What a horrible season piggybacking under the exceptional title of "True Detective".
There was nothing TD in this season.
Garbage writing and directing, full of plotholes and goofs. Cinematography was decent, acting ok from Foster, this former boxer lady was cringey.
On to this episode:
Danvers and Navarro are in such a hurry to investigate the caves-in a storm, no less-that they leave Peter to clean up not only the corpse of the junky, Otis, but his own father who he just killed. He has to clean this up and then visit Rose, who is apparently just perfectly happy to help the poor young man cover up these deaths.
Danvers and Navarro go break through the ice and of course make it directly into the tunnel system nobody but the teacher guy had ever heard about somehow. They fall through to a lower section where-shocker of all shockers!-they run into Raymond Clark, the lone survivor of the scientists. They pursue him and come to a science room that we soon learn is directly below Tsalal station. Did I just miss how close they were to Tsalal? Because it seems like they walked about fifty meters or so and are directly beneath the base. Wtf.
They follow Clark up into the station and eventually catch him. At this point they have never spoken with him about what happened to Annie or the other scientists so naturally they sit him down and start asking questions. Oh wait, nevermind, they take the loop of Annie screaming and tape the earbuds to his ears so that he has to sit there hearing the sounds of the woman he loved screaming and probably dying over and over again. Danvers and Navarro have him tied to a chair and just leave him there to be tortured while they go have another tedious conversation. For all they know, remember, he was completely innocent in her death.
After he's been properly tortured they decide it's time to ask the right questions and go back to do that, though there's a confusing segment where it seems like they're just going to kill him instead, but then decide that maybe he'd actually make a valuable witness with the whole mine / Tsalal stuff. Crazy police masterminds we have here!
Clark reveals how Annie discovered what they were doing, which was actually pushing the mine to pollute as much as possible because it made the permafrost softer so that they could get to the miracle organism they were investigating. She tried to destroy their research and was caught and stabbed to death, though Raymond didn't participate.
When Raymond Clark said "Time is a flat circle" I had to restrain myself from scratching my face off. You got to be kidding with me.
They're basically stuck at Tsalal during the ice storm and at one point Navarro walks off into the ice (because that's what they do in Ennis) but then Danvers falls through into the icy water and Navarro somehow shows up in time to save her and warms her by a fire all while Danvers is still wearing the same wet and cold clothes.
Then they realize that it was the cleaning ladies who killed the scientists and since I guess the blizzard is no longer an issue, they go to where I guess all the women involved in scientists' deaths are conveniently hanging out. (Unlike previous seasons, which often have investigations that span many years or even decades, this one is wrapped up in two weeks!)
Navarro and Danvers decide to cover up the whole thing, which basically just involved all these "Badass" Cleaning Ladies SEAL Team showing up to Tsalal and turning off the power (and Raymond randomly saying "she's awake!" for no reason) and then rounding up the scientists at gunpoint, driving them out into the ice, forcing them to strip and then run off into the night. Where they froze to death. They blame this on a spirit who, had it been merciful, would have let the men survive. I blame it on the women forcing them all out there at gunpoint and making them strip and run off into the ice. I guess the vet was wrong and the dudes really did just die by freezing to death.
Jesus christ.
The mine company wanted all of this covered up. Well it looks like the mine will get its way. Everybody wants it all covered up.
In the end, we get a little nod to earlier seasons with them interviewing Danvers about what happened and where Navarro and Hank disappeared to. It's all just wildly unsatisfying as far as resolution goes. None of the cringey supernatural stuff paid off.
The scientists murdered Annie, which was the first theory almost everyone had. People had guessed that the cleaning ladies were responsible for the scientists' deaths but the way it went down just came across as a massive, unearned head-fake that tried to have its supernatural cake and eat it, too.
Danvers and Navarro end up being some of the worst police on this show, turning directly to torture the moment they find the guy they've been searching for - not to mention leaving poor Peter to deal with his dead father.
I'm not sure how anybody walks away from this finale thinking it worked. None of the more interesting fan theories came true. As far as the murder mysteries of the scientists and Annie go, neither was much of a mystery at all.
If there is ever going to be season 5, I really, really hope we get to see Nic back in the writers' chair.
Only good thing about this season is, that it's over.
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