HBO’s True Detective: Night Country, season four of the award-winning anthology, began with the mind-blowing discovery that an entire research team just up and vanished, leaving food on counters and a DVD playing back at the Tsalal Arctic Research Station in Ennis, Alaska. Episode one introduced Academy Award-winner Jodie Foster as Ennis Police Chief Liz Danvers and Kali Reis as Alaska Trooper Evangeline Navarro, who will be – reluctantly – teaming up to figure out what happened to the researchers, a disappearance that Navarro believes is connected to the cold case of a local activist and midwife who was brutally murdered six years ago.
Episode two kicks off with Liz and Officer Peter Prior (Finn Bennett) examining the researchers’ frozen bodies, which were discovered outside of town at the end of the season premiere. Their bodies are frozen in grotesque positions and partially sticking out of the snow. It appears the victims are naked and have ruptured eardrums, and Peter believes one of them scratched their own eyes out.
Danvers finds a symbol on one of the victims’ heads. She originally planned to turn the case over to Anchorage to investigate because it’s too big for their small department, but she’s changed her mind and wants to keep it. Danvers reminds everyone at the crime scene to be professional and at least act like they know how to behave.
Navarro finds the victims’ clothing, including shoes, arranged neatly not far from the bodies.
As the police are carefully digging out the bodies, one suddenly starts to move and makes disturbing gurgling noises.
The surviving victim is placed in a medically-induced coma and will most likely have his leg amputated. Liz takes a call from a nurse and learns he can’t be questioned. A call from Peter informs her he’s figured out how to move the bodies without destroying any evidence.
Liz disrupts a high school class and sends the students home. The teacher, Bryce (a geologist), isn’t happy about the intrusion or happy to see her since they used to sleep together. Liz assures him she just wants to ask about the Tsalal research facility.
Bryce describes the researchers as madmen and very reclusive. Most research facilities switch out personnel, but not Tsalal. No one comes in, and no one goes out. Bryce knows they spent decades trying to sequence the DNA of an extinct microorganism that potentially could stop cellular decay. In layman’s terms, the work they were doing could cure cancer and autoimmune diseases and was basically a game changer. However, he doesn’t think what they were doing was ever going to work.
Navarro stops by Rose’s place and asks if she sees Travis often. (Travis is the dead man who showed Rose where the missing researchers were.) Travis committed suicide because he didn’t want leukemia to take him. Navarro found him dead, and that’s how she and Rose (Fiona Shaw) met. Rose is certain a lot of Ennis residents can see the dead.
“I think the world is getting old, and Ennis is where the fabric of all things is coming apart at the seams,” says Rose.
Rose believes some of the dead come because they miss people, and some have something to say. Others just want to take the living with them.
Evangeline opens up to Rose about her sister’s troubles. Her sister believes people are following her and that their dead mother is calling her. Rose tells her not to confuse seeing the dead and mental illness.
As they say goodbye, Rose asks Evangeline if she saw the symbol on the body. After Rose draws the symbol in the snow, Evangeline confirms she’s seen it before. Rose says it’s older than Ennis – and probably older than the ice.
Liz returns to the station where Captain Connelly (Christopher Eccleston) is talking to the officers. Connelly informs Liz this case is going to Anchorage and Liz protests. She wants the case and Connelly assumes that’s only because it’s her way of getting back at him for sending her to Ennis.
Liz reads him a rule from the Alaska Forensic Crime Detection Laboratory Manual. It clearly states frozen bodies are not to be moved until properly thawed. If they’re moved, the evidence obtained could be compromised.
Score one for Liz, as she’s staved off the removal of the case from Ennis for now.
Liz heads to the ice rink to see if they can keep the bodies there while they thaw out. Kate (Dervla Kirwan), who is apparently a bigwig at the mine that owns the rink, agrees to help even though it’s obvious she despises Liz.
It seems like the entire town fills the streets as the bodies are brought to the rink. After they’re delivered, Liz and Peter get a better look at the injuries and Pete thinks they bit their own hands. Liz suggests they dig into old autopsies for similar self-inflicted wounds in past cases.
Liz and Peter put faces to names (they have photos of each researcher from Tsalal), and thus far, Peter has counted five heads and nine feet. He wonders why they appear to be climbing on top of each other as if something was chasing them. Liz thinks hypothermia caused delirium.
Evangeline joins the frozen pile examination and notes that Kate might hate Liz more than she hates her. Liz confesses she slept with Kate’s husband while the couple were still married. Evangeline points out that the symbol on the surviving victim’s forehead was also tattooed on unsolved murder victim Annie K’s body. Evangeline thinks they should work together since it’s the same case. Liz refuses, and Evangeline insults her, claiming everyone hates her except Peter.
Peter has the brilliant idea to use the victims’ faces to unlock their phones.
Evangeline visits Annie’s brother, Ryan, to see if he recognizes Clark, the researcher who was photographed wearing Annie’s jacket. Unfortunately, Ryan’s never seen him. A miner catches a glimpse of the photo, and it’s evident he knows Clark. However, he denies it.
A fight breaks out and interrupts their conversation.
Back at the ice rink, Liz and Peter ask each other questions as they attempt to figure out what could have happened. (Liz likes to make Peter try and come up with the right questions as an investigative tool.) If there is, in fact, a killer, why would they fold the victims’ clothes in neat piles? They toss out ideas, including a polar bear attack, but nothing sticks. The symbol on a victim’s forward stumps them since they don’t know when it was drawn, what it means, or who drew it.
Peter nails one “right” question when he wonders how scared you have to be to run out into the freezing snow and ice without shoes or without being completely dressed.
Peter plays a video from researcher Facundo’s phone. In it, Clark can be seen in the background convulsing. When Facundo asks if he’s okay, Clark replies, “She’s awake.” The video then cuts off.
Evangeline goes to see Eddie Qavvik (Joel Montgrand), the owner of Qavvik’s Bar and her no-strings-attached sexual partner. Eddie reveals water in some parts of the town is undrinkable (and black) and the citizens are blaming the mine. Fights have been breaking out between townies and miners because of it.
There’s even talk of protests.
Liz interviews one of the cleaning crew (the same woman who hit the abusive guy in the head with a bucket in episode one) and learns she never saw Annie K at Tsalal. The woman also claims to have never seen the symbol before. The researchers never spoke to any of the cleaning ladies.
Another cleaning lady claims Clark was really strange, and she found him locked in his room, crying. The other researchers just ignored him.
Peter speaks with the delivery driver who discovered the tongue. He reveals that the last couple of times he went to Tsalal, Clark was talking to himself a lot and staring at nothing. The driver does confirm he’s seen the symbol and that Clark had it tattooed on his chest. He saw it while Clark was walking around naked and acting strange. The driver mentions he thought he saw someone when he first got to the research station, but he’s sure it was just one of the dead. Either that or he imagined it.
Evangeline heads out to see Chuck Moseley at the Silver Sky Mining barracks. On her drive there, she drops her phone, and when she reaches for it, she retrieves a necklace with a cross instead. Instantly, she flashes back to her mother wearing a necklace like it while going through a psychotic episode.
She snaps out of the memory when a truck honks at her. Evangeline swerves at the last minute and avoids a head-on collision. She throws the necklace out of the window.
Evangeline makes it to the mine barracks and speaks with Chuck, the miner who denied knowing the researcher even though it was obvious he did. Chuck claims Clark bought a trailer from his cousin seven years ago and paid $10,000 in cash.
Peter’s dad, Hank (John Hawkes), notices his files on Annie K are missing.
Liz and Peter fill each other in on the interviews they conducted. Peter also learned Tsalal was receiving funding from a shell company called NC Global Strategies which belongs to Tuttle United. Tuttle’s involved in a little bit of everything, including crude oil and cruise lines.
Liz retrieves her daughter, Leah (Isabella Star LaBlanc), from Peter’s house and sees that Kayla’s grandmother drew Kakiniit on Leah’s face. (Kayla is Peter’s wife.) Liz isn’t pleased and orders her to wash it off. In return, Kayla demands that Liz leave.
Evangeline tries to talk her sister into checking into The Lighthouse, a community center for people dealing with addictions. Her sister insists she doesn’t need to.
Later, Leah sneaks out while her mom’s working on their Christmas decorations. Liz finds the stuffed polar bear and has a flashback of herself with a child playing with the bear.
Peter’s at the ice rink defrosting the researchers when his dad slaps him across the face. Hank’s upset that Peter took Annie’s files without permission. He warns his son never to steal from him again. Hank also reminds him Liz isn’t his family and she doesn’t own him.
Liz visits Captain Ted Connelly at his hotel, and it’s revealed he’s another one of the men she has a sexual history with. (Liz seems to have a thing for married men and is quite the player.) After a quickie, Ted asks why she wants to keep this case. He admits he’s worried it’s going to turn into a disaster.
After her sexual liaison, Liz returns to the station and looks over Clark’s credit card statement that Peter managed to retrieve. It shows Clark paid a tattoo shop on April 22, 2017. Liz reaches the tattoo artist, and she recalls Clark got sentimental and cried when he got the tattoo. She forwards Liz a photo of Clark’s tattoo and a photo of the model he used for inspiration.
Liz is too stunned to respond to the tattoo artist.
It turns out the model for the tattoo was a photo of Clark and Annie embracing, shirtless. Liz immediately heads to Evangeline’s and shows her the photos. She also discloses that the DNA came back on the tongue found at the Tsalal facility. It is Annie’s. Liz confirms their cases definitely overlap.
Evangeline wants to talk about the past and mentions Wheeler, but Liz stops her. (Who is Wheeler?!)
Leah pays a surprise visit to Peter at the rink. They discuss Liz, and Leah recalls that her dad was a stoner, and he and Liz used to love dancing together. She thinks Liz also smoked weed, and they both laugh while trying to picture that.
Evangeline goes to see Qavvik since she’s in the mood for sex. She tells him that she and Liz are teaming up, but right now, she doesn’t have anything new to contribute to the investigation. Suddenly, she figures out Clark bought a trailer to keep his relationship with Annie a secret. And where do you keep a trailer that you don’t want anyone to know about? The Nook.
Evangeline is right and finds the trailer just where she expected it to be.
Liz is pouring over Clark’s notes when Evangeline calls with news of the discovery.
Liz joins Evangeline at the trailer, and they look around the place. There are animal bones on the table and knitted dolls hanging from nooses. They also find Annie K’s phone and a life-size doll fully dressed on a bed.
Episode two ends with Peter calling them to come to the rink. Once there, Peter points out that there are only six bodies in the frozen pile. Clark is missing and Evangeline believes he’s alive.
- True Detective: Night Country Episode 1 Recap
- True Detective: Night Country Episode 3 Recap
- True Detective: Night Country Episode 4 Recap
- True Detective: Night Country Episode 5 Recap
- True Detective: Night Country Episode 6 Finale Recap
