Welp, We’ve Got Another Creep To Think About in ‘True Detective: Night Country’
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The following story contains spoilers for the fourth episode, "Part 4," of True Detective: Night Country.
WITH EPISODE 4 of True Detective: Night Country, we've taken a full step into the back half of HBO's latest grisly dark mystery (unlike the franchise's first three installments, Night Country will run for only six parts), and there are a few different directions this thing could go. With only two episodes remaining to wrap things up, there are a lot of loose ends; just off the dome, we've got the central mystery of what happened to the men in the Tsalal station, the mystery of what happened to Anne K. six years ago, and some kind of closure as to what happened in Liz Danvers' (Jodie Foster) history with her (presumably deceased) husband and son.
There are a number of mysterious characters who have yet to fully pay dividends as well, including the man who was hunting all the animals in the tundra during the season's very first scene, Oliver Tagaq (introduced in Episode 3), and even William Wheeler, who one way or another wound up dead after Danvers' and Navarro's (Kali Reis) final case together.
I'm not at a place to start doubting Night Country, because for all these open-ended pieces that have remained on the chess board, it's still been entertaining each week to watch Danvers and Navarro develop as characters, the slow burn of the story, and the creepy, dark, X-Files-style aesthetic and mood. But"Part 4" brings another loose end character into the mix—a very creepy-looking fellow by the name of Otis Heiss—and it certainly gets us to raise an eyebrow. And with just two episodes left to wrap all of this up, we're eager to see what direction things start going.
And, thankfully, by the end of "Part 4," the introduction of Heiss does seem to be headed somewhere. After the character is introduced, essentially, as a man of mystery early on in the episode, he surfaces by the end of the hour in a jacket that looks just like Anne's/Raymond's (with that smiley face patch on the arm) hiding away in an old dredge (an antiquated piece of machinery typically used during gold mining in Alaska).
It's not clear just how big a role Otis Heiss will play in the rest of the season, but it seems like at the very least he will serve as a human 'THIS WAY' arrow for the home stretch of Night Country's mystery.
Stream True Detective: Night Country Here
Who is Otis Heiss in True Detective: Night Country?
The character of Otis Heiss is introduced early on in "Part 4" as Peter Prior (Finn Bennett)—again proving to be a far more capable officer than his higher-ranking dad (John Hawkes)—pulls a report of an injury Otis, a German national who was then 27, suffered back in 1998; his corneas were burnt, his eardrums were ruptured, and he bit himself. These details are remarkably similar to what happened to Anders Lund, the Tsalal scientist who survived whatever happened to everyone else (other than Raymond Clark) only to deliver a creepy, cryptic message to Navarro during the conclusion of "Part 3."
After his incident, Heiss became a drifter and an addict, showing up on various police reports for things like disorderly conduct and eventually largely vanishing. Danvers and Navarro make it their priority to track him down.
With Heiss in the back of their minds, Danvers and Navarro continue looking into the case, particularly the video they found of Anne K. being attacked by something in what apears to be an ice cave, and screaming. When they go to the home of an expert (who, of course, Danvers has to tip-toe around a little bit because she's been involved in a bit of an affair with him), they discover a vital piece of information: there are ice caves nearby, but they've been closed for years after recent collapses. However, there were maps drawn of them by a man named Otis Heiss.
That means that there's connective tissue between all three of these parties: Anders Lund (who was part of the Tsalal research station group) had the same injuries as Otis Heiss. Otis Heiss spent long enough time in the ice caves to draw up maps of them. And Anne K. was, seemingly, in the ice caves when she was attacked or hurt by something.
By the end of the episode, Danvers and Navarro get a tip about a wandering man who they think is Raymond because of the jacket with the smiley face patch. It turns out to be Heiss, who has locked himself away in a tundra-set dredge, and is terrified when Danvers shines her flashlight on him; whatever he's been through, it's been a lot.
She asks him where he got the jacket, and specifically about Clark. He answers that Clark has gone "back down to hide," and says that he's, specifically, in "the night country" (insert a Leo pointing meme here). In fact, they're "all in the night country now," Heiss claims.
While all of this has been going on—specifically in the second half of the episode—Navarro has really been going through it. Her familial struggles hit a peak earlier in the episode when her sister was able to walk out of the facility she was placed in and drown herself; the resilience that Navarro has shown throughout just about the whole season has suddenly been replaced by a feeling of inevitability that the same "curse" that affected her mother and sister would eventually come for her as well.
After Heiss' surprising and shocking claims to Danvers about the Night Country, the two officers link up once again, Navarro having just had another jump scare like the one she had when the pair were at William Wheeler's house.
What is the Night Country? Is it something literally supernatural? Is it a cursed, ongoing mental illness or affliction that is simply haunting the long-term residents of Ennis, Alaska? That's the mystery being set up, and we've got two more episodes left to see where all of this really ends up going.
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