The following article contains spoilers for True Detective.
HBO’s True Detective season 1 was the mystery heard around the world. With its eerie philosophies and immersive storytelling, it seemed impossible that lightning would strike twice.
And in a way, it hasn’t. The season following Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson) and Rust Cohle’s (Matthew McConaughey) quest to uncover Carcosa was largely maligned. True Detective became an anthology series, with each subsequent season failing to recapture the magic of the first. In season 4, entitled True Detective: Night Country, Nic Pizzolatto has departed as showrunner, leaving the reins to Issa López, which has given the series a different flavor. But that doesn’t mean the show’s legacy and mythology have been completely forgotten.
What is True Detective: Night Country About?
In a setup that wouldn’t be out of place in a John Carpenter film, season 4 of True Detective has a chilly premise. In the town of Ennis, Alaska, the citizens hunker down in preparation for weeks of complete darkness. At the same time, Chief of Police, Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster), investigates a local research station when a group of scientists go missing.
Liz and her police force find the scientists frostbitten and frozen in the ice, posed in a ghoulish display. Meanwhile, state trooper, Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis), is obsessed with the death of an indigenous woman named Annie, which was never solved. As the story progresses, both Liz and Evangeline have to come to terms with the fact that their cases are related.
In True Detective fashion, this poses somewhat of a problem. The two officers happen to hate each other following their partnership on Annie’s case. They could not be more dissimilar. A middle-aged white woman in a position of authority, Liz seems to have nothing but contempt for Evangeline, often making disparaging comments about her heritage.
Evangeline, on the other hand, is young and hungry, unable to let go of how she failed Annie. They are spiritual successors of Marty and Rust, who had similar hangups before they banded together to find the missing kids in rural Louisiana. But this isn’t the only connection to the landmark season of True Detective. Season 4 has a more tangible connection to the highly-rated first season of the series.
How does season 4 connect to season 1?
At first, it seems any connections to True Detective season 1 are entirely coincidental. As an anthology series, there have been no connections before. While others of its ilk, such as American Horror Story, seem to pride themselves on connecting every plot into a grander scheme, True Detective was comfortable letting the stories lead themselves. But after Pizzolatto’s departure, things seemed to have changed.
Setting the season in Alaska is the first major connection. While season 1 takes place in a much warmer climate, Alaska is ingrained in the trauma of the series. Most notable in Rust’s backstory. While born in Texas, Rust spent most of his formative years in Alaska with his father. Mentioned only briefly by name, Rust’s father, Travis Cohle, could just be another example of Rust’s tragic backstory. Though he lived with his father for many years, the two never quite bonded. However, he knew enough that his father was diagnosed with leukemia, as he tells detectives Papania (Tory Kittles) and Gilbough (Michael Potts).
This idea comes full circle in the first few episodes of season 4. Interspersed with the central mystery are scenes of Rose Aguineau (Fiona Shaw), who seems to be having visions of a ghostly man on the ice. Several times she refers to the man as Travis, before telling Evangeline the whole story. The man is indeed Travis Cohle, with whom she had a relationship. After being diagnosed with leukemia, he walked out onto the ice to die rather than suffer from cancer. There is no doubt about it. The man that Rose is seeing is Rust’s father. To make matters even stranger, that is not the only connection to season 1.
Will we finally learn about Carcosa?
One of the biggest mysteries of season 1 was the meaning behind many of the literary references spoken by the main antagonist, Errol Childress (Glenn Fleshler). The killer often spoke of Carcosa and the Yellow King. And while there may be some mysteries never to be solved, True Detective: Night Country may be planning on lifting the veil just a little.
Symbols were also a large part of the freshman series, the most visible of which was the spiral. This symbol appeared all over the place in connection to the murders, and now it is rearing its ugly head in Ennis. Clark (Raymond McDonnell), the only scientist who remains missing, has this tattoo on his chest. It is the same one that Annie had on her back. Liz and Evangeline also encounter it after discovering that the two were lovers and shared a trailer for their rendez vous. The love nest in question seems to have sprung out of the mind of Rust Cohle on the hunt for the killer. Filled to the brim with disturbing imagery, the spiral is also drawn on the ceiling of the trailer.
Other connections seem more secondary, but just as important. In a throwaway line, Liz mentions that Tuttle funds the scientists’ research. The Tuttle family were the very same people who were abducting children for their strange cult in season 1. Most of these mysteries have yet to be solved, but there is no doubt that Night Country is heavily influenced by one of the greatest seasons of television.