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True Detective fans are convinced a crossover is on the horizon after a direct link to the first season was revealed in Night Country.
Episode two of the new series – the fourth season of the HBO anthology series – aired on Sunday (January 21) and while reviews were mostly positive, there were some complaints regarding the opening titles and also the show's supernatural themes.
Set in Ennis, Alaska, the series follows two female detectives, Liz Danvers and Evangeline Navarro, played by Jodie Foster and Kali Reis, as they investigate the sudden disappearance of eight men from a research station.
However, those who feel that the series has a much different DNA than previous installments were caught off guard by several references to the first season, which starred Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, in the opening moments of the second episode – and one directly references McConaughey's character, Rustin “Rust” Cohle, to the events of Night Country.
In the first episode of the first season, Rust tells his new partner Marty (Harrelson) that he grew up in Alaska and that his father Travis lived there and had leukemia. In the second episode of “Night Country,” we discover that the ghostly presence that led Ennis resident Rose (Fiona Shaw) to the missing bodies in the snow was her former lover Travis Cohle. She explained that he didn't die of leukemia, but that he walked out in the ice and froze to death.
Not only is Travis related to Rust, but both Travis and Rose have a connection to the spiral symbol engraved on the forehead of one of the corpse spirits that Travis leads Rose to. Fans of True Detective would have immediately recognized this symbol as the spiral that was regularly seen throughout the first season.
The spiral is brought up a few scenes later when Rose asks Navarro, “Have you seen that thing on his forehead?” Interestingly, Navarro tells Rose that she saw the spiral “years ago,” and Rose replies, “It's old , Missy. Older than Ennis. Probably older than the ice.”
It is later revealed that the missing Raymond Clark, who was acting strangely before his disappearance, had the spiral tattooed on his chest and at the end of the episode it is discovered that the symbol was painted on the roof of Clark's van.
This is the same spiral seen on murder victim Dora Lange's back in the first season of True Detective – a symbol that was ultimately linked to the Yellow King, a being worshiped by an evil cult.
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After McConaughey's character, Rustin “Rust” Cohle, discovered the symbol while investigating the case, he ended up seeing the spiral everywhere he went before solving the case.
The spiral from the first season of “True Detective” has returned to “Night Country.”
(HBO)
So could Rust appear in True Detective: Night Country? That's entirely possible – and the fact that McConaughey is listed as an executive producer on True Detective: Night Country makes it even more likely.
Another cryptic reference to the Yellow King that connects this series of the anthology to the first season has been discovered by fans and praised by Night Country creator, writer and director Issa López.
She wrote: “Someone is paying some serious attention.”
True Detective: Night Country can be seen on Max in the US, Sky Atlantic in the UK and NOW