Regardless of the identify, True Detective has actually by no means been about tying up each unfastened finish to a thriller. Certain, the detectives on the coronary heart do their damnedest, however should you’re right here for procedural and moral police work, you’re in all probability barking up the mistaken tree; this tree is extra about glimpsing supernatural terror, refracted by way of the prism of human cruelty and violence.
However should you’re actually in it for the thriller, and also you desperately need just a few extra answers to the questions that True Detective: Night Nation left you with, right here’s the whole lot as greatest we will put it collectively — together with just a few feedback concerning the mysteries that the present neatly leaves unsolved.
[Ed. note: As you might’ve guessed: This post spoils the ending of True Detective: Night Country!]
What precisely occurred to the Tsalal scientists?
That is one in every of True Detective: Night Nation’s greatest and most fastidiously unanswered questions. We all know most of what occurred to them, they killed Annie, and as revenge the ladies of Ennis pressured them out into the snow to freeze to loss of life. However as soon as the ladies left, one thing else stored them there. We hear just a few totally different folks all through the season repeat the phrase “she’s awake;” the present by no means clarifies who she is precisely or what which means, however it’s potential that no matter this seemingly supernatural pressure can be what actually killed the scientists. The one factor we all know for positive is that one thing otherworldly visited a sort of divine justice on them. And that’s a lot creepier than a straight reply.
What was up with Annie’s tongue?
That is the other aspect of the coin from the destiny of the scientists: the present provides us no actual explanations, however it actually strongly means that one thing supernatural and unusual was up in Ennis. We don’t have a single credible suggestion at who may have planted the tongue or why, But it surely does heart your entire Tsalal tragedy round Annie. After all, it’s potential that the ladies of Ennis planted the tongue there as a reminder, however then, how would they have even gotten it within the first place — plus they deny having something to do with it.
Picture: Michele Ok. Brief/HBO
What occurred to Navarro?
That is the place we begin to get into what actually issues on the finish of Night Nation. When Navarro walks into the ice, it stops mattering whether or not she actually died or not. She’s made her peace with the world and her relationship to it. She felt the decision that pulled her mom and her sisters and she or he adopted it after she had gotten justice for Annie. We don’t have to know the place it results in know that it introduced her storyline full-circle, feeling an analogous name to the one her sister described that Navarro herself may by no means settle for or perceive.
Simply as vital is the truth that Danvers feels, or sees, Navarro in her remaining scene of the season as nicely. With Danvers seemingly stress-free in a cottage with nobody bothering her, we see Navarro step into the body, searching over the balcony along with her accomplice. This scene makes it clear that Danvers has lastly made Ennis her dwelling, and settled into its unusual relationship with the lifeless. After years of denying the previous, actually throwing sentimental objects like her child’s teddy bear within the snow, and shutting it out in order that it may by no means do greater than startle her goals, Danvers has accepted loss.
How does all this relate to True Detective season 1?
There isn’t one, at the very least probably not. Certain there are every kind of references (“time is a flat circle” included), however there’s nothing express that connects Night Nation to the primary season of True Detective and till there may be, I believe it’s protected to imagine that Issa Lopez is simply having a little bit of enjoyable with followers of the collection.
One of the best a part of all these questions, from those that Night Nation answered to those it appeared to disregard, is that they don’t actually matter. All the pieces that issues to the story and its characters is completely wrapped up by the issues the present tells us, and the unfastened ends that dangle are simply as intentional and finely crafted as the remainder of the story. Some questions don’t get answered, and the world is best off that method.
