True Detective: Night Country – Episode 4 explained

Warning: Major spoilers ahead

It’s December 24th, and Liz is on her way to the ice rink to supervise them packing up the bodies before transporting them to Anchorage. She’s frustrated to hear that Captain Connelly is already there, but is sidetracked when she spots Julia, Evangeline’s sister, half-dressed on the side of the road.

At the police station, Liz tells Evangeline to go be with her sister and leave her to handle the case. Captain Connelly plans to stick around for a while, so Liz updates him and tells him she’s treating it as a murder. Evangeline drops her sister to a facility, promising she’ll be back the next day so they can celebrate Christmas together.

Peter finds a potential lead upon discovering Otis Heiss, a German national, was admitted to the local hospital in 1998 with similar wounds to those found on the scientists’ bodies. Despite there being no trace of him on official records, he was picked up by a trooper two months ago, so Liz tells Peter to put out an APB so they can find him.

Evangeline and Liz learn that there are no ice caves like those seen in the cell phone video near where Annie’s body was found, which means she was killed before being left in town. Meanwhile, Hank arrives at the airport to pick up his fiancée - a woman he has met only on the internet and has sent a considerable amount of money to - who is due to be arriving, but she’s a no-show.

Evangeline and Liz go to Adam Bryce’s house to see if he’s able to give an insight into where the caves in Annie’s video might be located. He recognises prehistoric whale bones in the video and says there’s a whole cave region nearby – but that they’re a complete death trap. He suggests they track down whoever mapped the cave system, with a simple Google search revealing the person to be Otis Heiss. At the facility, Julia’s visions continue.

Back at the police station, Hank makes excuses for why his fiancée wasn’t able to make it, with a concerned Peter asking if he ever sent her money – a question Hank ignores.

That evening, Evangeline heads to Rose’s house for dinner, where she asks about Rose’s life prior to Alaska, discovering she was once a professor.

Liz gets called to Silver Sky’s mining offices to find that her stepdaughter, Leah, has graffitied the word ‘murderers’ on the door to the building. Kate wants to press charges, but Liz manages to persuade her not to do so. Out on the ice, Julia undresses before walking out into the darkness.

Back home, Leah packs her bags and leaves the house to stay with Peter and his family. With no one to prepare Christmas dinner for, Liz rewatches the video Annie recorded and finds a link to the video from the research station that was taken the day the men went missing – the flash at the end of both videos is the power being cut. The connection leaves Evangeline asking, why would there be power in an ice cave, with Liz theorising someone put a generator in them – and Oliver Tagaq has the expertise to do so.

Just as he’s leaving the station to go spend time with his family, Peter gets a call from Liz telling him to go and pick Evangeline up, as she needs back-up when going to speak with Oliver Tagaq. When they arrive, they find the place empty with a spiral drawn on the floor of his cabin and a stone with the same spiral. The men at the camp reveal that Tagaq left shortly after Liz and Evangeline first visited.

A drunk Liz later drives over to Captain Connelly’s hotel and they end up speaking about why he banished her to Ennis. Connelly reveals it was because she was a mess, and people didn’t want to work with her, causing Liz to storm out angrily. On her drive home, she ends up in a snowbank after swerving to avoid a polar bear in the road.

Evangeline gets a call from the Alaskan coast guard with some bad news - Julia has been found dead on the ice - and heads to the facility where she tears into the receptionist for letting Julia walk out. Driving across town she spots three men – one of whom is someone she arrested days prior - and starts a fight. She then goes to Qavik’s place, where he helps her clean up her wounds and comforts her when she breaks down. Back home, Liz wakes up to the sound of the doorbell ringing and finds Evangeline at the door. Evangeline shares that Tagaq is gone, and she’s lost the stone with the spiral she found at his place.

Liz knocks over a box and a stuffed polar bear toy falls out, leaving Evangeline to ask if it’s Holden’s – a child from one of the cases they worked together. A frustrated Liz throws it out the front door shouting that “the dead are gone”, to which Evangeline shares that Julia killed herself last night. An upset Evangeline feels she failed her sister and reveals that “it takes us one by one…it’s a curse”. Liz shouts at her to stop and that she’s acting the same way she did years prior at the scene of their last case together where Evangeline saw something – a spirit – in the room.

Peter sends Liz a photo of something fishermen have spotted near the dredges. Liz and Evangeline head to check it out, and inside the dredges find the familiar spiral shape drawn on the walls. In the distance, a person races down the stairs, so Liz and Evangeline follow in pursuit thinking it might be Clark, but Evangeline stops when she hears a screaming sound in her head, causing her to look down and see a body floating through the water. Liz stops to see if Evangeline is following but then races ahead to try and see if she can find Clark. Liz corners the person but finds that it’s not Clark, but the engineer, Otis Heiss.

Evangeline finds a Christmas tree in the middle of the room before she turns around and comes face to face with a screaming spirit. Liz asks Otis where Clark is to which he responds “he’s gone to hide…he’s hiding in the Night Country”. When she returns to find Evangeline, she finds her sitting, stunned, on the floor by the Christmas tree.