Warning! Contains major spoilers for True Detective season 4.

Summary

• True Detective season 4 introduces a captivating mystery surrounding the disappearance of researchers in an Alaskan facility, adding a unique identity to the franchise with its snow-clad setting and the interplay of conservative fantasy and true crime realism.
• The primary suspect in the researchers' murder is Raymond Clark, who exhibits suspicious behavior and also had a romantic relationship with Annie.
• The researchers' deaths were not just a hate crime, but were driven by revenge. Their deaths are connected to Annie's murder and indicate the involvement of powerful individuals or an evil cover-up related to their groundbreaking research.

True Detective season 4 waits until its finale to disclose what happened to the Tsalal researchers but drops several clues throughout its runtime to foreshadow the final reveal. Like the previous installments of the True Detective series, season 4 also harps on the hardened cop trope by introducing Jodie Foster's Danvers and Kali Reis' Navarro as two commanding law enforcers. However, what allows it to etch its own identity in the franchise is its snow-clad Alaskan setting and the intriguing interplay of conservative fantasy and true crime realism in its overarching storyline.

Unlike True Detective season 1, season 4 does not go back and forth between timelines and primarily follows a linear narrative. However, similar to season 1, it sets the stage for its crime drama by introducing a gripping mystery in its opening arc itself. The mystery revolves around the sudden disappearance of a group of researchers, strangely found frozen in snow toward the end of its first episode. As it gradually unravels the tapestry surrounding their deaths with each new episode, it becomes evident that there are several intriguing layers to the central mystery.

The Researchers Were Killed By The Tsalal Station's Cleaning Women As Revenge For Annie's Death

The cleaning women discovered what the researchers did to Annie

In True Detective: Night Country's finale, Raymond Clark claims that Annie attacked the researchers. However, when Danvers asks him if he saw what happened to them, he reveals that he did not because he hid under the hatch that connected the Tsalal research facility to the underground ice cave. Raymond's story of the day of the murders also reveals that someone was trying to budge the hatch open, but he held on to the hatch's handle and kept it shut. This makes Danvers realize that they might find evidence of who was trying to open the hatch on the hatch door.

Once she and Navarro recover the handprints on the hatch door, they notice that one handprint does not have does not have two fingers. This helps them realize that one of the women from the crab company, Blaire, who does not have two fingers, was at the Tsalal research facility on the night of the researchers' deaths. This explains why Blaire overheard Navarro's conversations with Eddie about the Night Country in episode 5 and why Bee, another woman who works at the crab factory, acted strange when Navarro asked her about the spiral.

Instead of approaching law enforcement, they took justice in their own hands and killed the researchers because they could not trust the police.

When Navarro and Danvers visit Bee and the other women who previously worked as cleaners at Tsalal, Bee cautiously tells them what happened on the night of the researchers' deaths by disguising it as a "story." While she is at it, True Detective: Night Country's finale features a flashback that reveals that the women showed up at the facility with weapons and loaded all the researchers, except Raymond, in a container. Then they asked them to strip their clothes at gunpoint and forced them to run out in the cold.

Bee also adds that she first learned about Annie's murder when she accidentally tumbled a bucket over the underground hatch that led to the ice cave lab. When she went down to the lab, she discovered how the researchers and the Silver Sky mine were intentionally polluting Ennis' water. After investigating the lab, she and the other cleaning women deduced that the researchers killed Annie after she figured out what they were up to. However, instead of approaching law enforcement, they took justice into their own hands and killed the researchers because they could not trust the police.

How The Researchers' Deaths Were Covered Up By The Cleaning Ladies

The cleaning ladies took several provisions to ensure no one discovered their secret

In True Detective: Night Country's opening episodes, Bee and the other women from the crab company were seemingly trying to set up Raymond Clark as the perpetrator of the crime by telling law enforcers that he often acted strange when they worked there. Although they used weapons to confront and scare the researchers when they showed up at the lab to seek revenge, they did fire their guns at them. The likely reason why they avoided shooting the researchers was that they realized law enforcers would trace their bullets back to them if they used their guns to kill the researchers.

Therefore, they took the researchers out in the cold and made it look like their deaths were caused by natural events. They made them remove their clothes to ensure that they would die from hypothermia. While this does not explain how the researchers died before freezing, it shows that the local women meticulously planned the researchers' murders. They knew that the extreme weather conditions outside would help them cover their tracks and force forensic experts to conclude that the researchers were not murdered.

After sending out the researchers in the cold, the women might also have returned to the Tsalal facility to clean their footprints and fingerprints. However, they likely forgot about wiping off their prints from the hatch door, ultimately allowing Danvers and Navarro to figure out what they did. Bee also intentionally labels her recollection of events as a "story" to ensure that nothing she says is later held against her.

The Researchers Were Officially Killed By An Avalanche

Silver Sky prepared a plausible cover-up for their murders

The forensic report not only proves that the cleaning ladies did a good job at covering their tracks but also shows how the people at Silver Sky feared the investigation of the murders would expose them.

In True Detective: Night Country's episode 5, Danvers gets called to the Silver Sky mine, where Ted Connelly and Kate McKitterick ask her what she was doing at the mine's private property. When Danvers reveals that she visited the ice cave's entrance because some new leads suggested that Raymond Clark would be there, McKitterick assures her that she does not have to investigate the Tsalal case anymore. She claims that, according to forensics in Anchorage, the researchers were killed in an avalanche.

The forensic report not only proves that the women from the crab factory did a good job at covering their tracks but also shows how the people at Silver Sky feared the investigation of the murders would expose them. Kate McKitterick and the higher authorities at Silver Sky might have even bribed the people working in forensics at Anchorage to make them conclude that the Tsalal researchers died in an avalanche. Although Danvers initially protests when Ted and Kate ask her to step away from the Tsalal investigation, she later uses the forensic report's conclusion to protect the women who killed the researchers.

True Detective: Night Country's "Corpsicle" Explained

The researchers' corpsicle holds many clues to the overarching mystery

Before letting the researchers out in the cold, the women from the crab factory seem to have followed a ritual where they first force the researchers to remove their clothes. Then, before asking them to run into the storm, they make spirals on their foreheads. True Detective: Night Country does not explicitly explain what the spiral means, but it seems to have immense cultural significance for the local woman. The show avoids delving into how the researchers in the "corpsicle" ended up with ruptured eardrums and burnt corneas.

However, many early mythological references in the show's storyline suggest that it was Goddess Sedna's doing. After the researchers were let loose in the snowstorm, they encountered a supernatural force that terrified them to a degree where they lost both their senses and minds. Before dying from cardiac arrests, they started plucking their own eyes out and even bit themselves. Alternatively, a more realistic explanation for their injuries and their mental states before death would be that the delirium from hypothermia made them harm themselves.

How The Researchers' Deaths Are Connected To Annie's

The links between Annie and the researchers' murders explained

True Detective: Night Country's episodes 1 and 2 established only one link between the researchers and Annie: the dismembered tongue at the facility. Since Annie's tongue was chopped off after she was murdered, Danvers and Navarro could not help but speculate that the severed tongue in Tsalal belonged to Annie. DNA tests later confirmed that it, indeed, belonged to Annie, leading Danvers and Navarro to team up for the case. After tracing Raymond Clark's bank transactions, Danvers found a tattoo studio where Raymond got his spiral tattoo four days after Annie's death.

The tattoo artist at the studio even provided Danvers with a picture that revealed Raymond and Annie were in a relationship. After Navarro and Danvers tracked down a van where Raymond and Annie often spent time together, they found Annie's phone and several pictures of them together. Through one of the pictures, Danvers and Navarro traced a local hairdresser, Suzan, who disclosed that after Annie expressed interest in visiting the Tsalal lab, she took her there and introduced her to Raymond Clark.

The fact that it was Annie's idea to visit the Tsalal facility with Suzan suggests that she was suspicious about their involvement with the Silver Sky mine long before she had gathered concrete evidence to prove it. After dating Raymond Clark and winning his trust, Annie likely acquired more information about Tsalal's connections with Silver Sky through him. She then set out to find the ice caves to learn more about how the Tsalal researchers and the people of the Silver Sky mine were working together. Unfortunately, before she could expose them, she was murdered.

The Reseachers' Connection To Silver Sky & What They Were Really Doing

Both Tsalal and Silver Sky were together responsible for polluting Ennis

In True Detective: Night Country's episode 5, Peter discovers that the company, Tuttle United, which was indirectly funding Tsalal, was also the founding partner of the Silver Sky mine. With this newfound insight, Danvers theorizes that Tsalal was likely producing fake pollution reports for Silver Sky that understated how they were polluting Ennis' water. When Danvers and Navarro interrogate Raymond Clark in True Detective season 4's finale, he reveals that Silver Sky was intentionally releasing more pollutants in the water to soften the permafrost in Ennis.

The softening of the permafrost made it easier for the Tsalal researchers to study the origins of life and sequence the DNA of an extinct pre-historical whale through its fossils. Raymond Clark tries to justify their actions by claiming that their research could have cured many chronic diseases. However, the pollutants Silver Sky was releasing in the water were making the locals of Ennis sick and causing still births and cancer.

After finding the location of the ice cave where the Tsalal researchers were conducting their experiments, Annie was the first to discover what they were doing. However, before she could expose them, the researchers silenced her by killing her. In True Detective: Night Country's finale, Navarro makes Raymond confess what the Tsalal researchers were doing, and Danvers later anonymously leaks the video to expose both Silver Sky and Tsalal.

True Detective season 4 is available for streaming on HBO Max.