‘True Detective: Night Country,’ Episode 4: The Worst Christmas Ever

Of all the many terrible surprises this episode, Hank  (John Hawkes) getting stood up by his mail-order bride after sending her money was the least shocking. Despite still believing that Hank is somehow involved in the season’s murder plot, Murphy couldn’t help but feel bad for the officer, who waited on the tarmac with a teddy bear in hand, only to find that his would-be girlfriend was a no-show. “I did feel really bad for Hank with him getting ghosted,” said Murphy. “Everyone in this town’s getting ghosted in one way or another,” quipped Lawson. 

Hank is, of course, not the only denizen of Ennis to suffer a loss. After Danvers (Jodie Foster) discovers Navarro’s sister Julia (Aka Niviâna) in the middle of an episode, Navarro and Julia agree that it’s time for her to check into Ennis’s mental health facility, the Lighthouse. Although Julia checks in willingly, she quickly decides to leave, sneaking out, stripping naked, and walking into the icy ocean to her death. The loss of Julia is devastating, but not necessarily surprising given the way she was positioned in the series. “We didn’t see things going well for Julia, and unfortunately we were actually more correct than I thought we were gonna be,” said Lawson. Busis agreed, calling Julia “a Beth March ticking time bomb from the beginning… A sister that was having apocalyptic visions—you know she doesn’t get to episode six,” she added. “That’s not how it works.” 

While Navarro may have had the worst Christmas Eve of anyone in Ennis, Danvers didn’t have a particularly cheery one either. Her stepdaughter Leah (Isabella LaBlanc) has deserted her after their blowup last episode, and a lonely Danvers is hitting the bottle as well as the case. Her obsession with Annie K. and the scientists’ murders leads her to force Peter (Finn Bennett) to work despite the holiday, creating an even bigger rift between Peter and his wife Kayla (Anna Lambe). Still, Danvers isn’t completely alone on Christmas Eve—because, as Murphy points out, she “got zooted and drove on over to her other boyfriend’s house.” There, with Elf paused on the television, we learn how Danvers ended up in Ennis, Alaska: She was transferred there by Ted (Christopher Eccleston) after a tragic accident that led to the death of her son, Holden.

One person who seems to be having a not-terrible Christmas is Rose (Fiona Shaw), who has prepared a sumptuous feast seemingly for one when Navarro knocks on her door. “She had a cheese plate,” noted Lawson. “Presumably that’s before the entrées.” Rose is able to dispense both wisdom and care to a grieving Navarro, who is afraid that she’s beginning to experience her now deceased sister Julia’s apocalyptic visions. 

The episode ends with Navarro and Danvers searching for Raymond Clark, after discovering that Annie K.’s pink parka has been spotted in the town’s oil refractory. While Clark is nowhere to be found, they do find the pink parka on Otis Heiss, a scientist who suffered the same injuries as the Tsalal folks and apparently has been living in the oil refractory for years. “I do feel like as much as Otis’s arrival feels a bit convenient, I think that that is going to be the sort of the center thing around which a lot of things converge,” says Lawson. “We now have introduced the premise that is suggested by the show’s title, and we’re coming close to the place where Annie K. died—presumably the place where Clark currently still is.”