‘True Detective’ Star Kali Reis Explains Navarro’s ‘Night Country’ Ending

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for True Detective: Night Country Season 4, Episode 6, “Part 6.”]

True Detective: Night Country finally saw daybreak for Detectives Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) as the mystery behind Annie K’s (Nivi Pedersen) death was solved.

But their ending goes far beyond the solving of Annie’s murder as the women were forced to confront their own traumas to move forward in life. After arriving at the ice caves Otis Heiss (Klaus Tange) pointed out on a map to Danvers in Episode 5, she and Navarro descended into the narrow channels below the surface in search of Annie’s murder site.

Falling through some thin ice even further below ground, they come face-to-face with elusive scientist Raymond Clark (Owen McDonnell) and chase him into an underground lab that happens to be located beneath Tsalal Research Station. It’s here that Danvers and Navarro recognize the location as the site of Annie’s murder, and a star-shaped drill matches the stab wounds found on the woman’s body.

Climbing a ladder in the ice lab, Danvers and Navarro find themselves back in Tsalal, where they play a game of cat and mouse with Clark. Eventually, they manage to tie him up and force him to watch Annie’s death video on a loop until he’ll talk to them. But Navarro and Danvers’ progress is halted by the ensuing storm outside which cuts off their communication and eventually the power in the station.

(Credit: HBO)

Once Clark finally speaks, he reveals that Annie uncovered Tsalal’s true research, which involved drilling into the permafrost for life-changing material. But instead of falsifying pollution reports for Silver Sky Mining company, Clark claims that the scientists were pushing for the mine to produce more pollutants for better-extracting material from the permafrost. As a result of the mines and Tsalal’s request, the groundwater was so polluted, that it caused cancer, stillborns, and more turmoil for Ennis’ Indigenous community. Annie’s realization of this led her to destroy Tsalal’s underground lab and research. When the scientists discovered this, they attacked her collectively stabbing and beating her. But Clark was the one to stifle her final breaths before her body was moved.

With Clark’s confession finally out in the open though, Navarro and Danvers try to understand what happened to the scientists whose death remains a mystery. As Danvers and Navarro hunker down for the night though, they’re haunted by their pasts. Amid the chaos, Clark kills himself by stepping out into the icy landscape barely clothed, perishing similarly to his colleagues at the start of the season. Angered at losing their only witness in Annie’s death, Danvers unloads on Navarro who finds herself in a trance-like state leading to an important personal breakthrough when she learns her Iñupiaq name from her mother during one of her visions.

The moment is something the entire season was building toward as Reis tells TV Insider, “She’s been waiting for her name and she didn’t even really know it. She finally feels that she has a solid place to be and belongs to the community. Navarro wasn’t sure of who she was. She didn’t have a fearful bone in her body, but she was unsure and didn’t understand.”

(Credit: HBO)

When it came to the supernatural side of learning her true name and understanding herself, Reis says Navarro “wanted to stay away from that, especially after seeing what it did to her mom and her sister. I think that is one of the most powerful moments in the entire series to understand what it really means for her to hear what her name is. Names in the Indigenous communities have so much meaning and so much power. So it is what the audience and the Navarro have been waiting for and she didn’t even really know it.”

Following Navarro out onto the ice, Danvers almost dies when she sees a vision of her late son Holden and breaks through it. When Navarro saves her though, Danvers gives into the woman’s connections to the dead, asking what Holden had told the detective in her vision in a past episode. Navarro tells Danvers the little boy mentioned that he sees his mom sometimes. It’s an emotional moment, but brings the colleagues closer together.

“They are mirrors of each other,” Reis says. “I think that Navarro’s patiently waiting for Danvers to finally catch up. And I think that they have the ability to bring out the best and the worst of each other, but they’re the only ones that can do that with each other.” It’s through this shared experience that Reis says, “they go through this death and rebirth with one another. They save each other’s lives and show up to finally [solve this mystery with] a new perspective. I don’t think they would’ve been able to understand it until they went through that together.”

(Credit: HBO)

When they’re left to their own devices, they can’t help but wonder about the scientists’ mysterious demise remembering that Clark claimed it was Annie who came for them, but fingerprints left behind on the hatch lead Danvers and Navarro to the front door of Blair Hartman (Kathryn Wilder), the victim from Navarro’s domestic call in Episode 1. The woman and her colleague from the factory, along with several of the community’s other women collect to share a story in which they knew Tsalal’s scientists were responsible for Annie’s death and decided to seek vengeance themselves having observed and heard things during their time working as cleaners at the station.

A flashback sees them enter the facility, cutting the power, and forcing the men out into a waiting truck which drives them out into the middle of the freezing landscape. Once they stop, the women force them to get out of the truck and tell them to strip. As the men run off into the night, the ladies fold their clothes and leave it at that. It still doesn’t explain their demise though as one of the storytellers noted the men could have returned for their clothes.

Navarro and Danvers decide to leave it be, after all, “it’s just a story.” Still, Danvers believes they’re without proof of Annie’s murder, but Navarro leaves behind a phone when she seemingly disappears from Ennis, with a confession tape of Clark on it. He admits to everything, from Annie’s murder to the pollution.

When Danvers is questioned about the case and Navarro’s disappearance, she has an answer for everything, but there isn’t much truth being shared. She claims she hasn’t seen Navarro, but in the closing shot, the women appear together at a cabin that Danvers travels to with step-daughter Leah (Isabella Star LaBlanc). But is Navarro really there? “I love the editing so much because it’s so open-ended,” Reis says of Navarro’s ending.”But it still matches up with the same theme that has been kept on through the whole series from Episode 1, meaning you have your logical, rational, tangible solution that’s going to be shut and closed, and then you have the spiritual unknown and supernatural aspect of it. But it’s all suggestion.”

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“You get to choose if she did follow in her sister’s footsteps,” Reis says, noting how Navarro’s sister Julia (Aka Niviâna) decided to disappear by stepping out into the freezing sea.  “She’s finally done everything she has [to],” Reis adds. But if viewers decide to believe Navarro is really there in the end, “if she stayed, she was finally at peace,” Reis clarifies. “She’s finally at peace to live between the two worlds and be comfortable to walk amongst the living, but also be friendly and understand the dead and the spiritual world.”

In the end, Reis says that Danvers is the only person Navarro would want to have a connection with following this case. “They have a deep respect and love for each other, even though they hate each other,” Reis continues, adding that whether in the real world or spiritual world, Danvers is “the only person she would go see.”

As for the secret tape Navarro left behind of Clark confessing to Tsalal’s crimes, Reis says, “She’s very calculated.” Although she easily could have shot him in the same way she shot Wheeler in her and Danvers’ past case. Reis notes, “She saw the aftermath of what that did to her relationship with Danvers.” Since then, Navarro has done a lot of learning. So, while viewers didn’t see Navarro filming Clark, she made sure the case for Annie’s death could be tied up by securing it. “She knew that that was going to be necessary. If she and Danvers didn’t make it [through the night], at least they got that [tape].”

What did you think of the ending? Let us know in the comments section, below, and stay tuned for more from Reis on the finale.

True Detective: Night Country, Streaming now, Max