Are we asking the right questions yet? Such as, why?

The episode begins on December 31, the 14^th day of night. Liz and Evangeline dig into the thick ice. Evangeline drops into the cavern first and lets Liz know that it’s safe, so she drops in soon after and the two explore the frozen tunnel. Evangeline asks Liz if she feels what she’s feeling, but Liz just focuses on the slippery ground.

The tunnel gets even narrower and narrower. Something draws Evangeline’s attention, and she tells Liz that “it” is here. She heads down one pathway, forcing Liz to follow her as they slip through the increasingly narrow cavern walls. They reach a dead end, and Evangeline asks if Liz can hear “her” calling.

Then Evangeline falls through the ground onto a lower level. In pain, Evangeline tells Liz that she was right and should’ve stayed back, but that doesn’t matter since the ground beneath Liz soon collapses as well. Now both find themselves on a lower level, but they’re not alone.

With them is, surprise, Raymond Clark.

The two end up in a completely functional laboratory, even fit with electricity. On the icy ceiling? That same spiral symbol. Liz calls Evangeline’s attention to a tool that would leave a star-shaped wound, like the one found on Annie K’s body.

After noticing some markings on the ground, the two pull away a cabinet and find a ladder hidden behind some equipment, so the two make their way up. They soon exit and find themselves back in the Tsalal research station.

Wait, so they were that close to the research center?

Whatever. The two explore the station yet again, with Evangeline following a trail of wet footprints. Also, Liz is still not a fan of “Twist and Shout.” Clark seals Liz in a room and manages to get the drop on Evangeline with a fire extinguisher. As Liz eventually breaks the glass, Evangeline quickly awakens and beats the hell out of Clark. However, Liz reminds Evangeline that they need him alive.

Peter, meanwhile, gets to work cleaning up the bloody mess. He should’ve watched Dexter for some pointers. Leah arrives, having been asked to celebrate New Year’s, and learns from Peter that Liz went out to help with a work emergency. Peter asks Leah to drive him home because he doesn’t want Kayla and Darwin to be alone on New Year’s Eve. Before Peter leaves, he makes sure to remove a dent in the wall.

Liz and Evangeline awaken a strapped-down Clark, with Evangeline asking if he actually loved Annie K. Evangeline plays the footage of Annie K being attacked, and they even tape the headphones to his ears. Just for extra measure, they also tape his mouth shut. The video is on a loop, so he’s got plenty of time to memorize the video. The two detectives go off to get coffee.

When Leah arrives at the Prior home, Kayla asks Peter if Liz is once again asking him to do something for her. Instead, Peter cuts her off, says that he’s fixing something, but needs her help. After fixing this one thing, he’ll be with her. The two kiss, because that makes sense, with Kayla imploring that Peter stay safe.

As Liz and Evangeline recharge, Evangeline finds an orange and talks about how a relative used to peel them in one long strip. Julia would do the same. Evangeline figures that Peter is fucked for life. Yeah, no shit.

Time to talk with science man.

Evangeline and Liz interrogate Clark, who tells them Annie K found some of his scribbles and pieced together what the scientists were doing: digging for the DNA of a microorganism contained in the permafrost. The scientists cracked it, but this could only be done because the pollution from the mine helped soften the permafrost. They pushed the mine to produce more pollutants.

The more waste in the more water, the more waste in the ground, the better the permafrost was for their work. Clark says this could have changed the world. He didn’t know that Annie K was there- she must have snuck in to find a paper trail, but she discovered the truth and found the scientists’ work in the hidden laboratory.

We flash back to Clark hearing Annie K’s screams. He rushes into the underground laboratory and found Dr. Lund had stabbed Annie K. The other scientists soon arrived, overtook Annie K, and seemingly finished the job. But not Clark. Instead, he removed his shirt and cleaned the blood from Annie’s face.

Except Annie wasn’t even dead. She clawed at Raymond’s body so, as he yells for her to stop, he truly puts Annie to bed. It took two years to build another robotic arm.

However, Clark isn’t familiar with Annie K’s tongue being cut out. The scientists called the mine for help, as they needed the scientists to keep covering up the numbers. The mine sent a cop to handle the body, and that cop must have cut out her tongue to send a warning.

Evangeline takes out her gun, and Liz leaves the room, making no attempt to stop her. Instead, she has flashbacks of the William Wheeler fiasco. Evangeline comes out as Liz says that she was just about to kill Wheeler herself, but Evangeline did it first. The two then heard a baby’s cries.

Later, Liz finds the mark where Annie K’s tongue was. Evangeline arrives and informs her that they’re stuck. However, they still have a job to finish.

Also, Liz felt it necessary to cut the orange peel into that same spiral, because why not?

Clark tells the two that Annie killed the scientists. He kept seeing her and hearing her voice. Clark knew that she would eventually come back.

We then flash back to the night of, as Clark rushes into the underground laboratory, leaving the other scientists defenseless. Clark waits and waits as he held the hatch for an hour, a week. He was basically Hodor. As for the men on the ice, Clark didn’t leave the cave because he was too afraid. He only came up because he was hungry. Clark wanted to know how to survive, which is why he searched for Otis Heiss.

Clark says Annie was hiding in the caves forever, and before she was born, after they all die, time is a flat circle and they’re just stuck in it.

You could not have crowbarred that line into this dialogue any harder if you tried.

As Liz rests, she awakens at the sound of Holden screaming “Mama!” She rushes off in search of Navarro, who is outside and next to Clark’s body, which is now frozen in the snow.

He’s already frozen in the snow.

Liz is enraged that Evangeline let Clark go, but Evangeline didn’t cut the power. Clark was their only witness, and now he’s dead. The two look for a generator, with Evangeline seemingly seeing Clark convulsing and saying that “she” is awake

Rose, meanwhile, loads her rifle as she listens turns off the radio. She then gets a knock at the door- it’s Peter, who has come courtesy of Navarro’s instruction. See, he’s got to put someone in the same place as Julia.

Liz and Evangeline warm up by a fire instead of inside the vehicle they drove to get here. Liz laments even touching this case in the first place. She asks a shivering Evangeline what she’s doing, and Evangeline says something is out there calling her. Evangeline says that there is more than this. It can be a comfort.

Julia wasn’t wrong, but Liz says that Julia quit. Evangeline then says that Holden doesn’t really look like Liz, but there’s something in his eyes. To Evangeline, Holden is still out there. Liz shuts down Evangeline, saying she can’t say that name. She recounts the accident that took Holden, but Liz threatens to shoot Evangeline if she says his name.

Leah calls Liz, again, and pleads with her stepmother to not die.

Liz, after getting up from yet another attempt at a nap, again searches for Evangeline. She heads into the thick darkness of the storm as Evangeline again walks towards a voice calling her. Evangeline, meanwhile, has another wartime flashback as she walks in the desert. She reaches out and touches a hand as a voice whispers her Aaka name: Siqinnaatchiaq.

Oh, but Evangeline has actually slipped through the ice, and Liz falls not long after her. Except it’s the opposite, as Liz has fallen into the ice and Evangeline rescues her.

Couldn’t the two have just frozen to death? Anyway, Liz then has a flashback to the car crash, and she soon awakens. She asks Evangeline what Holden said, and Evangeline says that Holden sees her.

Peter, meanwhile, has finished cutting a hole into the ice. Rose doesn’t want Peter to see how she cuts open Hank’s body to let the air out of his lungs so he doesn’t float. he doesn’t float. She does it, but Peter is the one who must put the body into the water and finish the job. Peter eventually drops his father’s body into the ice, closing the door on him forever.

Rose joins Peter on the ground and asks if he thinks the worst part is done. It’s not. What comes after, forever, is the worst fucking part.

January 1st, the 15th day of night, arrives, as does the Aurora Borealis. The storm has finally ended as Liz and Evangeline have a drink and toast to the new year. Liz remembers Evangeline talking about wanting to walk out and disappear. If Evangeline does, Liz wants her to come back.

As for what Clark said about holding the hatch and being in the dark? Evangeline has felt that way for so long. She’s been terrified of someone trying to open that hatch.

Liz has an epiphany. She pours some fluid over the hatch as Evangeline shines a UV light over it until they find a hand print…of a person with three fingers, just like Blair. The question isn’t who killed Annie K, but who knows who killed her.

The two pay Beatrice Malee and Blair Hartman a visit to question them about the deaths at the Tsalal station. And Evangeline’s Aaka means “the return of the sun after the long darkness.”

Blair and Beatrice thought For six years, the women thought the mine and town killed Annie K to shut her up, but then they understood. One day, Beatrice noticed water seeping into the floor, so she found the hidden laboratory and evidence. Beatrice didn’t report it because it wouldn’t have done anything.

It’s always the same story with the same ending: nothing ever happens. So the women told themselves a different story with a different ending.

In this story, the women storm the research center, take the men hostage, and force them outside. The women drove to a desolate spot on the ice and forced the men to remove their clothes. But the women, kind creatures of habit, neatly folded their clothing. The men were forced to run until they froze. If Annie K wanted them, she could take them. If not, their clothes were there for them.

They’d be half-frozen, but the men would survive. But Beatrice guesses that Annie K wanted them, and she ate their dreams from the inside out. But then, it’s just a story. So what’s next? Evangeline says that stories are stories. They just swung by to say that a slab avalanche is what killed the men, meaning the case is closed. As for Annie’s tongue? The women don’t know who left it there.

On May 12th, the first long day of the year, Liz gives a deposition: a local vagrant named Otis Heiss was found in the trunk of Hank Prior’s vehicle. Heiss had information on Clark’s whereabouts. It’s possible that Hank approached Heiss, who got shot. When Hank went to dispose of the body, he suffered an accident in the blizzard. Liz is confident that they’ll find Hank.

Also, Peter is still here, and delivering coffee no less. The detectives find it odd that Clark died in the same manner as the Tsalal men, but as far as Liz is concerned, some questions just don’t have answers. That feels like a Benioff and Weiss line. So what about Trooper Navarro? Some people come to Alaska to escape and get away from something, Liz says.

Liz shows up at Evangleine’s home, but finds it empty save for a plush polar bear on a bed.

Eddie, meanwhile, has his Spongebob toothbrush again. Well, at least he can brush his teeth.

Evangeline, meanwhile, walks further and further onto the ice….

Liz then plays a recording of Clark confessing everything. He admits that pollution levels in the area are 11 times higher than currently accepted, and the pollution knowingly caused by Silver Sky caused cancer, stillbirths, birth defects, and irreparable damage to the human and animal population.

This video leaked, and the mine subsequently closed. Who would’ve thought?

In present-day, Liz tells the detectives that everyone has seen the Clark video. She has no idea who leaked it, though. As for the political unrest, Liz says that isn’t her job. This town was here before the mine, and Liz is going to show up every day and do her job.

As for whether Liz has theories about trooper Navarro? Liz says that no one will find Evangeline Navarro on the ice. So the reports of sightings of her may be true. This is Ennis. No one ever really leaves. In fact, Liz is living on a home in isolation with, seemingly, Navarro joining her as True Detective: Night Country comes to a close.

We have a lot to discuss, ladies and gentlemen. I have many questions, none of which I’m sure are the right ones, but I’ll come right out and say at the start that this finale did not work for me.

The main plot and mystery of this season began with the deaths of the scientists. Who killed them and why were their bodies left to freeze? Except intertwined with this mystery is solving the years-old death of Annie K, as the two are now connected. Though that’s only a result of Navarro holding onto Annie K’s death. What was she doing as a trooper before coming onto this case? Did she do any investigating?

So now that the finale is here, we’re left with two stories: either a flash freeze truly was what killed the scientists, or a bunch of cleaning ladies getting revenge for Annie K. It’s a choose-your-own adventure scenario. Annie K can’t have been the first person killed because of Silver Sky or someone affiliated for it, yet her death is the one symbolic enough for these women to take up arms and storm a research facility.

No one suspects the cleaning women hiding in plain sight, as if Blair’s inclusion in Part 5 wasn’t obvious enough of a hint. But was this revenge because Annie K found out what the scientists were doing? Throughout the season, we’d been told that the mine was the source of problems for some of the residents. People like Liz overlooked their plight. After all, it’s not her responsibility to solve all of Ennis’ problems.

I mean, it is, as an officer of the law, but I never said she was good at it.

So let’s go with the theory that the women are responsible. Beatrice happens to notice the water going through the floor, finds a hidden facility, takes photos of evidence, and plans a revolt against the scientists because of their work polluting the land, as well as their involvement in Annie K’s death. There is no footage of the women storming the facility, or indication of tire tracks in the frozen ground. Just some folded clothes.

Peter asked in the second episode how scared do you have to be to run onto the ice without your shoes. How scared indeed, unless you were chased. But if this story is true, and the women are responsible for the scientists’ deaths, then Liz and Evangeline are just letting them get away with murder. What’s the line from Brooklyn Nine-Nine?

Yeah, that one. So if this is our reality, then Liz and Evangeline have effectively thrown their hands up and let this happen, and for what? In the name of environmental justice? No one’s ever said that Liz and Evangeline are good at their jobs. Hell, we saw what they did to William Wheeler, not to mention covering up the deaths of Otis and Hank. But with this being the season-long mystery, this ending is a bit deflating.

They already have Blair’s fingerprint on the hidden compartment, and one would have to question how she knew about it when she’s not one of the scientists. That’s at least cause for suspicion.

What’s suspicious is the actions of the scientists. I’m led to believe that a bunch of mind-mannered scientists would suddenly turn into killers because one person wrecked some of their work? We know the scientists have a connection to Silver Sky- why not just call them or the authorities and have Annie K arrested or dealt with? Killing her feels like an unnecessary step to justify their deaths.

Based on what we know of the scientists, there’s little to nothing to indicate that they would kill to protect their research. So when we meet them in the premiere, they’re going about their lives having already committed a murder, and they carry on like nothing happens? Actually, that’s not too implausible, if William Wheeler’s death is any indication.

Speaking of Silver Sky, sure they may have lost the battle with the mine being closed, and their reputation may be hampered. But their narrative is what Liz ultimately went with, so they succeeded in roping her into their story. Though any political unrest in Ennis will be suppressed in no time since I’m convinced the town’s population doesn’t even reach 100 people.

Now how about our two leads? How Liz and Evangeline get anything accomplished together is anyone’s guess. Putting aside Liz having that ridiculous ‘A-ha’ moment when it came to the hatch, why do these two ever split up? They’d have been able to get the drop on Clark together versus splitting up and him getting the drop on them individually.

By the way, I’ve never been hit in the head with a fire extinguisher, but I imagine someone would take a bit longer to recover than Navarro did.

But beyond the two splitting up, how did Clark manage to freeze so quickly after being let outside? If that happened, then surely Liz should have frozen to death after being in the cold lake for more than a few seconds. Why, in the middle of all of this, does Liz try to take a quick nap when there are two mysteries to solve? She can sleep when the job is done, or if she freezes to death.

If the cave that Liz and Evangeline needed a guide for led them to the Tsalal research center so quickly…how close were they to Tsalal in the first place? Was the cave entrance just a few feet away? I imagine they probably could have just seen Tsalal from a distance if they were that close.

Why is Peter still in Ennis when this is all over and why is Kayla so quick to forgive him when just one episode ago, she packed a suitcase for him and told him not to come home? I seriously wanted him, the only actual detective this season has, to turn in his badge and walk away from all of this, but he’s stuck, as if on a loop. I guess time really is a…

You know, why the Season 1 references? What was the point of Travis’ last name being Cohle? Why bring up Tuttle United? Why didn’t Clark turn to the camera and wink when he said that “Time is a flat circle?” Does Issa Lopez want us to remember that this is True Detective? Again, Season 3’s reference to Season 1 was a brief acknowledgement of that case, and that was it. We didn’t dwell on it.

Perhaps these were just connections and Easter Eggs, but if Season 2 managed to stand on its own without acknowledging the first season, why does Night Country feel the need to crowbar in so many references if there’s no need for them? We didn’t need the namedrop of Tuttle United? And if Clark was going to repeat one of Rust’s lines from Season 1, could he have not picked probably Rust’s most famous line?

At least Peter’s vet cousin and Oliver Tagaq had the right idea and decided to peace out.

I don’t care about whether Navarro is actually live or dead at the end of the season. When Liz said during the deposition that some questions don’t have answers, I was reminded of a line from Tyrion in Game of Thrones’ last season: “I don’t imagine thinking about that subject will leave you any happier than before.” This was after “The Long Night,” and felt like a meta response to viewers who had so many questions.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m going to compliment Season 2’s finale over this one. As much as I think Season 2 struggled to find its footing, it found its stride and I think “Omega Station” is a pretty good finale, even if a bit of a downer.

Night Country starts off with an intriguing mystery, and I maintain that the cold and dark Alaska nights established a good tone and setting. The first four episodes of this season, I was with, but episodes five and six of this season left a sour taste in my mouth.

Since the first season, each new installment of True Detective has tried and failed to live up to the high bar that the first season set. But for the flaws that Season 2 and 3 had, they stuck the landing at the end. Night Country, which began as something other than a True Detective series, fails to deliver a satisfying conclusion and panders hard to viewers who still hold the first season in high regard.

Despite some fine acting from Jodie Foster and Kali Reis, I cannot recommend Night Country in its entirety. The first four episodes are good, but it’s just these last two episodes where the season lost me. So, is there anything at all in Night Country worth watching at all?

Well, reader, you’re just not asking the right question yet. Watch at your own discretion. If you enjoyed Night Country, more power to you. You certainly found more enjoyment out of this than I ever will. I guess we’ll have to wait and see if we ever do get a fifth season. But for now, thanks for following along, keep on watching plenty of television- except this season- and take care.