True Detective
Night Country Pt. 3
Directed by Issa López
Written by Issa López & Alan Page Arriaga

* For a recap & review of Pt. 2, click here.
* For a recap & review of Pt. 4, click here.
A flashback starts this episode. Navarro went to a location where she heard screaming inside. She found Annie Kowtok (Nivi Pedersen) inside, where there was “a birthing centre, the last one in the region.” She was supposed to be there arresting Annie on charges, however, she wound up helping with an ongoing birth. Several doulas were helping a woman called Grace Oopik (Ippiksaut Friesen) have her child. They all encouraged Grace to keep pushing until the baby was birthed. This is the first time we see a real smile on the face of Navarro in the series, as she kind of feels the power of being around a group of women. But there was trouble. The baby wasn’t crying; it wasn’t breathing. Grace was desperate to see her newborn, and things were tense for a while, but finally the child took a breath and began to cry, relieving everyone in the room including Navarro. After the birth, Annie gave herself up to Navarro.
Back to current day, December 22nd and the fifth day of night in Ennis. Cpt. Prior has a bunch of men gathered and Navarro thinks the men are liabilities. Nevertheless, the Captain is the Captain, so he splits people into groups with the purpose of searching for Clark. The men, including Cpt. Prior, assume Clark is the person who murdered the other researchers, but they can’t prove that, not yet anyway. At least Navarro knows that. “We want him alive,” she tells the Captain, except he replies: “Do we?”

Finally, Pete asks about the Wheeler case, the last one Navarro and Danvers worked on together, and this time he gets “one bedtime story.” A man named William Wheeler committed a murder-suicide. He’d been in on all kinds of nasty crimes, from sexual assault to armed robbery. He last beat up an 18-year-old girl, putting her in the hospital a bunch. The girl refused to report Wheeler and he made it out like she’d been drinking, falling down and such. The cops’ hands were tied until one day they received a call that sent them out to Wheeler’s place again. Navarro and Danvers responded but they were too late. Wheeler killed the girl, then shot himself. Now there’s a discrepancy here: we see Wheeler whistling, not dead yet, however, Danvers tells Pete that “they were both dead when we got there.” Danvers says Navarro couldn’t get past it and blamed her, which made things rotten between them after that. Chief Liz isn’t telling the whole truth here. What really happened at the scene that day? It’s obviously something that bothers Danvers.
Despite their tortured history, Danvers and Navarro come back together to look through all the various evidence they have at their disposal. It’s putting together a puzzle without knowing the picture you’re trying to piece together; a puzzle without the box for a guide. The women find themselves in a flat circle; oh yes. They look over everything from above, trying to find anything that jumps out. Danvers notice a few things that give them an idea of a timeline concerning Ray Clark and Annie’s relationship. They wonder why the relationship was secretive. What made them keep it from people? Danvers thinks that might not be true. She notices a candid photo of Clark and Annie, suggesting someone else was there when it was taken. They find another similar photo. A bit of dye on one photo gives them an idea of where to go asking more questions.
Navarro and Danvers go see Susan, who didn’t tell Navarro she knew about the relationship between Annie and Clark. So Evangeline talks with Susan more. The hairdresser says Annie came along once when she went to give the researchers haircuts. Clark and Annie hit it off. From there, a relationship bloomed. The two of them both loved that spiral. Susan says Annie “used to dream” about the spiral. She does say Annie didn’t want anybody to know about the relationship, though. She further mentions a guy named Oliver Tagaq, an equipment engineer who worked at the research station and left right before Annie died. Oliver’s not “looking to be found,” either.

Cpt. Prior apparently already knew about Clark from Susan. So why did he bury it? Navarro’s sure it’s all part of a coverup with the mine and the cops in cahoots. Danvers isn’t so sure since the whole town relies on the mine; it could’ve been anybody who murdered Annie, really. She’s not incorrect, either. But it’s fishy that Cpt. Prior is so concerned about Annie’s case, from this to Peter taking the file. Navarro’s also sure there’s something spooky going on, particularly with the tongue, whereas Danvers dismisses it all as “chupalupa” and “E.T., cosmic” nonsense. “There‘s no magic,” Danvers says. We also get a bit more of a window into Navarro, who mentions praying. It makes Danvers laugh. She’s generally pretty dismissive of spirituality of any kind, it seems. But Navarro trusts in prayer as a form of listening.

At the rink, Navarro lights Cpt. Prior up about not passing on the call about Annie and Clark. Things get heated, so Chief Danvers steps in. But Prior steps over the line by calling Liz “Mrs. Robinson,” acting like she’s somehow seducing Pete; poor ole Pete doesn’t even know the reference, either, bless his heart. Danvers tosses coffee in the Captain’s face. Both the Captain and Navarro leave respectively pissed off: one for the coffee, the other because the Captain is getting away with being a shithead and possibly withholding important info in a murder investigation. It’s all a mess, but Danvers and Pete try to push onward.
Out on the ice, Navarro gets to know Qavvik more, though not by choice. He offers a “quid pro quo” deal: he’ll help Navarro with trying to find Tagaq if she’ll give up more info about herself; he wants to get to know her. He asks about her mother. Navarro says her mom took them away from her abusive father. But mom had issues. One day, mom went out and got killed. The murderer was never found. Sadly, Navarro never knew her original “Iñupiat name.” She was never told by her mother. That’s like never having a piece of your own identity.
Leah goes to a rally of Indigenous folks protesting the mine. When she gets back, she has an argument with Liz, who’s worried about “what happens to those people” who try to sabotage the mine. Liz yells at Leah to go wash off the marker tattoos and the dutiful daughter listens. At the same time, Navarro’s out on the ice when she sees someone in the distance in the dark. It looks like a child. Navarro runs but slips and hits her head. She wakes up somewhere else and feels a child touch her shoulder. There’s wreckage nearby, as well. We don’t see the child, but it’s surely Holden; the boy has a stuffed polar bear with him, like the one we saw at Liz’s house. Then Navarro wakes up. Back at her vehicle, she gets a call about Julia. Her sister’s having an episode. Navarro locates Julia out at an old overturned ship. Julia says she thinks “bad stuff.” At least she has her sister there for comfort.

December 23rd. Sixth day of night in Ennis.
At the rink, a man named Vince, a veterinarian, tells Danvers and Pete he thinks that the men died before they froze. He thinks it was probably cardiac arrest. He can’t actually tell, but it’s an estimated guess. Soon Navarro shows up, having found Tagaq. Apparently the guy’s in a “nomad camp” somewhere along the shore. So that’s exactly where Navarro and Danvers head to look for Tagaq. They’re not quite welcomed at the camp. Navarro tries to be the friendlier of the two and they’re allowed to go knock at Tagaq’s door. She and Danvers go knocking but receive no answer. They can hear the generator going, so they know Tagaq is around. Danvers illegally lets them inside Tagaq’s place and he’s sitting there holding a gun, threatening to shoot if Liz gets any closer. Tagaq asks Navarro her name, but he doesn’t want to know her other name, he wants to know her Indigenous name. Obviously Navarro doesn’t actually know, as we heard earlier. Tagaq says: “Oh, you forgot, didn‘t you? He’s not looking to talk about much with the cops. Then Danvers and Navarro mention his ex-colleagues all being dead, which shakes Tagaq. He orders the women to leave angrily.

The researcher who survived, Dr. Lund, is awake but in horrific shape. All the man can do is scream in pain, mostly. Lund only says: “We woke her. And now she‘s out there in the ice.” Danvers tries to ask more, but Lund can’t respond any further. Suddenly there’s a commotion outside and they’re calling for Navarro and Danvers to deal with it. The hunters are fighting with the cops, so there’s a lot of handcuffing and wrestling. Back at Lund’s room, he sits up and speaks to Evangeline in a deep, eerie voice: “Your mother says hello. She‘s waiting for you.” A very Exorcist moment! He points quietly, then lies back and goes into shock. On top of everything else, Pete managed to crack Annie’s phone. They see a video of Annie saying she “found it.” She looks like she was somewhere covered in ice. Suddenly someone attacks Annie in the video and all she could do was scream.