How Does Otis Weiss Fit Into the 'True Detective Night Country' Mystery?

By Dustin Rowles | TV | February 5, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | February 5, 2024 |

This week’s episode, the fourth of True Detective: Night Country, was all over the place, and not a particularly great hour of television. As compelling as some of the characters are, the mystery took a backseat this week to their mess. What a mess it is.

To wit: Liz Danvers has apparently slept with every other man in Ennis, although she continues to be on the outs with Captain Donnelly. Her stepdaughter wants nothing to do with her, despite Liz’s efforts to protect her from becoming the next Annie K. The one person who does seem to like her, Pete, is being overworked and kept away from his family, although it increasingly seems as though that’s the way he’d prefer it. His marriage appears to be of the shotgun variety, and as nice a kid as Pete is, he’s threatening to turn into his Dad. Speaking of which, Hanks was catfished by someone who likely took a lot of his money and left him with an empty bed made up of camouflage covers and rose petals, and yet eating alone while watching Elf may have been the happiest Christmas Eve of any of the episode’s major characters.

Navarro’s sister, Julia, took her own life this week because she could not escape the hallucinations that seem to be nagging at Navarro now (there’s a lot wrong with Ennis, but clearly not the response time of the Coast Guard, which pulled Julia’s body out of the ocean before the rehab facility she escaped from even noticed she was gone). It remains unclear how real these visions of ghosts that Navarro (and others) are, but all the ghosts sure do like to point their finger with horror-movie trope precision.

As for the clues? We know that Oliver Tagaq left his home soon after he was last visited by Danvers but left behind a rock with a spiral on it, which Navarro appears to have been left behind at the home of Qavvik, who is the genuinely kindest character in this show. It clearly makes him a suspect.

The major clues this week, however, came via Otis Weiss, a German we learn was admitted into the hospital in 1998 with symptoms mirroring those of Lund and the other scientists: Burns in both corneas, ruptured eardrums, and self-inflicted bite sounds. Weiss has been off the grid since 2006 and has had no known address since 2016, but he has been seen as recently as two months ago. He’s a junkie now.

What we learned about Heiss and the missing scientists also continues to align with the zombie virus theory. Quick refresher: In real-life Alaska, as the tundra melts, there is the threat of ancient viruses resurfacing and infecting people — the viruses can be found in prehistoric corpses, like the whale bones found in the ice caves that Otis Heiss mapped and that Annie K. died in.

The scientists in True Detective, while searching for “game-changing” microorganisms potentially capable of curing cancer, might have come across a virus that causes the symptoms that killed the scientists and nearly killed Weiss. In that case, the virus — and not the cold — would have killed the scientists, which explains why they were dead before they froze to death (and why Liz insists on repeating that clue). Moreover, the reason there may have been a generator in the ice caves is that the scientists were digging for prehistoric microorganisms. It also may be why the ice caves were closed — so that the scientists could have exclusive access to them. Oliver Tagaq, as the Tsalal equipment manager, would have been responsible for setting up the necessary equipment to operate within the ice caves, which may explain his involvement.

So, what’s the deal with the spirals? That’s unclear, but my colleague Tori Preston suggested the possibility that the virus itself is shaped like a spiral, which is why the image keeps showing up.

The new evidence is consistent with the theory as long as we continue to ignore the specter of the supernatural, which may ultimately unravel this season. There are only two episodes left, and because of the Super Bowl, next week’s will air on Friday night.