'True Detective: Night Country' Case Brief, Episode One: The Clues

By Dustin Rowles | | January 16, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | | January 16, 2024 |

Setting: December, after the last sunset of the year. Ennis, Alaska, near the Arctic Circle. December 17th.

Mystery #1: At the Tsal Arctic Research Station — which researches biology, geology, climate change, and the origin of life — all the scientists disappear after Raymond Clark starts shaking and says, “She’s awake.” The scientists are discovered missing three days later when a delivery guy shows up and finds no one in the station, only a tongue. They’re all men; they disappear as though they went for a leak and never returned. There is no sign of a struggle, only a message left on a dry erase board reading, “We are all dead.”

The men are found buried in the snow days later. At least one has the Carcosa spiral recognizable from True Detective season one drawn on his forehead.

Mystery #2: Anne Masu Kowtak was killed six years ago; her body was found “on the edge of the Villages.” She was stabbed 32 times with a sharp, unidentified object that left star-shaped wounds. Her tongue was missing and never recovered. She was a midwife and activist, and the brutality of her murder suggests that hatred was involved. The Carcosa spiral marking was found on her. It’s her tongue that is discovered at the TSAL station.

Major Characters

Evangeline Navarro (played by the captivating newcomer, boxer-turned-actor Kali Reis): Former detective who got demoted to trooper because of her obsession with the Anne Masu Kowtak case six years prior. She’s former military. She has an emotionally unstable sister, Jules, and a mom who was also clearly emotionally unwell. Evangeline started bugging the wrong people — Kate McKittrick — while investigating the Kowtak case and had to be removed by Liz Danvers from the case because she got into fights with mine workers. She doesn’t like it when men mistreat women.

Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster): She hates The Beatles. She’s a smart detective who notices the details. She has a stepdaughter, Leah (Isabella LaBlanc), and a deceased husband, who was Inuit. His death — and perhaps that of her kid, Holden — may be related to visions of the past Liz has, which may involve another drunk-driving incident.

Hank Prior (John Hawkes): He’s the sexist former chief who apparently gave way to Danvers around the time of the Kowtak murder. He’s a bad dad and engaged to a woman he presumably met on the Internet. He’s the former Chief, and he seems to be hiding something related to the Kowtak case.

Peter Prior (Finn Bennett): Son of Hank. Married to Kayla, has a kid, but to Kayla’s consternation, he’s more focused on his job as a cop than on his family. He’s also more loyal to his boss, Danvers, than to his dad.

Rose Aguineau (Fiona Shaw): Sees visions of a deceased Travis, who leads her to the bodies of the missing scientist buried in the snow.

Clues

— A number of strange occurrences around the time of the last sunset: The caribou jumping off a cliff. Dogs barking at nothing. The water “turned to shit” around the same time the scientists went missing.

— Stacy Chalmers, the drunk, has a kid who is not speaking to her anymore. Why?

— Hank seems to want to keep the Anne file away from Liz, perhaps suggesting he’s involved in a coverup involving Anne’s murder.

— Liz sees a one-eyed polar bear stuffie beneath her feet when she wakes; in the next scene, Evangeline sees a real one-eyed polar bear out on the road acting strangely while hearing the same thing that scientist Raymond Clark heard the day the scientists disappeared: “She’s awake.”

— There’s a parka that was worn by Anne that matches a parka worn by one Raymond Clark, only a smiley-face button is covering a rip.

— It’s worth noting that Travis is the same name as Rust Cohle’s father in the first season of True Detective. Rust’s father lived in Alaska. Is he the same person? Probably.

— The drawing Peter’s kid (Darwin) drew, inspired by a local legend he heard from his Inuit grandmother. In reality, there is an Inuit legend involving Sedna, the mistress of the sea who rules over the underworld. The Spongebob toothbrush could be a coy reference to that (He lives in a pineapple under the sea).

— The scientist at the beginning of the episode talking to his family on FaceTime? His family may have seen something.

— The quote before the episode is from Hildred Castaigne, a fictional writer related to The King In Yellow in the first season of True Detective.

— The Next On scenes show the familiar Carcosa spiral on one of the scientists’s heads.

— There is clearly a spiritual/supernatural component involved. In the Next On scenes, Rose Aguineau warns of a difference between mental illness and the spirit world, suggesting that the latter could be responsible for a number of the strange occurrences (including her being led to the bodies of the scientists by a dead man).

Theories — It’s too early for a fully formed one, but we are at least initially being led to believe that the scientists were involved in the murder of Anne and the miners and the police covered it up. It might make sense if the person responsible for the missing scientists killed them as revenge for the death of Anne, except how could this person also have Anne’s tongue unless he killed her, too? But why would the same person want to kill both Anne and the scientists? It also seems like Raymond Clark saw the ghost of Anne before he disappeared, or at least someone who looked like her.