True Detective: What Is the Night Country?

The mysteries of True Detective: Night Country keep coming. The fourth episode of the new True Detective season aired on Sunday night and concluded with one of the strangest (and most terrifying) sequences so far. Not only did fans get a glimpse of the chilling entity that characters have been referencing throughout the season, but the episode also name-dropped itself in a reveal that there is potentially an actual "night country" within the story. 

WARNING: This article contains MAJOR spoilers for True Detective: Night Country! Continue reading at your own risk...

There's a lot to unpack in the final minutes of True Detective: Night Country "Part 4." It all revolves around Navarro and Danvers investigating an abandoned dredge out in the frozen tundra. There, they chased a man wearing Annie's pink coat, believing it to be Raymond Clark. It turns out, the man was actually Otis Heiss, someone who suffered similar injuries to the TSALAL researchers years prior.

When Danvers questioned Otis about Raymond, he delivered a chilling message, one that puts a different perspective on the entire season.

"He's gone he went back down to hide," Otis said of Raymond. When pressed for more information, he replied, "He's hiding in the night country. We're all in the night country now."

So whether it's a physical place or — more likely — some sort of realm of existence, "Night Country" wasn't just an attractive title describing the weeks-long period of darkness experienced in Alaska. The night country is an element of the show itself.

We don't yet know what or where the night country is, but it does seem like reality and the spiritual world are colliding in all sorts of ways on True Detective. Otis' words about the night country were edited between Navarro off on her own throughout the dredge. She was following a ghost-like entity, seemingly the same one that appeared to her sister before her death earlier in the episode. She believes it's part of a curse on her family and that she is the next one it's after.

When Danvers finds Navarro, she's staring at a Christmas tree after seeing the ghost, and there is blood coming from her ear. As these two worlds seemingly come together, Otis' words could potentially reference that collision. 

What did you think of True Detective's big reveal? Let us know in the comments!