\n<\/p>\n
There are two historical enigmas that overtly inspired<\/a> True Detective<\/em> season four, subtitled Night Country:<\/em> that of the Mary Celeste<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> a 19th-century American ship whose entire crew seemed to evaporate into thin air while the vessel was on a voyage to Italy; and the 1959 Dyatlov Pass incident<\/a>, a case involving nine Soviet hikers who inexplicably abandoned their campsite, then froze to death in the nearby wilderness. But even beyond those, showrunner Issa L\u00f3pez<\/strong> has stocked her chilly saga with references to culture, history, and true crime that both reinforce the themes of Night Country<\/em> and draw a straight line between it and True Detective<\/em>\u2019s rich past, particularly the show\u2019s zeitgeist-grabbing 2014 first season.<\/p>\n Below, you\u2019ll find some of the most tantalizing allusions and Easter eggs we could tease out of the season\u2019s first two episodes, titled simply \u201cPart 1\u201d and \u201cPart 2.\u201d We\u2019ll update the list as subsequent episodes are released each Sunday.<\/p>\n Yes, you heard right: Fiona Shaw<\/strong>\u2019s Rose was in fact romantically involved with Travis Cohle, father of Rust Cohle, who died sometime before our story began. We should have seen this coming. In True Detective<\/em> season one, Rust claimed that his enigmatic dad raised him in Alaska. According to Rust, the elder Cohle knocked up Rust\u2019s mother while on leave from the Army, went back to Vietnam, and returned when little Rust was two years old. \u201cThen she hauled ass, and he and I moved to Alaska,\u201d he continued. \u201cHe was a survivalist, I guess you’d call it. Had some very fucking strange ideas.\u201d You\u2019re telling us, pal.<\/p>\n Rust went on to explain that because he couldn\u2019t handle the cold, as an adult, he headed back to his home state of Texas. \u201cMy old man always made like I let him down that way,\u201d he said. \u201cSaid I had no loyalty.\u201d And now we can see that Travis apparently loved Alaska so much that his ghost still resides there, even years after the elder Cohle\u2019s death from leukemia.<\/p>\n Intentionally or not, when she floats the idea of bringing the corpsicle to a bigger city with more resources\u2014before again claiming ownership over the Tsalal case\u2014Danvers echoes one of the more memorable lines from Jodie Foster<\/strong>\u2019s most intensely quotable movie: \u201cTake this thing<\/em> back to Baltimore!\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n After teasing the answer last week, Peter Prior revealed in episode two who\u2019s really funding Tsalal: an NGO, run by a shell company called NC Global Strategies, which in turn belongs to a company called Tuttle United. What do they do, asks Danvers? Everything, says Peter: \u201cGlass, tech, video games, shipments, palm oil, cruise lines\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Danvers doesn\u2019t think this information is helpful, but that must be because she didn\u2019t watch True Detective<\/em> season one. There, we learned that the powerful Tuttle family was also behind the pedophilic, Yellow King\u2013worshiping sex cult that fueled the assault and murder of Dora Lange and countless others. So if you weren\u2019t yet convinced that there\u2019s something fishy about Tsalal, consider this name-drop to be a big red flag. (Incidentally\u2014did you know that an actual pedophilic sex scandal involving a Louisiana church may have inspired<\/a> season one\u2019s storyline? You can read more about the Hosanna Church scandal here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Navarro and her sister, Julia, go shopping at a convenience store called Ukalliq Market. \u201cUkalliq\u201d means \u201csnowshoe hare\u201d<\/a> in I\u00f1upiaq, the language which most of the show\u2019s Native characters speak\u2014maybe not a clue, but a fun fact nonetheless. Qavvik, by the way\u2014the name of Navarro\u2019s sort-of boyfriend, played by Joel Montgrand<\/strong>\u2014means \u201cwolverine.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Remember the spirals we spotted last week? They\u2019re back in episode two, in a big way: drawn on one corpse\u2019s forehead, and tattooed on both Annie K. and Raymond Clark. \u201cWhat is that, a cult sign?\u201d asks the Tsalal station\u2019s cleaning woman\u2014a reference to the way the spiral was used in True Detective<\/em> season one. But Rose thinks it\u2019s something a lot more ancient than that. \u201cIt\u2019s old, missy,\u201d she tells Navarro. \u201cOlder than Ennis. Older than the ice, probably.\u201d We\u2019ll see just how key it winds up being to Night Country<\/em>\u2019s mystery in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n The show\u2019s first episode begins with a stark epigraph: \u201c\u2026For we do not know what beasts the night dreams when its hours grow too long for even God to be awake.\u201d The text is attributed to Hildred Castaigne, a name that might be familiar to True Detective<\/em> season one die-hards. Hildred is the protagonist of a short story found in Robert W. Chambers\u2019s 1895 collection The King in Yellow,<\/em> a key influence<\/a> on Nic Pizzolatto<\/strong>\u2019s original True Detective.<\/em><\/p>\n More specifically, Hildred is the unreliable narrator of a story called \u201cThe Repairer of Reputations.\u201d<\/a> He\u2019s a delusional figure who believes himself to be the heir to a royal dynasty that descends from the stars and is driven mad, in part, by reading a fictional play also titled The King in Yellow.<\/em> The story ends with him confessing to two murders, followed by an \u201ceditor\u2019s note\u201d that simply reads, \u201cMr. Castaigne died yesterday in the Asylum for the Criminally Insane.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\nPART 2<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Travis Cohle<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\u201cWe Should Send This Thing Back to Anchorage\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Follow the Money<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Language Lesson<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Spirals on Spirals on Spirals<\/strong><\/h2>\n
PART 1<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The Yellow King<\/strong><\/h2>\n