad actually somehow throws him back into a healthy marriage and work-life balance? Probably.
Will Navarro survive? If so, will Mr. SpongeBob Toothbrush (Qavvik) ever have a healthy relationship?
With her haunting visions growing in frequency, I realize Navarro is getting dangerously close to following her sister’s literal path into the frozen sea. Still, I’m going to venture to guess that Eve comes out of this alive. Navarro at times feels like the true protagonist of the show, and her arc is destined for a much softer landing, one that pushes her away from continually throwing fists at the world and instead into the arms of her sweetheart, Qavvik.
The first time we see Navarro and Qavvik together is when she physically submits him into having an orgasm and subsequently steals his SpongeBob toothbrush. Not even the best couples therapist in the world will be able to handle that kind of power dynamic. Cracking this case—and finally knowing who killed Annie Kowtok—has to distance Navarro enough from her demons to pursue a healthy relationship with our boy Qavvik. (And it better! He’s a good-looking dude with a legit job in a tiny rural town. Ask Danvers how Tinder is going in Bumfuck, Alaska; I don’t think we’ve heard a notification pop up since the first couple of episodes.)
What’s the deal with the oranges and the one-eyed polar bears? Do they actually matter?
OK, this probably doesn’t fit in as the right question to ask; Danvers would not approve. We know the oranges following Navarro around throughout the series and the consistent run-ins she and Danvers have with one-eyed polar bears are both heavy-handed, inescapable symbols for our troubled duo. Surely, what they represent is infinitely more important than their potential connection to the murders of Annie Kowtok and the Tsalal scientists.
The oranges are a recurring symbol of the connection between Navarro, the living, and the dead. We don’t need anything more than the scene where Navarro throws an orange into the darkness and something dead or alive (or made-up) throws it right back.
The one-eyed polar bear stuffed animal is probably just a real-life reminder of Danvers’s son, Holden, who we know is dead due to context clues from recurring flashbacks. (But we also still don’t fully know that story … who was Holden’s dad? How did they both die? Are these the right questions, Danvers?!) However, when Navarro gets a visit from a real-life one-eyed polar bear in Episode 1, it suggests that there’s a connection between it and each of the detectives’ haunted pasts. That, and the one eye could represent that the pair might not be seeing the full picture or might be seeing only one half of the story.
I can hear Danvers screaming “WRONG QUESTION” already. But I don’t care. You can’t vehemently mix in citrus, real and stuffed one-eyed polar bears, the Carcosa spiral, a Rust Cohle family tree, and a potpourri of dead people walking around town and then expect people not to ask questions. When every inch of detail could be used as evidence in a murder case, it’s important to know whether any of this is real or not.
Where does Liz’s boy toy Ted Connelly fit into everything?
I know McKittrick has a low opinion of Connelly. She calls him a “political animal” and “weak” during her conversation with Hank right before the two form a plan to kill Heiss. But does that mean he’s completely innocent? Does he actually believe the very coincidental report that the cause of death for the Tsalal scientists was just a freak weather event? Or is McKittrick also greasing Connelly to pay him off or move him up the ladder as part of the cover-up? Navarro was pretty adamant in the closing scenes of Episode 5 that roping in Connelly would “bury” them all, but I guess it doesn’t matter to Danvers. She said the last time she and Connelly hooked up was the last time (actually this time), and her Tinder notifications are bound to heat up after she cracks the case.
How does Raymond Clark actually fit into all of this?
The leading suspect for most of the series, Raymond Clark, simply has to play a role in all of this, right? We know he’s the only living Tsalal scientist hiding in the “night country.” We also know he was the one convulsing in the opening scene of Episode 1 and who uttered the first mention of “she’s awake.” And we know that he had a “let’s get matching tattoos”–level relationship with Annie Kowtok. But when Danvers and Navarro eventually confront Clark in the caves Hank died trying to keep hidden from them, what will they learn?
My guess is Clark somehow escaped whatever killed his colleagues and has been too afraid to venture out of the caves ever since. If he was actually one of the bad guys in all of this, Clark would have run to McKittrick for protection a long time ago rather than freeze his ass off in the night country. Instead, Danvers and Navarro will find Clark in the caves scared shitless, and he’ll deliver the long-awaited “aha” moment of the series. I don’t want it to be a late-game spill of nearly all the relevant information to the case from a single source, but I think that’s what this is shaping up to be. (I blame all the time we spent chasing flat subplots!)
Have Night Country’s creators laid enough crumbs for a satisfying final twist?
OK, I’ll say it again: It can’t be McKittrick. If the series’ big reveal was actually in the penultimate episode when McKittrick and Hank talked in the car about wanting to hide the caves from Navarro and Danvers, I will riot in the streets of Ennis. We know McKittrick and Silver Sky funded the Tsalal station. We know McKittrick paid Hank to move Annie’s body and asked him to kill Heiss to help hide the cave entrance’s whereabouts. If that also means McKittrick was the ringleader in killing the scientists and Kowtok, I will be baffled in the worst way.
It just can’t happen. Someone, anyone else had to have killed them. Such an early reveal would run counter to everything True Detective diehards loved about previous seasons. That said, we must have missed something. McKittrick, Connelly, and Hank all played a part, but none of them killed anybody (outside of Heiss). They probably know who killed Kowtok and/or the scientists, but they didn’t make the order or deliver the final blow(s). There are enough loose ends (e.g., Sedna, Oliver Tagaq, Ryan Kowtok) for there to be a big reveal, but whether or not it’s satisfying comes down to whether it’s a key piece of evidence we all overlooked in the moment—like the kid’s drawing of the green-eared spaghetti monster in the first season of True Detective—or simply new information spilled out during one of the final conversations with Clark or McKittrick. (We’re all hoping for the former.)
For the final time, who done it?
It’s her. Whoever this scary woman Pete’s kid drew in the first episode is the killer. No, I’m not saying Sedna, the Inuit goddess of the sea and ruler of the underworld (though my colleague Ben Lindbergh’s deep dive into her lore is spectacular). I’m saying someone who looks like this!
Whoever killed Kowtok and/or the Tsalal scientists looked like this, which admittedly brings McKittrick into the fold again, but I’m ruling her out anyway. It could be Pete’s wife or her grandma or one of the women at the protests with Leah. I don’t know who she is exactly, but I know she’s awake.
After four years away, True Detective returns for a new season with a sinistrous subtitle. We’re in Night Country now, and we’ll be following along each week to try to piece together, with the help of police chief Liz Danvers and detective Evangeline Navarro, who perpetrated those gruesome crimes in Ennis, Alaska. Read along for a breakdown of Episode 5.
Who Done It?
Throughout this season, Pete Prior has been a rare—perhaps the only—bit of purity and innocence in Ennis. He alone seems to have dodged the town’s darkness, projecting a sincerity and conventionality that are absent from any other character we’ve encountered. All he wants, it seems, is to be a good husband, a good dad, a good son, and—even as it increasingly conflicts with the other roles—a good cop. Ennis isn’t a place that fosters kindness, yet Pete has spent his life with a purehearted dedication to doing right by others. Indeed, we learned this week that Pete’s wife, Kayla, first fell for the former high school hockey star when he uncharacteristically blew a game—after which she learned that, without so much as a word about it to anyone, he’d done it to cheer up a player on the opposing team whose dad had just died.
This week, Pete’s innocence was finally shattered. All season long, he’s followed at chief of police Liz Danvers’s heels, palpably straining to learn from his professional hero. At long last, his questions about what caused the rift between Danvers and onetime protégée Evangeline Navarro led to the realization that she and Navarro murdered serial abuser William Wheeler years ago and covered it up. Wheeler was left-handed, Pete figures out, meaning that his right-handed fatal shot to the head couldn’t have been self-inflicted. Danvers might be a good detective, but she’s no hero.
She’s not the only one. Pete has tried throughout the season to make the best of his difficult and sometimes abusive relationship with his father, Hank. Amid a mounting pile of evidence that Hank isn’t the well-meaning cop that he has pretended to be, Pete bursts into Danvers’s home at the episode’s climax to find that his dad is just as willing to brush the law aside for his own ends. On orders from Kate McKittrick—more on her in just a moment—Hank fatally shoots the former engineer Otis Heiss. Pete responds with his own irrevocable sin, shooting and killing his father. His days of looking for the good in people are over.
Before the shoot-out, Danvers comes close to throwing in the towel on the Tsalal Arctic Research Station case: McKittrick and Ted Connelly call her into the Silver Spring Mining offices to inform her that the scientists’ deaths have been ruled not a murder but a tragic accident resulting from a slab avalanche. (Holy Dyatlov Pass, Batman.) A conversation with Leah changes her mind when her daughter asks whether she knows how bad the pollution has gotten in the Indigenous villages around Ennis—does she have any idea how many stillbirths there have been? Danvers visits the Ennis cemetery, where tiny coffins sit waiting for the ground to thaw so that they can be buried—and then she decides to keep looking for answers.
Last week, Heiss told Danvers that still-missing Tsalal researcher Raymond Clark was “hiding in the night country.” This time around, Danvers finally learns that “the night country”—all together with me now, boys and girls: Night Country!—is a term for Ennis’s subterranean ice caves. And those spirals that keep turning up? They’re markers left by hunters to warn others about thin ice above the caves.
Night Country’s answers sure seem to be in those caves. Clark, so far as we know, is still down there. And we know that Annie Kowtok was murdered somewhere inside: The recovered video of her final moments shows her telling the camera, “I found it. It’s here.” Finally, we know that McKittrick and Silver Sky Mining really, really don’t want Danvers and Navarro going in. Next week, that’s just what they’ll do, but until then it’s time for one last look at the suspects.
1. Kate McKittrick and Silver Sky Mining
A hearty welcome to the top of the suspect list goes to local mogul and Silver Sky exec Kate McKittrick.
McKittrick’s power in Ennis has thrummed beneath the surface throughout the season in ways both large and small, from her ownership of the ice rink—the town’s de facto community center turned morgue—to the fact that she holds Leah’s fate in the balance after the teen graffitied “MURDERERS” on Silver Sky’s offices.
This week, we see her summon—summon!—Danvers to Silver Sky, where the chief is shocked to find Ted Connelly waiting. (Poor Connelly catching strays: “Connelly is a political animal,” McKittrick says later on. “He’s weak, and he’s fucking her.”) First, McKittrick dresses Danvers down for an early effort to get into the ice caves with Navarro “on Silver Sky property”; then, she and Connelly present the extraordinarily dubious news that Tsalal’s scientists perished in what Connelly dubs “a weather event.” McKittrick seems positively thrilled, giddily telling Danvers, “I know it’s a relief for all of us that there’s not some killer out there on the loose.” Nothing fishy here!
As Danvers notes, it’s awfully convenient. It’s also particularly suspicious given some new evidence that Pete dug up in the tax records of the multinational conglomerate that runs Silver Sky Mining: Turns out that the LLC behind Tsalal is a partner of Silver Sky, which funds the center at least in part as a greenwashing initiative. “That means the mine bankrolls Tsalal and then Tsalal pushes out bullshit pollution numbers for them,” Danvers says. Given what we know about the rampant pollution around Ennis and its devastating human toll, the revelation raises new questions about the mine’s, and McKittrick’s, possible involvement in what happened at Tsalal, to say nothing of the murder of Annie, who was a vocal anti-mine activist before her death.
There’s not a lot of ambiguity in what comes next. Danvers tells McKittrick that she has a lead on Clark courtesy of Heiss, whom she’s secretly stashed at The Lighthouse and whom McKittrick doubtless knows has extensive knowledge of the caves. McKittrick immediately arranges a sneaky meeting with Hank Prior, telling him that if he kills Heiss, she’ll have him named as the new chief of police in Danvers’s stead. “She’s looking for the location of the Kowtok murder,” McKittrick tells Hank. “She can’t find that cave.” At minimum, this means she has intimate knowledge of Annie’s murder and that, in her capacity at Silver Sky, she wants it hidden from the police.
What is McKittrick trying to cover up by offing Heiss: the truth about Annie’s death, what really happened at Tsalal, whatever it was that Annie found under the ice, or some combination of all three? There’s just no universe in which McKittrick isn’t involved in some—or all—of the murders (let alone the pollution poisoning Ennis).
2. … Ghosts?
Just kidding—kind of. Your mileage may vary on whether you view this season’s spooky spiritual accompaniments—the jump scares, the flashes of dead-eyed zombies, the mysterious caribou stampede off a cliff, Travis’s spirit’s season premiere dance party, the reappearing orange, and so on—as an enhancement to the story or a major mark against it. Anyone who’s read Agatha Christie knows that a mystery’s seemingly supernatural explanation will be punctured in short order by the very human truth beneath the caper at hand. This late in the season, it seems clear that we’re close to the kind of culprit or culprits who can be put in handcuffs—a conclusion that Danvers has hewed to throughout the investigation.
But there’s still something going on. Many different people in and around Ennis have witnessed seemingly inexplicable phenomena. Those caribou really did run off that cliff. And just last week, Navarro had her own otherworldly moment in the dredge, leaving her with an apparently ruptured eardrum (an incident that bizarrely did not come up this week at all).
It all has me thinking a lot about another show set in a remote, icy town, where—just as in Night Country—an A-list detective comes in to solve a ghastly crime. In Fortitude, which premiered back in 2015, it’s Stanley Tucci who finds himself wading through the snow in search of the truth in a troubled town. Without spoiling too much of that series, the investigation takes a sharp turn when it becomes clear that something—something neither human nor supernatural—is affecting the townsfolk with increasingly violent results.
In Night Country, we know that the mine is polluting water for a significant portion of the Ennis area. We also know that Tsalal was hunting deep in the ice for as-yet-unknown organisms in the name of scientific discovery. What if one or the other or both of these have led to mass poisoning- or infection-induced hallucinations—or worse? Something really did make all those scientists run out onto the ice partially clothed, after all, and the people of Ennis really are seeing things that seem to defy explanation.
What if there is an explanation, and all that sinister stuff that’s been haunting the town—and the series—can be explained as the neurological aftereffects of the shady business at the mine and Tsalal?
3. Raymond Clark
After an entire season of mentions in the Who Done It? column of Ringer recaps, Clark has plummeted down the list of suspects.
That’s not to say he’s not involved—he’s still the clearest link between his onetime flame Annie and the Tsalal deaths, and it is distinctly suspicious that Clark would be the sole survivor from the research center, even before considering that he’s been on the run for the show’s duration. And Clark specialized in paleomicrobiology during his nearly two decades working at Tsalal. If one of the center’s discoveries is behind the murd—er, tragic avalanche event—he’s likely the one who found it.
“He’s crazy as shit, man,” Heiss tells Danvers early in Episode 5. “Creepy motherfucker.”
But Clark increasingly seems like a fall guy. We know he loved Annie; if Silver Sky conspired to have her killed or cover it up (or both), surely he wouldn’t have been on board. If anything, he seems like another victim of the mine’s and/or research center’s collateral damage.
4. Hank Prior
So long, Hank.
Hank has graced the list of suspects in each of TheRinger’sweeklyrecaps this season for good reason. His bitterness that Danvers was named chief, a need for money to woo the con artist formerly known as Alina, an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, instability in his relationship with his son (and, before that, Hank’s now-ex-wife), his relentless, wiry anxiety—none of it paints a pretty picture for Hank.
This week, we learned that Hank had been on Silver Sky’s payroll and was involved in Annie’s murder—though he insists to Danvers shortly before Pete shoots him that he only moved her body out of the cave where she was killed and had nothing to do with the murder itself. I’m inclined to believe him: “I’m not a killer,” Prior tells McKittrick after she tells him to take out Heiss—seeming confirmation that he really wasn’t behind Annie’s murder, or any others that McKittrick is aware of.
At that point, anyway: It’s not long before he shoots Heiss. (Good for Heiss, I guess, that he got one last go-around with his beloved heroin, courtesy of Danvers, who squirrels him away from The Lighthouse in a joint intel-smack excursion. “Don’t leave a mess,” she instructs him as he slips into her bathroom. Standard police technique, am I right?) Prior Sr. is hardly heading into the great beyond with a clean conscience, but it at least doesn’t look like he harmed Annie or the Tsalal group.
Galaxy-Brained Theory of the Week
“She’s awake!” the various creeps and creepies of Ennis have told us repeatedly. While I’m tempted to write off the warning as mass delusion (see: ghosts), the fact that we keep hearing about this evidently fearsome “she”—whose awakening seems to have portended all the horror we’ve witnessed this season—seems significant.
I think we can rule out mortals for this particular role. Could she be the one-eyed polar bear—some protective, and perhaps freshly vengeful, spirit that has long lain dormant beneath Ennis? Speaking of beneath—well, I guess we’ll find out next week.
Vikram’s Alaska Corner
True Detective: Night Country takes place in the cold fringes of the Last Frontier, otherwise known as Alaska. (Never mind that the season was filmed in Iceland.) The Ringer’s own Vikram Patel is a former resident of the state who still spends his winters there. Each week, we’ll pose a question to Vikram about his second home as we look to learn more about the local geography and culture.
Claire: This week’s episode dealt with a whole lot of ice—most of it perilous. We see Rose Aguineau and Evangeline Navarro use an ax to hack a hole through thick ice so that Eve can scatter her sister’s ashes, only for her to wander a few steps too far and have the ice crack beneath her and nearly give way. And we finally learn what the “night country” refers to: a network of subterranean ice caves that we’re told are wildly dangerous and filled with jagged ice that cuts like glass (but that, teens being what they are, still draw out the kids to mess around and explore from time to time). Ice now feels less like a backdrop and more like a direct threat to the Night Country crew. While I recognize that Ennis’s anthill of spooky ice tunnels is probably not the norm, what can you tell me about living with the realities of ice in Alaska?
Vikram: I’ve had only one encounter with an ice cave. And after I tell you about it, I think you’ll understand why.
The glacier was huge—a thick, jagged layer of ice crawling over the mountain we had just hiked up. It looked still, but it was talking to us. We heard little cracking sounds in the distance, regular reminders that glaciers aren’t frozen in place, but rather a slow-moving river of ice.
As we got closer, the air became measurably cooler. It’s a remarkable effect, the kind of moment in nature that reminds you how helpless you are. This chunk of ice was changing the weather. It was powerful.
Once at the edge of the glacier, we scoped out what seemed to be a small opening under a brim of overhanging ice.
Courtesy of Dave McGee
After a few minutes, we got curious and squeezed through, into a cave about the size of a one-bedroom apartment, tucked under many tons of glacier ice. Inside, it was stunning; the blue was deep, the air even chillier. The inside of an ice cube. We had never done anything like this before.
Courtesy of Dave McGee
We spent the next 10 or 15 minutes inside our frozen hideaway and probably would have stayed much longer, but we had to head back soon—a friend was waiting for us on a nearby ridge. But as we made our way to the entrance of the ice cave, we heard a crack—this time, a little louder and a lot closer—just overhead. Oh shit. We walked faster. Then another crack, even louder. Run. The entrance to the cave was collapsing.
In my memory, the next few things happened almost instantaneously. We shot out the entrance. Me first, then Rob, then Dave. I tripped a few feet outside the entrance and fell to the ground. Rob, at full speed, passed by me. I looked over my shoulder and saw a chunk of glacier ice—probably two-thirds the size of a Subaru—falling from about 30 feet above Dave’s head as he lunged out of the mouth of the cave. I couldn’t tell whether he was clear of the ice or about to be crushed by it.
For a moment, I thought Dave was a goner.
Today, 17 years later, it’s still the scariest moment of my life. His too.
“I remember the feeling that things were falling behind me. I could feel the force of something hitting the ground just behind my feet. I’ve probably never moved as fast in my entire life, even though it was over wet rocks.”
Courtesy of Dave McGee
I called Dave recently to help confirm my memory. We hadn’t talked about that day at Raven Glacier in a long time. I told him I wanted to talk about True Detective: Night Country and how Episode 5 involves a network of ice caves. I tried to keep explaining the context, but he interrupted me. “Just hearing that—ice caves—makes my body shiver.”
We compared memories. Dave remembers seeing me fall and look back at him. I sure hope he can’t remember the look on my face.
“It was literally fractions of a second between life and death. Tons of ice falling right on top of me. Even if I had survived the initial blow, it would have been impossible to recover a body under there.”
After Dave scrambled away, the three of us came together. “We all looked around, at the ice, at each other. Someone said, ‘Holy shit.’”
I remember hugging—desperate hugging.
A few minutes later, we turned to leave. “We had a long, solemn walk down that hill, having a lot of thoughts about mortality.”
During that walk so many years ago, and again this week on the phone, we wondered aloud whether we had caused the collapse. “It had to be us, right? The odds seem too incredible that that piece of ice happened to fall right then. I mean, how many years does it take for a cavern like that to form? And then it collapsed … right then?”
The moment has stayed with Dave, who now lives in Chicago with his wife and their three children. “I think about it still, usually when I look at my kids’ faces. They wouldn’t exist if I had been a step slower—or if I had slipped on a wet rock. My wife would have had a different life. My kids wouldn’t be here.”
Dave doesn’t tell this story much anymore. But before he moved away from Alaska, it came up a lot. Especially with newcomers. “It obviously changed the way I look at glaciers, especially as a place of recreation. After that, I would tell anyone new to Alaska to stay away from them.
“But people ignored me. They went exploring still.” That’s the power of the ice.
Iconic True Detective Looks of the Week
Underneath the true crime mysteries at the forefront of each season, True Detective is admirably devoted to capturing the aesthetics that define each of its many eras. With that comes some pretty incredible costume and makeup work, which we’ll be highlighting throughout the season.
HBO
Right out of the gate, we have the woman in charge of cremating Julia Navarro—a somber duty that nevertheless seems to require some funk.
HBO
Could there be a clearer representation of Pete’s attempt and failure to hold on to the last shreds of his innocence than his decision to rock his old high school hockey sweater as Kayla is kicking him out of their home?
HBO
Leah doubles down on her activism against Silver Sky Mining, culminating in her arrest. “Coop! Book me, will you?” Has a teen ever said anything more metal?
HBO
It’s about time that we got a refresh of “heroin chic.”
This week’s episode of True Detective: Night Country opens with a clever bit of sound editing, as the signature white noise of HBO’s logo blends seamlessly in with Police Chief Liz Danvers’ (Jodie Foster) white noise machine, at her bedside, failing to relax her. She can’t stop obsessing over the video she and Navarro (Kali Reis) found of Anne Kowtok’s last moments, looking for more clues. It’s Christmas Eve, and Anne’s cries for help are about to be joined by a chorus.
“Part 4” of Night Country is the season’s most haunted hour, the ghosts in the periphery of the show taking center stage, even as its protagonists continue to deny them. The emotional crux of the episode rests on Navarro’s sister Julia (Aka Niviâna), whom Danvers finds wandering in the snow without a coat, shivering through some kind of episode. Navarro checks Julia into a facility for extended care, but it’s already too late: She sees the dead everywhere. And so she walks out onto the ice and joins them.
Night Country’s protagonists have been speeding toward the brick wall of their own denial, and Julia’s death is the collision. The injustices and tragedies that haunt Ennis and intersect with each other are boiling over, and neither Navarro nor Danvers can ignore them much longer.
That doesn’t mean they don’t try: Navarro, grieving, starts a fight and gets her ass kicked. Danvers, who has been slowly revealed to be a woman broken down and shoddily rebuilt like a work of jagged kintsugi, becomes so hostile and toxic that she can’t hit up her fuckbuddy Captain Connelly (Christopher Eccleston) for a drunken hookup without browbeating him, and ends up spending the holiday wasted and alone. This would be a quiet, sad episode if it weren’t for the growing choir of the dead.
Photo: Michele K. Short/HBO
The thin membrane between the living and dead in Ennis is one of Night Country’s richest thematic veins, and showrunner Issa López never turns down an opportunity to remind us of it. Sometimes it is in casual juxtaposition, staging mundane conversations in front of a horrific “corpsicle”. Other times it’s in the ways the planet’s history is engraved on its surface too deeply for us to scrub out, like the ancient whale bones frozen in the background of the ice cavern where Anne Kowtok died. And finally, it is in the angry shades of dead women who scream in Navarro’s ear.
We’re past Night Country’s midpoint, and the assorted hauntings of “Part 4” form a ghostly mosaic of the show’s many concerns about our past, and how we work hard to ignore it. The eerie secrets locked away in ice, Navarro’s distance from her Indigenous culture, the toxic entitlement of men that causes women’s opportunities to curdle — if it doesn’t snuff them out outright. History can suffocate us if we pay it no mind. We can forget the dead but the dead may not forget us.
Danvers has her own haunting to contend with, a monstrous one-eyed polar bear that causes her to drive into a snowbank — a bear that Night Country suggests is not real. It’s another haunting, the shape of Danvers’ lost son Holden’s favorite stuffed animal. It’s one of the few things of his she keeps around, one of the only signs that she’s never stopped grieving, never did the work of moving on.
“The dead are gone,” she insists to Navarro. “Fucking gone.”
Navarro says that if Danvers believed that, she wouldn’t keep that stuffed bear. And perhaps, the viewer can infer, she wouldn’t throw herself into this job, seeking justice for Anne Kowtok, working her way through the spirals hidden across Ennis, staring at horrors others look away from. The ghosts surrounding Ennis will not be ignored. The white noise isn’t tuning them out anymore.
After four years away, True Detective returns for a new season with a sinistrous subtitle. We’re in Night Country now, and we’ll be following along each week to try to piece together, with the help of police chief Liz Danvers and detective Evangeline Navarro, who perpetrated those gruesome crimes in Ennis, Alaska. Read along for a breakdown of Episode 4.
Who Done It?
If endless darkness in the Arctic Circle didn’t sound isolating enough, try spending that time alone on Christmas. Episode 4 of True Detective: Night Country sees pretty much every resident of Ennis spending the holiday solo or reckoning with some form of personal turmoil—but it wouldn’t be True Detective without festering psychological trauma and existential dread, would it? But hey, it’s still Christmas—sit down, relax, and let your favorite Warner Bros. Discovery crime drama promote your favorite Warner Bros. Discovery Christmas movie.
Screenshots via HBO
Episode 4 presents some significant progress in the Tsalal murder case. Last episode, Liz Danvers and Co. discovered a chilling video of Annie Kowtok that she took of herself just before her death. It shows Annie in an ice cave with unidentified bones embedded in the wall, which leads the crew to deduce that Annie’s body was moved from that location into town to make some sort of statement to the locals.
Meanwhile, when tasked with tracking down anyone who had suffered similar injuries to the Tsalal scientists, Pete discovers the record of Otis Heiss, a seemingly crucial piece of the Night Country puzzle. After surviving the injuries—which included burned corneas and self-inflicted bites, with no reported cause—Heiss went off the grid. (He’s traceable only through his police record of disorderly conduct.) When Danvers and Evangeline Navarro seek out Ennis High School teacher Adam Bryce for assistance in locating the cave Annie was likely killed in, he suggests tracking down whoever mapped out the dangerous tunnels. A quick Google search reveals none other than Heiss as the man responsible.
This episode also has no shortage of flirtations with the spirit realm—which probably shouldn’t even be described as flirtations anymore. We just flat out saw multiple Conjuring-ass ghosts. Night Country has been very clear about the possibility of the supernatural at play; True Detective Season 1 never went far beyond merely hinting at it. I still don’t believe the killer will end up being a wholly supernatural force, but visions of the dead have been shown so frequently and assuredly by multiple characters that the existence of the paranormal doesn’t seem to be just speculation at this point.
Heartbreakingly, these visions lead to the death of Julia, Eve’s tormented sister whose persistent encounters with the dead drove her to walk into the freezing ocean. In Episode 3, we discovered that Eve and Julia’s mother was also driven mad by hearing voices, and she eventually left home and was murdered by someone who was never found. With her sister now gone too, Eve fears she’s next in line to be targeted by these specters, though it wouldn’t be her first brush with the supernatural. Episode 3 showed us that Danvers and Navarro’s last case involved a man named William Wheeler who abused and killed his girlfriend—it’s suggested that either Danvers or Navarro killed him upon arriving at the crime scene and covered it up by falsely reporting his death as a suicide. Episode 4 reveals that Navarro saw the dead girlfriend’s ghost in the room before one of the cops likely pulled the trigger on Wheeler.
The episode culminates with the spotting of a man wearing Annie’s pink jacket—the same one Raymond Clark was seen wearing in a Tsalal video—near the town dredges. Navarro and Danvers go to scope it out and basically find themselves in a game of Silent Hill. They quickly locate the mysterious figure, and Danvers chases him up the ladders of a dredge, only to discover the man is actually Heiss rather than Clark. So where is Clark? “He went back down to hide,” Heiss says. “He’s hiding in the night country. We’re all in the night country now.” Hey, that’s the name of the show! As Danvers races after Heiss, Navarro starts hearing voices calling her name and follows a trail of footsteps to an ominous Christmas tree. There, she stumbles upon an apparition resembling Julia—Eve’s haunted by another woman she couldn’t save. Danvers comes down to find Eve in a catatonic state with blood dripping from her ear (akin to the ruptured eardrums the scientists suffered, perhaps?) after the encounter.
Oh yeah, this episode also treated us to more oranges and one-eyed polar bears, plus Billie Eilish songs. Are we any closer to solving the Tsalal mystery? Let’s round up the suspects.
1. Raymond Clark
The Nikola Jokic of murder suspects, our boy Raymond remains atop the list. His whereabouts are still unknown (unless “hiding in the night country” counts as a location), but that Danvers found Heiss in the state he was in, in the same Annie jacket that was last seen on Clark, indicates that something went down there. Speaking of “down there,” what exactly did Heiss mean by saying Clark “went down” to hide? Last week in this column, my colleague Ben Lindbergh introduced the Inuit goddess of the sea and ruler of the Adlivun underworld, Sedna, as a potential suspect. It doesn’t get much more “down” than the underworld, and “night country” seems like an apt description of a frozen wasteland where souls are imprisoned. Could Clark be posing as, or possessed by, Sedna?
Clark has been built up to be such a prime suspect over the course of these four episodes that it seems almost too obvious for him to be the sole perpetrator. But the mounting evidence shows he is clearly involved in the murders somehow. That he’s been missing for so long also seems to be foreshadowing a big showdown for when Danvers and Navarro do eventually track him down.
2. Oliver Tagaq
Even though Tagaq wasn’t seen in this episode, he was still key in an important scene. As Danvers obsessively rewatches the Annie Kowtok video, she notices that it ends with the lights getting cut in the same way they do at the end of the Raymond Clark Tsalal video. Danvers surmises that there was some sort of power outage at the end of both videos, but Annie’s video was evidently taken in an ice cave—how could there have been power in there in the first place? Danvers remembers that Tagaq was an equipment engineer at Tsalal and would likely have access to the lab’s emergency generators. She sends Eve and Pete back to Tagaq’s place to investigate and, what do you know, he’s vanished. Tagaq left right after Danvers and Navarro confronted him in the previous episode, according to the others at his camp. Eve and Pete find a spiral symbol drawn on the ground and carved into a stone, and when they ask Oliver’s former neighbors if they know what the symbol is, they don’t answer—their dogs start barking, and they kind of just … stare menacingly.
My hunch is that Tagaq is a red herring who’s just very distrusting of authority. (Understandably so, after how the Indigenous population has been treated.) But he obviously knows something, and his connection to the spirals can’t be meaningless.
3. Kate McKittrick
Even if Kate didn’t actually murder the Tsalal scientists with her own two hands, she’s still evil as hell and guilty of something. Actually, we already know she’s complicit in polluting Ennis’s water supply as an executive of the Silver Sky mining company, which Annie had been protesting against before her death. Plus, we know Kate is close with Hank from their interaction at the ice rink in Episode 2, and he’s the one who hid Annie’s case files and failed to report some key evidence in her investigation.
In Episode 4, we see a brief scene with Kate after Danvers’s daughter, Leah, was caught vandalizing the mining offices, spray-painting the word “MURDERERS” across the front door (badass!). If Leah becomes a target next, that would further heighten my suspicion that Kate is involved somehow, but even if not, Kate seems very unhappy with the reputation of her company. Unhappy enough to commit murder? I’m not sure. She does have a potential motive for killing Annie, but theorizing why she would kill the Tsalal scientists is just conjecture—maybe they discovered something in their research that would be detrimental to Silver Sky if made public? And since Night Country takes so much inspiration from Season 1, Kate could ultimately serve as a Billy Lee Tuttle figure in a web of corruption.
4. Sedna
Not to copy Ben’s homework from last week, but the supernatural is still a huge possibility in unlocking the Tsalal mystery, and Sedna is still the best explanation. And Heiss’s description of Clark’s location wasn’t the only clue we got in this episode that could lead to Sedna.
Listen to the way Eve describes her family’s relationship with spirits to Danvers: “It’s a curse,” she says. “Something calls us, and we follow.” It’s been said that Sedna can imprison the souls of the living, and Julia’s death was due to walking into the ocean, which happens to be Sedna’s domain. As Julia marched in, it did seem as though she was being led somewhere—could it have been Sedna calling to her?
The prevalence of these visions makes it seem like the paranormal will play a part in solving this mystery in a way that it didn’t in past seasons of True Detective. I still believe a human will ultimately be found responsible for the murders, but there were simply too many ghosts in this episode to ignore.
5. Hank Prior
I almost feel bad including Prior here because my guy had a horrendous outing in Episode 4. He was supposed to finally meet his Russian fiancée, Alina, at the airport, but, alas, she never showed. Well, he might have seen her briefly get off the plane, make eye contact with him, and get right back on, which is an
extreme case of getting curved. But in all likelihood, Alina is probably just some dude with an internet connection catfishing Prior into sending him money. Still, Prior does a terrible job of pretending to brush off the whole situation to his son, saying that Alina’s cell service is probably just out (a classic rationale for victims of ghosting). As we see Prior sulk in front of a bottle of champagne and a rose-petal-adorned bedspread intended for a romantic night with Alina, we know he’s pretty heartbroken.
But that we get such a sympathetic portrayal of Hank in this episode doesn’t necessarily absolve him of culpability in the murders. He obviously tried to cover something up with Annie’s case, and he’s overall been a pretty big asshole to Danvers, Navarro, and his own son. But the Alina situation shows how naive Hank is, and that probably makes him a pretty terrible cop. With the Annie case, it seems possible that Hank is doing the bidding for some powerful person—maybe Kate?—while being kind of oblivious, or even willfully ignorant, about the severity of these cases. Which, again … really shoddy stuff for a cop to do. But it probably means he’s not the one committing the murders himself.
6. Captain Connelly
Let me cook for a second. The thing that raised my eyebrows this week was the way Captain Connelly responded when Danvers asked if he’d seen the Annie Kowtok video she’d sent him: a short nod and then, “You keep that on a need-to-know basis.” Yes, he’s a police captain who probably doesn’t want evidence leaking to the public, but it just struck me as a bizarre reaction to the uncovering of a crucial and traumatic clue in a years-old murder case. Plus, he’s been trying to wrangle control of the Tsalal case ever since it opened.
Danvers has made a lot of comments about how Connelly wants to look good for his future mayoral campaign (which Connelly himself has never really responded to), and that might be true—and that could certainly include ensuring that any skeletons in his closet never come out. Prior is, in all probability, compromised by his connections to Silver Sky one way or another, so why couldn’t Connelly be too? True Detective Season 1’s Errol Childress murders had connections all the way up to the Louisiana governor. A powerful and ambitious man like Connelly could easily get his hands dirty, too.
Galaxy-Brained Theory of the Week
Now let me really cook for a second. There have been multiple visions of a of one-eyed polar bear throughout Night Country so far (which have been presented in a sort of dreamlike manner but could be a real sighting in an Alaskan town). Both Navarro and Danvers have experienced these visions in the same way: by almost crashing into the bear in Episodes 1 and 4, respectively. A plush one-eyed polar bear that once belonged to Danvers’s son, Holden, has been a recurring image as well. It almost reminds me of another polar bear sighting …
Look, I realize it’s probably a different experience running into a polar bear in the Alaskan tundra than it is on a deserted island. But the polar bear sightings on Lost, surprisingly enough, actually had an explanation: They were brought to the island by the DHARMA Initiative for studies in electromagnetic research. So those polar bears had to come from somewhere. Who’s to say that the DHARMA Initiative never had a study-abroad program at the Tsalal research station specializing in polar bear recruitment? I don’t know, man, I’ll just take any opportunity I can to bring up Lost again. What a program.
Vikram’s Alaska Corner
True Detective: Night Country takes place in the cold fringes of the Last Frontier, otherwise known as Alaska. (Never mind that the season was filmed in Iceland.) The Ringer’s own Vikram Patel is a former resident of the state who still spends his winters there. Each week, we’ll pose a question to Vikram about his second home as we look to learn more about the local geography and culture.
Julianna: I have to be honest with you, Vikram—I’m four episodes into True Detective: Night Country and my California mind is still unable to comprehend just how cold Alaska is. I’ve lived in the Golden State my entire life and am currently typing this from Los Angeles, where it’s a lovely 73 degrees in January, and I still saw jackets and beanies outside. I could count the number of times I’ve seen snow in my life on one hand, and at least a couple of those times I’ve foolishly worn jeans and sneakers that quickly got sopping wet.
So my question is: How do you adapt to extreme cold? Do you ever get used to it? What are the wardrobe essentials for an Alaskan winter? Is an Andy Reid frozen mustache a common sighting? I realize that was multiple questions, but this is truly a world that boggles my mind.
Vikram: Like you, Julianna, I am from California. When I first moved to Alaska, I hadn’t had much exposure to cold weather, and it showed. The first winter I spent in Anchorage, my “coat” was a thin corduroy jacket, and I mostly wore a lot of sweatshirts and jeans. As many locals warned me, cotton kills. But I was too stubborn to buy myself a puffy jacket or the stretchy technical clothing that my friends wore to exercise in the cold. I was neither warm nor fashionable.
Fortunately, despite my inadequate wardrobe, my body did adjust. Exposure to cold weather activates something in our bodies called “brown fat,” which helps keep our bodies warmer, a sort of internal layer of long underwear. I noticed this effect most when I would visit my family in Los Angeles during the winter; they wore sweaters and jackets all day, while I could wear shorts and T-shirts without a shiver. It felt like a superpower.
But there’s a limit to what our bodies can withstand.
The coldest temperature I have ever been in is negative 35 degrees Fahrenheit, near Fairbanks, Alaska. It was a whole different kind of cold than I had grown accustomed to in Anchorage, where the temperature rarely drops below zero. The layer of ice covering the road in Fairbanks was a few inches thick but not as slippery as warmer ice (the thin layer of melting water on the surface of the ice is what makes your car slide around on the road). Taking a deep breath at negative 35 is an adventure—air that cold tends to cause an instant coughing fit. We visited some hot springs on that trip; I remember dunking my head in the water, coming up for air, and feeling my hair freeze in seconds. Extreme cold can be delightful.
But does Ennis get that cold? It’s hard to say—there isn’t a weather almanac to consult for fictional Alaskan villages. But we can make an educated guess. Night Country creator Issa López described Ennis as a “fictionalized amalgam of northern villages Kotzebue, Utqiagvik, and Nome.” These villages are further north than Fairbanks, but they are located on the water, which can help keep temperatures relatively mild—the brown fat of meteorology.
Stuck in weather-estimating hell, I reached out to Brian Brettschneider, Alaska’s leading climatologist. Brian told me that Ennis is likely “not as cold as Fairbanks, but notably colder than Anchorage. Nome, Kotzebue, and Utqiagvik are also quite windy places and are in the tundra,” where, he reminded me, trees cannot grow. Brian also sent me this handy dynamic temperature map. By my estimation, Ennis likely sees temps as low as negative 15 or negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit in the depths of winter. In a word: brrrrr!
If you are planning to visit a northern Alaska community next winter, here are some items you will want to bring along, courtesy of my Real Alaskan Advisory Committee (Tara, Emily, Zach, and Barry):
A wool hat that covers your ears
A thick neck gaiter that you can pull up to protect your face
Heavyweight thermal underwear—this is your second skin
Mittens (not gloves!), preferably with a long gauntlet—covering your wrist and lower forearm—to keep the warmth in and the snow out
A down parka, ideally 600 fill or above, that goes down to at least your thighs and has a proper fur ruff (synthetics don’t cut it when snow is blowing sideways)
Wool socks
Bunny boots, which are cartoonish snow-white boots that keep your feet warm by trapping air and leaving room for thick socks—if you can’t find any, a pair of Bogs or Muck boots (cold-weather boots all seem to have exceptional names) will also do
Hand and foot warmers to tuck into your mittens and boots—get the foot warmers with adhesives, or you’ll end up with a crumpled mass far away from your toes
Julianna, now that you’re prepared, I hope you’ll decide to visit Alaska in the winter sometime. I can’t guarantee you’ll see anything supernatural, but a snowy, dark Alaskan winter is magical all the same. The juice is worth the squeeze, even if it’s a little bit frozen.
Iconic True Detective Looks of the Week
Underneath the true crime mysteries at the forefront of each season, True Detective is admirably devoted to capturing the aesthetics that define each of its many eras. With that comes some pretty incredible costume and makeup work, which we’ll be highlighting throughout the season.
Rose Aguineau’s little Christmas party (and dress!) looked lovely. She seems like a great hang. Other than the fact that she has to deal with, as she says, “all the fuckin’ dead.”
Bro put on his best turtleneck and brought along a well-dressed stuffed animal only to leave the airport alone thinking he got stood up on sight. It’s so sad it almost makes me forget he’s a terrible person.
You ever look so good you cause a stranger to spiral into an abyss of loneliness and heartbreak?
Jo and Rob return to break down the third episode of True Detective: Night Country. They discuss the vast use of teal and what it might symbolize, why the flashback sequences are so effective, and Danvers’s (at times misguided) maternal instincts. Along the way, they talk about Hank’s ongoing suspiciousness and Navarro opening up for the first time. Later, they highlight some of the show’s most significant unanswered questions.
Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Producer: Kai Grady
Chris and Andy break down the latest episode of True Detective: Night Country. They talk about how the lack of Easter-egging in this episode worked to its advantage (1:00) and the dynamic between Danvers and Navarro (24:07). Then they talk about the latest episode of Monsieur Spade and the show’s very dense plotline (35:55).
Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen
It seems relatively routine — some “hillbillies” scuffling in the waiting room of a hospital, calling Danvers (Jodie Foster) away from an interrogation. Navarro (Kali Reis), left behind to monitor the bedridden victim, pokes her head around the corner, craning to see the commotion. And then, behind her, the man in the hospital bed suddenly sits up.
The scene is spooky enough on its own, a casual startle like a bag rustling in Audition. But the sound design makes it even more hair-raising: first a gasp on the audio track; now the man’s voice is different, gravelly and growling. “Hello, Evangeline. Your mother says hello. She’s waiting for you.” Then he points, lies back, seizes, and codes out. True Detective is on some shit with this one.
This seems as strong a case for the supernatural hanging over the town of Ennis as any, in an episode littered with unreal details like this. Heck, even at the beginning of the interview, Navarro was on edge, after the victim muttered the spectral phrase she previously heard in her car: She’s awake. But episode 3 is also concerned with the practical matter at hand, the murder of Annie K., giving us our best glimpse yet at the woman and whatever happened to her. The hour spends a lot of time tracking Annie’s movements — an Ariana Grande sweatshirt marking the start of a relationship, blue hair dye leading to someone who knew about Annie and her secret scientist boyfriend, the impact she had as a midwife and the vacuum she left behind.
Ultimately, the best piece of evidence so far comes out of last week’s cliffhanger, Annie’s phone containing the chilling final video she recorded somewhere in the ice, the screams of which play the episode out. It’s stomach-turning (Prior can’t even bring himself to watch it again), and just as chilling as the moment between Navarro and the surviving scientist. Something about this mystery feels beyond our comprehension, and paranormal explanations are increasingly looking like the easiest reason why. But there again, episode 3 is careful to remind us that not all is as it seems: As Danvers recounts the case that drove her and Navarro apart, we get her voice-over laid on top of a memory of the pair raiding a home the last time they worked together. There’s a weariness to Foster’s voice here, on all sides. She seems tired of the dead man’s excuses, of her inability to help a 19-year-old girl out of an obviously bad situation, of her own limitations. And as she relays the story, everything went to hell there: An abusive asshole killed his 19-year-old girlfriend, “then he shot himself.”
Photo: Michele K. Short/HBO
Two different huts, two very different interrogations for Navarro (Kali Reis) in True Detective: Night Country episode 3.Photo: Michele K. Short/HBO
Only that’s not what we see; right after that line from Danvers, the man in the flashback turns, with a ghoulish look on his face, and begins whistling. It makes sense that Prior isn’t getting the full story from Danvers, and in the same way, that the audience isn’t getting all the gory details from Night Country (yet — hopefully). We can’t make sense yet of Annie K.’s murder, or what that damned orange is doing on the ice (and again in the opening credits, peeled and spiraling out as “Bury a Friend” plays over flashes of important scene-setting). One sympathizes with Navarro trying to cut through Danvers’ Socratic method — fuck your games — and still following up on the demand: Ask the question.
In this way, True Detective: Night Country is making a strong case for itself as the best season yet, making the journey along the way feel just as important as who killed Annie, or whether Navarro really saw a man get possessed. When the show tells us to look one way over another, it feels worth it, even when it might seem like a distraction from the matter — whatever matter — is at hand.
At the end of each Night Country credits sequence, there’s a new image. In episode 3, it’s a small fishing hut, isolated and lonely on the ice. What happens there is a breakthrough for the case, sure — Navarro finds the location of a former Tsalal researcher — but it’s more a personal breakthrough for Navarro, recounting some of her life story for one of the few people she trusts, who breaks a small smile when she huffs back into the hut to fulfill his ask. The conversation she has there goes beyond merely the case, and Night Country is smart to linger there. True Detective isn’t telling us everything, but that doesn’t mean it’s telling us nothing.
The central mystery in True Detective: Night Country seems easy when the credits roll on episode 1. It’s not that viewers already have the answer, but it at least feels like we can see all the puzzle pieces in front of us. That is, until episode 2. The second, even better episode of Night Country deepens the season’s central mystery with clever world-building and the most disgusting and disturbing ice sculpture on television.
If True Detective: Night Country is about anything so far, it’s about Ennis. More than a little town in Alaska with the nighttime that lasts days, Ennis is a place that’s simultaneously peaceful and terrifying. Rose’s (Fiona Shaw) description of the town to Navarro (Kali Reis) seems close to perfect: a place where the universe comes apart at the seams. It’s a description that takes the strangeness of this world head-on but hints at the softer side of the town, too: The dead find their way back in Ennis (sometimes because they want you to join them). But Ennis is also the kind of town that feels careful and handmade; the seams are wearing like a well-loved toy, not tearing like cheap stitching from a factory.
It’s a beautiful and layered description, but it’s also one that clues us in to what the show is doing. Things here are supernatural, sure; something’s clearly afoot. But that doesn’t mean that zombies roam Ennis or that a quick seance will clear this whole mess up. The dead in Ennis are like the ice: It’s always there, but sometimes it shifts a little, so you’ll notice it. And neither one is giving up its secrets easily.
Episode 2 opens by unveiling the season’s central mystery: a frozen pile of the corpses of the Tsalal scientists, an introduction that comes with some pitch-black comedy involving a grisly hand-breaking that you have to laugh at just to break the tension. True Detective has a grand history of gruesome crime scenes that are gorgeous in their own dark-hearted way, but this is easily the series’ masterpiece so far. The frozen corpsicle is as grotesque as it is beautiful. It’s disfigured and horrible, each body with its own bizarre self-inflicted wounds, equally inexplicable and begging for some detailed reveal that might show us how any of this could have happened. The whole thing, sitting in the middle of an ice rink, a triumph of set dressing and design, looks like it could contain an infinite number of secrets and details, if only you had the misfortune to look at it for too long.
Photo: Michele K. Short/HBO
One of the show’s most brilliant and subtle strokes, though, is one that comes outside of the newly forever-cursed ice rink when Danvers (Jodie Foster) interrupts a classroom to ask her former booty call what exactly it is that Tsalal does. For the deaths of these scientists to merit something as extreme and seemingly otherworldly as their frozen remains would indicate, it seems perfect that their investigation was into something as utopian as the description Danvers gets. A cure-all, hidden away under millions of years of ice. A perfectly solvable puzzle, if only the ice would reveal its mysteries. The explanation makes perfect sense to Danvers; it’s her new burden too, after all.
And fittingly, she too turns to science to sort out her frozen puzzle. She and Pete (Finn Bennett) trot out all the classics that scientists have used for the Dyatlov Pass incident: paradoxical undressing, wild animals, some kind of invisible but natural force like gas or radiation. Not a single one sticks.
But the show’s too smart to let not having an answer defeat Danvers. She’s stubborn enough to stick to the case, and fight for it, but she’s not too stubborn to admit she needs Navarro’s help to figure it out. And with mysterious tattoos of spirals older than the ice, and a trailer full of creepy dolls, the show finally lets its two main detectives team up.
Technically, True Detective: Night Country’s second episode is mostly just table setting, getting our detectives together, laying out the facts and their complications, the oddities and their halfhearted explanations. But the show plays all this setup like Ennis finally boiling over. It’s a town at the edge of both the spiritual and physical worlds, and now it’s breaking open, little by little, under the weight of poison water and mine protests. And True Detective: Night Country is clearly eager to show us the secrets under the fragile ice of Ennis.
Chris and Andy discuss the second episode of True Detective: Night Country. They talk about some of the callbacks to True Detective Season 1 in this episode (1:00), the horror and paranormal elements that are becoming more prominent this season so far (17:49), and the way the environment plays a role in the plot (26:12).
Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen
Chris and Andy talk about the first episode of True Detective: Night Country. They discuss how it differs from the past True Detective iterations (1:00) and how the setting’s constant nighttime affects the story (24:56). Then Chris is joined by creator Issa López to talk about how she came up with the idea for the show and working with Jodie Foster (35:37).
Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Issa López Producer: Kaya McMullen
True Detective is the rare show that was much more exciting and complicated after seven episodes than it is after three seasons. What started out as a brooding series about detectives looking into the dark heart of senseless, seemingly occult killings eventually transformed into a detective show mostly about men being sad. What is remarkable about the show’s newest season, True Detective: Night Country, is that in just one episode, new showrunner Issa López has managed to bring back the creeping, supernatural horror vibe that gave the first season so much promise.
The new season is set in the small town of Ennis, Alaska, and this first episode is mostly concerned with setting up the peculiarities of the town and the bones of this season’s mystery, along with getting to know our latest true detectives, of course. The show’s opening, and its central mystery, is classic cold-weather horror: A group of researchers in a secluded winter base suddenly disappear, only to be found far from their base, frozen deep in the ice.
Where the first season of the show hinted at the supernatural and the ways it sometimes may (or may not) peek through into our world, Night Country leaves no room for doubt. By the end of this episode, more than one character has had visions, and the condition the scientists are found in seems impossible to imagine happening naturally. But the true underline that makes the supernatural elements of the story undeniable is that local weirdo Rose (Fiona Shaw) is the one who finds the frozen scientists for the police, and the only reason she knew where to look is because some long-dead friend showed her the way.
López doesn’t let the supernatural overwhelm the rest of the world in Night Country’s first episode, but she’s unambiguous about its existence. This feels like a pointed response to the True Detective stories that have come before. Not combative, per se, but direct. While the previous seasons, particularly the first, led its characters from the natural and explainable world of crime toward something more supernatural, Night Country’s mystery is starting at unexplainable and working its way back.
Photo: Michele K. Short/HBO
But for all the ways that López seems to be responding to True Detective’s past in the first episode of her season, she makes her love for the series clear, too. When it comes to the cops looking into this case, López revels in characterizing them as every bit the same kind of broken bastards that original series creator Nic Pizzolatto placed at the center of his three seasons writing the show. Leading the investigation in Night Country is Liz Danvers (played marvelously by Jodie Foster), a brilliant cop with a mile-long record of pushing people away by being an absolute asshole. Then there’s Liz’s old partner Evangeline Navarro (boxer turned actor Kali Reis), a self-destructive hothead who let one case get stuck in her craw and consume her whole career.
The two cops don’t share the same dynamic as Matthew McConaughey’s Rust Cohle and Woody Harrelson’s Marty Hart, exactly, but it’s clear that López was after the same crackle the two had between them, and through just one episode she’s already seemed to nail it. The two only share brief scenes in episode 1, but the chemistry they have is instant and the bickering is pitch-perfect for cluing us in to the fact that they’re sure to work together again eventually.
Through just one episode, True Detective: Night Country feels like what True Detective was always supposed to be. Impossibly, it captures the vibes of the series’ best episodes better than anything in the second or third seasons ever achieved. López feels at war with the series’ history, not because she hates it, but because she loves it enough to want its best version. What Issa López wants is the twisty, supernatural, pitch-black mystery show that had the internet in an eight-week chokehold in 2014. And so far, she’s off to a great start.
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