This post contains spoilers for this week’s episode of True Detective: Night Country , now streaming on Max.
Midway through our penultimate installment, the combined investigation of Annie K’s murder and the death of the Tsalal scientists seems to grind to a halt. The forensics team in Anchorage attributes the Tsalal deaths to a “weather event.” And if Ted Connelly isn’t in the pocket of Silver Sky Mining, he’s at least political enough to decide that law-enforcement is not well-served angering big business just to solve the years-old murder of a single Native woman. He threatens Danvers with what he believes to have happened with Wheeler, and tells her to shut everything down.
That should be that, right? A wholly earthbound explanation for the frozen scientists, and pressure from a higher authority to leave it all alone. But Danvers knows that a weather event couldn’t explain everything that happened, both at Tsalal and out on the ice. And by this point, she and Navarro are so invested in the two cases — and so superhumanly stubborn — that there’s no way they’re letting this go. So instead of the plot grinding to a halt, the fifth episode instead starts bringing everything together, particularly where Silver Sky is concerned.