“True Detective” Season 4 Night Country Episode 1: HBO Original presents a six-episodic psychological murder investigation series. It’s the fourth part of the “True Detective” anthology series. It’s a completely new story starring Detective Liz Danvers and her partner Evangeline Navarro.
In this article, we are gonna discuss the recap of episode 1. But before starting it, let’s know about the story of this series “Night Country.” Night Country is set in an unreal event that happened in Ennis city, far from Alaska. A group of eight scientists disappeared from the research facility. Liz Danvers, along with her partner Evangeline Navarro, started investigating this and also unfolding some dark pasts of their lives. After the massive success of Season 1 of True Detective, Season 2 somehow failed to meet our expectations. But Season 4 brings that same unreal event.
Episode 1 starts with a quote by “Hildred Castaigne,” which is: “… For we do not know what beasts the night dreams when its hours grow too long for even God to be awake.” Then the atmosphere changes into a terrible cold. We see Alaska, which is 150 miles north of the Arctic Circle. December 16, the last sunset of the year, sets the stage for something unusual. A man in the cold mountain tries to hunt deer but sees their unnatural behavior when the sun sets. Their behavioral change must be setting up something really bad.
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After this scene, we see a research facility in the middle of the coldest place, “Tsalal: Arctic Research Station” in Ennis, a fictional city in Alaska. A man named “Clark” alerts everyone by saying, “She’s awake.” Then the lights go off…
December 20, the 3rd day of the night. A delivery man comes to the research center, asking everyone to come out because he brings food for everyone. But the whole research facility becomes empty as nobody is inside. All the men are missing. The only thing that fell there was a cut tongue. Now, the question is, from where does it come? Where are the researchers gone? Who’s awake now? To find out the answers to these questions, we have to watch the series.
After the title sequence, Detective Liz Danvers and Evangeline Navarro are appointed to this mysterious incident. She reaches the facility and sees the TV turned on with music playing in the background. As she doesn’t like music at all, she first somehow turns off the TV.
Then she gets a brief of the incident. The place is actually a research center based on climate change. We get the names of the missing people: “Ralph Emerson (Geology),” “Anton Kotov (Geophysics),” “Li Jie (Geobiology),” “Raymond Clark (Paleo Microbiology),” “Lucas Merens (Environmental Chemistry),” “Facundo Molino & Veer Mehta (Biophysics),” and finally, Anders Lund (Founder-Director, Structural Biology). They live a different life far from the world. On a whiteboard, someone has written “We are all dead.” It may be just 48 hours since the disappearance. Liz Danvers takes out the tongue to get details of whose tongue it is. In the research, Liz Danvers is with Duo Hank & Peter Prior. Basically, Duo Hank & Peter Prior are father & son.
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Later, we see a scene where an old woman is cutting down a snow wolf, and then she sees a man standing near her. It’s a bit unusual to watch that woman. The old woman says “Hello Travis.” Later, we see a human body also. But those bodies are really unusual & horrific. He takes her into an unknown place of this cold & starts doing some unnatural behavior which is really spine-chilling. Later, he indicates some place by showing his hand.
Liz Danvers finally meets Evangeline Navarro. Evangeline is an Inupiaq origin woman who is actually a state trooper. Previously, they worked together on the investigation of a woman named “Annie K,” means Anne Masu Kowtok. She was a midwife and activist who was found stabbed & her tongue cut off. Evangeline thinks that the tongue is of that same lady, but who can be possible? Liz found this tongue inside the facility is something two days old. But Navarro believes in her assumptions. She thinks it’s the tongue of an Inupiaq girl, so it might be Annie’s. Liz asks for the files of Annie’s from Peter, and then she gets a call from Kerri Gillard, mother of Sheri.
After that, we see the personal life of Liz Danvers with her stepdaughter Leah, who is only 15 years old. Leah is filming videos with her girlfriend while having sex. Liz is worrying about this video as it could go viral. Liz confesses that her girlfriend Liz is 16 years old. But Leah says she didn’t upload it. While arguing with her daughter, Liz meets with an accident. In this scene, she gets flashbacks of her past days. Found out in the card, there is actually a drunk driver named “Stacy.” What happened to her? & Most importantly, what sort of flashes Liz saw? Let’s know it.
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We later find out a dark past of Danvers’s life: she lost her child while asleep in the past. In the middle of the night, she got a voice of a young boy named Holden, which creates a horrific atmosphere, a young hand awakens her & gives a message that “She’s awake.” We found a strange link because at the starting point we also got the same message from a man. After her dream is broken, she finds a doll of a bear with one eye broken.
In the middle of the night, she starts finding common links between the missing people & also Annie. She found a picture of Clark who is wearing a Parka, which is exactly what Annie is wearing in a photo. A minor difference is a smiley yellow patch that was ripped. After watching this, she goes to the research facility to see what’s going on there.
On the other side, Navarro is fighting with her own life. She never completes any investigation. She meets with Ryan to talk about her sister Annie. Annie was protesting for the mine workers, but she got nothing & was badly stabbed. Ryan asks her if she believes in God or not? Navarro says yes, and then she gets some flashes of her past life. An incident that makes her connect with God. But in this episode, it’s not shown; hopefully, we find more in the upcoming episode.
Later, Navarro gets a call from Cooper. Then, we find the sister of Navarro, Jules. She was suffering from some kind of paranoia mental disorder. But, Jules thinks that she got affected by their mother. Navarro has her own run-in with the cryptic Omen. She was talking with someone who was involved in Annie’s case. Then the radio breaks & a strange female voice gives her a warning. Suddenly, a polar bear with one good eye appears in front of her car. The bear looks horrific & indicates something strange. Because the bear is exactly like what Liz Danvers found in her home after she heard Holden’s voice.
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We also see the life of Peter with his wife Kayla & Darwin. Darwin listens to stories from his grandmother & knows about the story of local cultures. At midnight while he was busy with his wife got a walk from Liz. She asked her to bring the old files of Annie’s from his father’s house.
Liz started to discuss the case of Anne with Peter. The body of Anne was found near the village, known as Annie K. She got stabbed 32 times with a sharpened unknown object. As she started to protest against mines, the whole villagers became her opponents. Later, Liz & Peter started discussing this case. Liz secretly investigates this case as she thinks Navarro has some kind of connection with this lady. Liz thinks she will never find the killer of Anne. We also see that Liz plays a fantasy football game & placed her own teams, a kind of personal interest.
While Liz Danvers went to the research facility to find the coat of Annie’s, she found Navarro also there. Then they both started investigating together. They also found a man named Raymond Clark who has the same coat that Annie is wearing. They are unable to find out the Parka coat. As Navarro saw the dead body of Annie, which was in really terrific condition. Navarro thinks that the people of this town were actually showing their racism. Right then, when they are arguing, Peter called Liz & informed that the Chopper found something in the ice. Suddenly, the light flashes off.
They found that woman whom we saw earlier named “Rose Aguineau.” As she found out something. Liz & Navarro went there & asked Rose how she found them? Rose replied Travis showed her. Then we got some really spine-chilling information because Travis is actually dead according to Navarro. The whole ending sequence happened very fast & in a dramatic way.
While they are searching for the Parka coat of Annie’s in the Tsalal research facility, they got the call from Peter that Aguineau is seeing something. They saw, in an unknown area in the middle of the ice, their bodies are clumped together under the whiteness. It looks like the three bodies are lying with their mouths open.
This is how episode 1 ended. The fourth franchise of True Detective turned into something unnatural & horrific. The sudden disappearance of scientists connects the murder of a midwife named Annie’s, some few years ago. And most importantly, we saw some supernatural events which make this series not a simple investigation drama. It’s beyond our imagination. Let’s see what’s cooking in the next episode.
The first episode of “True Detective: Night Country” is currently streaming now on JioCinema with Hindi & English language along with subtitles.
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