True Detective: Night Country Finale Reveals Who Killed Annie K. and the Scientists

The themes and ideas of True Detective are often big, vague, and designed to make you think. The murder cases at the center of the seasons, however, are an exception. While very little over the course of the season gets explained, there's at least some closure about the specifics of the killings that kickstart each season's events. True Detective: Night Country is no different, and Sunday night's season finale solved both of the cases that have been investigated over the last six episodes. The show revealed exactly what happened to Annie K. years before the events of Night Country, as well as what happened to the researchers from TSALAL. As many suspected, the two cases were directly linked.

WARNING: This article contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the season finale of True Detective: Night Country! Continue reading at your own risk...

In the timeline of the series, Annie K. was killed years before the TSALAL scientists turned up frozen together in the corpsicle. Their deaths, however, were completely connected. In fact, it was the scientists that killed Annie in the first place, that includes her secret lover Raymond Clark.

Annie discovered that TSALAL was working with the mining company to poison the water in Ennis. The chemicals from the mines allowed for an easier extraction of the organisms the researchers were studying, so they deliberately messed up the numbers for the mining company, making it look like they weren't doing anything harmful. All of their most important research was kept beneath a secret door that opened up into frozen caves. 

When Annie learned about the pollution, she went into the cave and destroyed all of the research, setting TSALAL back years. All of the scientists came down to stop her and repeatedly stabbed her in the process. Clark suffocated her to bring it all to an end. It was also revealed that Hank Prior helped cover it all hop, as he was the one who moved her body and took the attention away from TSALAL.

What goes around comes around, and it was the death of Annie that ultimately cost the scientists their lives. The group of women who cleaned the station banded together to get justice for Annie. When Raymond said, "She's awake," he was actually referring to Annie, thinking she was coming back to haunt them. While we don't know for sure how much supernatural activity was involved, we do know how the men died.

The women arrived at the station fully armed, and rounded up all of the researchers into a box truck. Clark was the only exception, as he hid beneath the trap door and held it shut from the other side. The truck was driven out into the snow and the men were instructed to remove all of their clothes and walk out into the darkness. 

What happened after that is more of a mystery, as we never see what else the men come upon before their deaths. But the reason they left the facility in such a rush and ultimately died was their earlier choice to kill Annie.

What did you think of the True Detective: Night Country finale? Let us know in the comments!