True Detective: Night Country – Season 4 Episode 4 Recap & Review

Part 4

True Detective: Night Country Episode 4 begins on December 24th – with Danvers rewatching the footage of Annie Kowtok. Elsewhere, the frozen dead bodies have finally thawed, which means they can be transported to Anchorage. Danvers heads to the skating rink to delay the transfer of the bodies, but she’s stopped in her tracks by Navarro’s sister Julia having a breakdown in the middle of the road. She stops her car and takes her back to the station, then tells Pete to call Navarro to get her to meet her at the station to see Julia. She turns up and checks in on Julia.

Danvers tells Navarro that Connelly is back, and Navarro warns her she can’t let him take the case away from them because they need to solve it. Connelly doesn’t take the Annie Kowtok case away from Ennis, but does warn Danvers she needs to get other cases under control. She then tells Connelly that the men died before they froze. Navarro drops Julia off at a therapy centre, promising this one will be better equipped to help her, then leaves. 

Back at the Ennis police station, Pete reveals that he has found some intel on a man named Otis Heiss, whose injuries were similar to the Tsalal scientists. Danvers orders Pete to get an APB to hunt him down, but Pete says they are too busy trying to track down Raymond, and with it being Christmas Eve, nobody is available to go after Otis as well. Danvers insists they look for them both. Pete gets to work on it despite bemoaning having to work on Christmas Eve and announcing that he hates Danvers, part in jest. 

Danvers touches base with Navarro about Julia, and asks her help her with a job. Elsewhere, Hank is waiting for his online girlfriend at the Ennis airport, but nobody named Alina exits the airplane. Danvers and Navarro turn up at Bryce’s to ask him about the video on Annie’s phone. Danvers makes Navarro knock on the door as Bryce’s wife answers, and there’s awkwardness because Danvers slept with Bryce, and his wife knows about it. 

Danvers and Navarro think there are no caves in Ennis or the place where Annie’s body was discovered, pointing towards her being murdered somewhere else. However, Bryce refutes this suggestion and informs the detectives that there are caves in Ennis in a place called the Brooks Range. He warns them it’s a very sketchy place with one wrong step potentially leading to death. Bryce tells them they need an expert to assist them. Turns out, the man who mapped the caves is none other than Otis Heiss.

Navarro has Christmas dinner with Rose Aguineau, Navarro asks her what she used to do before moving to Alaska, and she says she taught and wrote articles. 

Danvers gets a call from Kate because Leah has defaced the Silversky Mining office by painting the word “murderers” on the entrance doors. Kate wants to press charges, but Danvers pleads with her because it’ll ruin her life. Kate reluctantly agrees and lets it slide. Julia leaves the treatment centre and sits near an abandoned ship. She discards her clothes, walks into the darkness of the night, and dies by suicide.

Danvers is still looking into Annie Kowtok’s video along with footage from the moment when Raymond started convulsing and the lights went out in the research station. Danvers notices there are similarities between the scene where the lights at Tsalal station went out and the scene where the lights inside the cave where Annie was in captivity went out.

Danvers thinks seen as Oliver Tagaq was the equipment engineer, he could’ve had access to all of this stuff and he needs to be questioned. She calls Navarro, who tells Danvers to stay where she is because she has clearly been drinking. Danvers calls Pete and tells him to assist Navarro. Danvers does leave her house and drives while drunk to visit with Connelly and resume their affair. They get into an argument about Connelly running for mayor of Anchorage and Danvers’ issues.

Navarro and Pete reach the Nomad area to find that Oliver Tagaq is nowhere to be seen, leaving behind a stone with a spiral on it. Navarro and Pete leave immediately after being confronted by the nomads. Navarro gets a call in the car that reveals that Julia has died by suicide. She doesn’t tell Pete but simply tells him to go home and be with his family. 

In a fit of rage, Navarro trashes the therapy centre and picks a fight with the abuser from the very first episode. She gets beaten to a pulp by the group, but not before getting a few punches in. She goes to see Qavvik to get some medical attention. Elsewhere, Danvers has to dodge the polar bear on the road. 

The next day, (which is of course, Christmas Day), Navarro turns up at Danvers house to find her extremely hungover, and Danvers is annoyed because Navarro has lost the spiral stone, but Navarro reveals she had a rough night as Julia committed suicide. Danvers points at the supernatural when she asks Navarro what she saw at the William Wheeler crime scene. 

The episode ends with Danvers and Navarro visiting an abandoned rig to try and find Raymond Clark, and Navarro sees Julia’s spirit, while Danvers finds a man wearing the parka (which was seen on Annie and Raymond) and it is Otis Heiss. He is high on drugs, and says something about being in Night Country. Danvers finds Navarro, and she is sitting in a state of confusion and fear in front of a Christmas tree. 

The Episode Review

This is the stand-out episode of the season so far, with a lot of hints at the supernatural and some heartbreaking personal moments for most of the main characters, with Navarro being affected the most by the suicide of her troubled sister, Julia. Her reaction is so typical of her character, and her scenes of rage and despair are the best moments in the episode, portrayed by Kali Reis. 

Jodie Foster is also in fine form and the partnership of her character, Danvers and Reis’s Navarro is the best True Detective has seen since the very first season with McConaughey and Harrelson. There are also some interesting easter eggs that further link Night Country to the very first season. But blink and you’ll miss them.