Are you really dead if you’re frozen?

The episode begins with the detectives examining the frozen, naked bodies, some of which have blood on their necks.  One even has a familiar looking symbol on his forehead. Danvers says that this case will be a shit bowl. She decides to hold onto the details instead of sending it to Anchorage…even though she initially thought of sending it to Anchorage.

One detectives gets a bit too close with a chainsaw to cut through the ice, while another takes a picture with one of the bodies. Liz tells the detectives to stop fucking around since this is a crime scene. They should at least pretend they know what they’re doing.

All the while, Navarro watches from a distance as Rose advises her to go home and leave this case for someone else. Navarro says that she can’t since she knows in her gut that this case is tied to Annie’s. Rose says that Navarro is screwed if that’s the case, She tells Navarro to see her later.

As Rose leaves, Navarro finds some shoes and other items buried in the snow.

Danvers and the other detectives continue examining the bodies when Wilson accidentally pulls off one of the arms. Then, one of the frozen bodies screams out in terror.

Strange. I thought that The Walking Dead ended.

Anyway, it’s decided that the detectives will need to amputate a few legs. Danvers arrives at a high school and radios to other detectives to not break anything, though surgery is starting soon. Danvers interrupts a class and tells the students that class is dismissed.

The students happily take the stranger’s word and leave. We’re left with the geology teacher, Adam Bryce, played by Donnie Keshawarz, who warned Danvers to keep away, but she’s not here for that. She wants to know what Tsalal Station does.

Navarro asks how often Rose sees Travis, but she says death didn’t change Travis. He only comes around when he wants something. He knew he was dying and at least said goodbye before he went into the ice. After all, he didn’t want the leukemia to take him. He brought croissants to Rose and the two sang and fucked, but didn’t talk that much. Travis was very tired.

But then he talked so much during those years he came to her. Then Navarro found him- one last gift from Travis Cohle is Rose got to meet Navarro.

Wait. Cohle?

Anyway, Navarro asks when Rose started seeing the dead, and it began with Travis. She knows people were born with it. Rose thinks the world is getting old, and Ennis is where the fabric of all things is coming apart at the seams. As for when Rose sees and hears the dead, she says the dead come because they miss the living or want to take the living with them. You need to know the difference.

Back at the high school, Bryce explains that the scientists at Tsalal were very reclusive and didn’t come into town that often. Other arctic stations rotate crews, but not Tsalal. No one comes in or comes out. They spent decades trying to sequence the DNA of an extinct microorganism that could stop cellular decay. Danvers wants this in English, for which she should’ve fucked the English teacher.

The work that the scientists did was game-changing. So what took so long? Ice coring for that kind of microorganism requires delicate work. In addition, the permafrost is too hard and it damages chromosomal material upon extraction. This would never work. Danvers then receives a transmission and is told that she should come by the station.

Navarro tells Rose that Jules sees people following her, can’t sleep, and has breakdowns. She even says their dead mother is calling her. Navarro brought her to Ennis to keep an eye on her, but she’s worried. Rose warns Navarro not to confuse the spirit world with mental health issues.

It sounds more like she needs treatment, but Jules doesn’t want to go back to a hospital after being medicated years back in Nevada. Before Navarro leaves, Rose asks if she saw the thing on one of the men’s foreheads. Navarro confirms seeing it once before.

Why? Because Rose draws the same symbol in the snow. Navarro recognizes the symbol from years ago and asks what it is, but it’s just a symbol that’s older than Ennis itself and maybe even the ice.

At the station, we’re introduced to Captain Ted Connelly, played by Christopher Eccleston, who wants to notify the families. Danvers won’t have the case taken to Anchorage from her, as the men died in Ennis’ jurisdiction. This might be a shit bowl, but it’s her shit bowl.

Ted knows that Liz is doing this to fuck with her, but Liz reminds Ted that he appointed Liz to Ennis and gave her this ex-dental building so she could handle unique issues in an isolated community during the sunless season.

She then brings up the Alaska Forensic Crime Detection Laboratory Manual and reads from a section about proper handling of frozen remains. Such remains are not to be manipulated beyond the absolutely imperative until properly thawed at a constant temperature of 38 degrees, or the results will be compromised and useless in court.

Okay, so how long do the bodies take to thaw? About 48 hours. So where will Liz put the bodies?

We cut to a hockey game of all places, where Liz calls over Leah. After Leah motions to a girl, Sheri Gillard, played by Eloise Thomas, who goes out to skate.

We see Hank briefly speak with Kate McKittrick, played by Dervla Kirwan, who suggests that Peter do some private skating coaching for her sons. Danvers then sits next to Kate, who knows that Liz is only sitting next to her to talk about the frozen bodies. Liz needs a big place to thaw the bodies- and the rink is just the right temperature. Kate agrees because she loves the town.

Indeed, the bodies are shipped via flatbed to the ice rink. Peter notices bite marks on the bodies when Leah arrives to tell Peter that she’ll be at his place. The two opt to dig around the autopsy files in the area and look for similar injuries like burnt eyeballs, busted ears, and self-inflicted bite wounds.

Liz decides to look for similar injuries, such as the self-inflicted bite wounds. There are five heads, but only nine feet. The rest are buried. Peter asks why it looks like the men are climbing on top of each other, as if they were being chased. But Liz points out that hypothermia can cause panic.

Peter then rushes off because he has an idea. Navarro, having just passed an irate Kate, arrives and tells Liz that Kate might hate Liz more than she hates her. It might have to do with Liz previously dating her husband. Navarro presents a symbol- a tattoo that was on Annie’s body and tattooed on one of the bodies.

Again, Navarro says that this is the same case and they can work together to figure out Annie’s, but Danvers does not want to work with Navarro again. Navarro tells Liz that no one can stand her, except Peter Prior, whose heart she’ll probably break soon. Peter arrives and matches one of the victims with a photo.

Navarro visits Ryan at Jules’s job to show him a photo of Raymond Clark, but Ryan doesn’t recognize him. Another man, Chuck Mosley, played by Edward Fletcher, comes out to stop Navarro from bringing this up, but when he has a longer-than-expected look at the photo, Navarro asks if he knows Clark. Mosley says he doesn’t.

Inside the bar, a fight breaks out as two men argue over the water that’s apparently poisoning the kids in the area. Eddie tells Chuck to go home, which he does in a huff…and without paying his tab. Rude.

Time for a game of 20 questions.

Peter looks over photos of the scientists partying and tells Liz that the lab report is ready, but the DNA on the clothes will take awhile. As for the prints, there’s something on one of the shoes, but no matches. So they know that a sudden drop in pressure can rupture eardrums, and hypothermia can cause delirium and irrational behavior…which could explain the self-inflicted wounds.

But the scientists dropped everything and ran onto the ice. Why? There was no gas leak since the station is all electric. So, what then? Perhaps a polar bear. The doors don’t lock, to avoid accidents. The bear comes in, the men panic and they run out. Okay, so why undress? Peter theorizes paradoxical undressing- people with severe hypothermia feel hot and undress.

So who drew the symbol on Lund’s forehead? Wrong question. When was it drawn? Could have been before or after they ran out. If it was before, it could’ve just been a harmless prank. If after? Then someone was out on the ice with them. No one stops to draw on their forehead when they’re freezing to death.

Then there’s the clothes. They don’t match the bodies. There are five pairs of pants and three shoes are missing. The question isn’t why weren’t they fully dressed, but how scared do you have to be to run out on the ice without shoes? And why are the clothes folded the way that they are? It’s possible the killer folded them, but was it to taunt them? Doesn’t add up, but Liz says they’re not asking the right questions yet.

Peter then shows Liz a video with one man convulsing as one of the workers made a sandwich. Lulu radios Liz to tell her that the station supply man and the cleaning ladies are ready for questioning. The two decide to divide and conquer, with Liz talking to the cleaners while Peter speaks to the supply guy.

Navarro pays Eddie a visit as he cleans his dog. He tells Evangeline that the water situation is getting bad and it even turned black in some homes. There’s talk of protesting, and Eddie tells Navarro that Jules is fine. Navarro warns Eddie that one day, his dog might eat him, but Eddie says that deep down, his dog is a softie. She just needs some affection.

Evangeline leaves, saying she’ll be too busy to visit tonight However, Eddie does still need his toothbrush. You’d think he would just get a new one by now.

So Liz talks with the cleaners and shows them the symbol, but neither recognizes it. Nor do they ever remember seeing Annie K. at the station.

Peter, meanwhile, speaks to the supply man, Bill, played by Darren Foreman, who says that something didn’t seem quite right. He did find Clark weird and saw him hanging out, completely naked. As for what the others did when one acted odd, they just ignored it. Bill says he thought he saw someone when he came to the station yesterday.

When Peter presses for more, Bill says that you just see people sometimes. It’s a long night and even the dead get bored. Bill recognizes the symbol that Clark, had tattooed on his chest.

Navarro goes on a drive and jams out to “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls when she has a flashback after holding a cross in her hand. After almost crashing, she throws the cross out the window.

The music choices so far have been quite random.

She visits Mosley, who confirms Clark bought his cousin’s trailer- a Golden Eagle from the 1990s. But Mosley’s cousin made Clark shell out $10,000 for it, and Clark paid in cash. This was about seven years ago. Mosley can’t ask his cousin because he died from bone cancer.

Navarro asks Mosley to write the description of the trailer and his cousin’s name. Mosley says he didn’t answer earlier because he doesn’t like Navarro, but she believes he didn’t like Annie K. and is okay with what happened to her.

As Hank texts with Alina about the big wedding day, she suddenly asks him for pictures. He takes some when he notices a open cabinet and box missing.

Hank should notice something is off about these texts with Alina, but what do I know?

Peter informs Liz that Clark was walking around naked and had the spiral tattooed on his chest, but he doesn’t get why the scientists put up with him. He spoke with Clark’s mother, who hasn’t seen him in 10 years. So who is paying Tsalal’s bills? So if you follow the money from the NGO that funds the station, you trace it to a shell company called NC Global Strategies which, in turn, belongs to Tuttle United.

Wait…

Anyway, Tuttle United does everything from tech to video games to palm oil and even cruise lines. Peter asks Danvers what Navarro did to him, but she counters and asks if Peter is worried he’ll fuck up, too. She tells him to go watch the corpses, while she picks up Leah at his place. Peter is supposed to put Darwin to bed, otherwise Kayla will kill him, but no. He’s not going home. Liz commanded it.

Liz indeed arrives at Peter’s home and finds Darwin making a house. Kayla isn’t happy with Liz taking Peter away for work and tells her to save her favors for her own family. Liz interrupts Leah, who is in the middle of getting a marker tattoo from Kayla’s grandmother, and orders her to take it off. Leah wants to understand her heritage, but when Liz flies into a rage, Kayla orders her to leave.

Evangeline and Jules go shopping, though Evangeline wants her sister to get help at The Lighthouse- not a hospital, but a community center that helps people with addiction. Jules shoots it down, saying once again that she’s not their mother. Jules just wants to live like a normal person.

In her room, Leah gets a text from Sheri to hit her up. Before Leah can leave, though, Liz calls out for her to help with the Christmas tree. However, Leah claims that she’s going to bed and leaves through her bedroom window. Leah arrives at the store as she and Sheri rendezvous.

Liz, left to put up the Christmas tree on her own, goes through ornaments when she pulls out a polar bear. She has a flashback to her playing with a young child, all while “Twist and Shout” plays in the background. Well, that could explain the hate for The Beatles. Anyway, she looks at the symbol again and gives Peter a call.

Indeed, Peter’s work watching the bodies is interrupted when Liz calls and asks him to send Clark’s credit history, as far back as Peter can go. When Peter turns around, he gets a backhand from Hank, who warns him to not steal from him. Even Peter’s mother didn’t steal from Hank when she left. Danvers doesn’t own Peter- he has a family and she’s not it. Blood is blood. With that, Hank leaves.

Liz visits The Doctor, I mean Connelly, and the two have a quickie and finish at the same time. Liz afterward says that this is the last time, but Connelly has heard that for 19 years. Ted knows that Liz doesn’t want the case, but he only wants it just to screw with her. Liz wants to know why Ted is so hellbent on keeping the case under wraps, but he doesn’t want it to turn into a disaster for no reason.

He still wants this run out of Anchorage and doesn’t believe that Liz can’t handle this, so Liz leaves in a huff. She gets a message from Peter on Raymond Clark’s bank records. At the office, she talks on the phone with a tattoo artist about Raymond’s Clark chest tattoo. The artist remembers Clark crying after he got the tattoo- not due to pain, but sentimentality.

Also, he was alone at the time. The artist doesn’t remember what the tattoo meant, but she sends a photo of it to Liz, and another showing the model for the work. However, we only see one of the photos…

Navarro meets up with Liz and it’s revealed that Clark has the same tattoo as Annie K on her back. The second photo was Clark and Annie together. Clark got his tattoo four days after Annie died. Based on the DNA results, they can confirm that it was Annie’s tongue at Tsalal. The tissue had some unusual cellular damage- probably from freezing. So it looks like Navarro’s case is now Liz’s case.

Navarro brings up a Wheeler case, saying they did exactly what they needed to do. For now, Liz says they’ll close both cases and that’s it for them.

Leah leaves the shop when she spots some police lights and walks towards them. She joins Peter at the ice rink, spooking him from a music video he’s watching. He warns her not to get close since she doesn’t want that shit in her head. She notices the bruise on Peter’s cheek and calls Hank an animal though, Peter says his father was raised by an animal to be one. Still, the two came from the same shit, but Peter turned out to be nice.

As Peter plays a song on his phone, Leah tells him that her father and Liz used to dance to it. Peter reveals that his own father was a musician and used to play the guitar, but Peter’s never personally heard Hank play. His mother said that Hank wasn’t good enough to have a career, and maybe not good enough period. It sticks with you, not feeling like you’re good enough.

Navarro pays Eddie another visit while he’s taking a bath. She wants to fuck, but he already finished himself off in the tub. Eddie, after making some waffles, says that if Navarro truly had nothing, Danvers wouldn’t want her on the case, yet they’re working together. Navarro knows everything about Annie K., but didn’t know about Clark. Why was it kept a secret, though?

The answer is right there: Clark got the trailer to keep it a secret. And where do you keep a trailer to fuck in secret? The Nook.

Navarro finds The Golden Eagle, buried in snow, all while Liz goes through Raymond Clark’s files. His writings became more and more like rambling when Liz gets a call from Navarro.

The two enter the trailer and find it littered with bones from various animals, as well as strange writings and symbols on the walls. They then find a cell phone that belonged to Annie K., as it wasn’t with her body. Deeper in the trailer, the two find a stuffed or makeshift body in a shrine. On the ceiling? The same symbol.

Liz then gets a call from Peter, who tells her that they have a problem. The two arrive at the ice rink where only six bodies are still thawing. All bodies are accounted for except for Raymond Clark. He didn’t get separated- he’s alive and out there. The hunt is on for Clark as the episode comes to a close.

Well, nobody wants an unthawed body just prowling around the streets of Alaska. The mystery of Night Country continues to raise more questions in a pretty good episode that showcases some nice detective work from the protagonists, peel back more layers on them, and reveal more connections to a previous season than I thought.

I have mixed feelings on these callbacks to Season 1. On one hand, the appearances of the spiral, finding out that Travis’ last name is Cohle, when Rust himself said he had a father named Travis in Alaska, and the name drop of Tuttle connect this more to Season 1 than even the one-off mention in Season 3. It’s nice to have continuity, but I hope there’s a reason to it beyond just references.

Are we continuing with more of the Yellow King and that cult from the first season? The nice thing about Season 3’s callback to the first season was that it was brief and done. These callbacks aren’t shoved in your face, which is nice. Plus, if you haven’t seen the first season…first off, what’s wrong with you? But secondly, these references won’t mean much if you’re coming into this fresh.

Say what you will about Seasons 2 and 3, but those stories stood on their own without needing to reference previous seasons. Sure, every season of True Detective has struggled to achieve the quality of that first season, but they didn’t try to just redo it. They told their own stories. For Season 4 to have direct references to the first season is welcoming, but I wonder if there will be a payoff to this.

Having said that, this episode isn’t just about tying back to the first season. It’s as much of a shitbowl as Liz describes it as not just with the bodies, but the argument of jurisdiction and why there’s a connection to the case of Annie K.

With Ted Connelly, we get yet another person who wants this case moved and kept under wraps as much as possible. I do enjoy how little breathing room the detectives have. They’re kept busy not just because of the case, but parties who have their own reasons for getting involved or keeping as much information to themselves as possible.

Speaking briefly on Connelly, I like Christopher Eccleston in the role with his brief two scenes and I hope we get more of him. I haven’t seen much, if any of Doctor Who, but Eccleston was fantastic on The Leftovers and it’s great to see him in another HBO series.

The town continues to give off the closed society vibe, but everyone and their mother has an opinion about the scientists. Here are these men doing groundbreaking work that would probably never come to fruition, but they also keep to themselves and ignore when Clark is walking around without any clothes. But if they kept to themselves, how is it that the town knows so much about them?

Perhaps I’m asking the wrong questions, and this episode was all about asking the right ones, especially in my favorite scene. I enjoyed Liz and Peter going back and forth on questioning details about the bodies. They’re not just asking questions that we as viewers also wonder, but they press each other to dig deeper and ask the right questions, instead of just any question, like how come the clothes don’t match?

It also shows that they’re not slouches. The two could just sit on their asses and wait for DNA results or information about the tattoos, but they’re proactive in talking to witnesses. These are things that police and sheriff’s should and already do, yes, but instead of having all the information spoon-fed to them and us simultaneously, it’s nice to see them doing the legwork and stay in constant communication.

Connelly’s presence could throw a wrench in things. Like Hank, he doesn’t want a disaster on everyone’s hands. Much like Navarro, there’s a lot of history between Connelly and Liz- though more of the fuck-buddy sort and I have to ask if everyone has slept with everyone in this town. It makes for having guaranteed connections when you need something at least, like Liz hitting up a geology teacher for information.

It goes to show how this is not just a small town, but literally everyone has a connection to someone key in this storyline, right down to Chuck Mosley having a connection to Clark through his cousin buying the trailer or the tongue in the research center actually belonging to Annie K.

Many of the key characters seem to be burying some sort of trauma. It’s through the brief flashbacks that we get glimpses of what Navarro and Danvers have held onto, but this extends to characters like Leah and Peter. Leah could actually imagine her stepmother as much happier, and while Peter isn’t anything like his father, it’s clear that they’ve butted heads before over family.

Two things on Hank: it couldn’t have taken him this long to realize that Peter had taken a box from him, right? Also, this Alina woman feels very much like a catfish or scam just based on her texts and asking Hank for photos. Not to mention she needs money for her mother’s medication? Either Hank is a fool in love, or just a fool.

So what happens now that Clark is apparently alive and on the loose? Rose said that the dead return because they miss the living or want to take the living with them. Is Clark searching to take someone with him? How did one of the bodies scream after being frozen? The man is a mystery, with his ramblings looking like something that Rust Cohle could decipher. Curious how deep his connection with Annie K. goes.

For right now, there’s a scientist to find.