In 2014, actor Matthew McConaughey “reinvented” himself in Hollywood, successfully starring in the True Detective series on HBO and winning an Oscar for Best Actor for Dollar Buyers Club, in a calculated positioning strategy that became known as “‘McConaughaissance”. This is because he achieved stardom in the late 1990s as a potential dramatic actor, but then he made a series of romantic films – some even successful – being so marked by his personal life rather than his career – that it seemed impossible to regain his credibility. In this process he created an iconic character and undoubtedly the most famous of his career: Rust Cohle, the tormented, philosophical and brilliant detective from True Detective. It seems that fans can hope for its return because the new stage of True Detective on HBO Max, the season of True Detective Night Country had already been announced before that it would have references to the 1st season, but in fact, it is actually linked to it, bringing including the greatest connection we wanted, the possibility of crossing paths with Rust Cohle again.

The second episode doesn’t travel through time or put its foot on the gas. We are still with Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Navarro (Kali Reis) trying to decipher the clues of the two cases that were clearly interconnected, with the two finally making an agreement to join forces. There is still nothing concrete that can explain how part of the group of scientists disappeared from their research center to be found frozen and naked in the middle of nowhere. One of them was inexplicably still alive (he is now in a medically induced coma and cannot help) and another was missing. Nothing was recorded on the cell phone so Danvers has to solve the puzzle with very little. As she says, she needs to answer the questions that still don’t have an answer (hey, which one does?) to direct the investigation.

There is less supernatural in this episode, but everything is still under the aura of something that is not physical. What is clear to us is that they are shouting that there is something rotten in the local water (ending with Florence + The Machine singing Seven Devils) and if you, like me, thought that Travis’s dancing ghost was reminiscent of Rust now it’s calmer: he really was Travis Cohle, Rust’s FATHER. Yes, as we knew from the first season Rust spent time in Alaska, with his sick father. Who confirms the connection is Travis’ ex-girlfriend, Rose (Fiona Shaw), who has the ability and tranquility to deal with the dead.

Rose explains to Navarro about her visions of Travis and how common the dead in Ennis are. In Travis’ case, he killed himself after giving up fighting Cancer, but the reason he was the one to point out where the bodies were is still open, perhaps his peace was disturbed? The fact is that his suicide was by drowning in freezing water, so it is another sign of the importance of this information in the enigma.

Navarro and Danvers’ personal lives, both using sex as a means of de-stressing, put them more in tune than they know. From the mystery in hand, there are details of the episode:

• As Navarro finds the men’s clothes neatly folded and lined up next to their shoes near where the frozen researchers were found, there is the possibility that they were forced to strip naked and pile them up as part of an intricate ritual by the alleged killer, which the submerged underwater, burning his corneas.
  
• The ruptured eardrums may have been caused by the depth of the water when they drowned.
  The fact that they were found on the surface suggests that the killer wanted them to be discovered by authorities.
  
• There is a hypothesis that the researchers were in a state of delirium due to extreme hypothermia and therefore took off their clothes (mistaking the cold for heat), so whoever killed them submerged them in ice water and then removed them before waiting for them to freeze to death.

• The fact that there was a survivor suggests that although they had been missing for days, the researchers were frozen just hours before they were located.
  The Tsalal researchers wanted to sequence the DNA of an extinct microorganism that could prevent cell decay.
  
• The spiral is a symbol that connects all the crimes (and the two seasons of True Detective). the researchers had spirals tattooed on their foreheads (and the missing survivor, on their chests) and Danvers still doesn’t know if it was the killer who made the drawing before killing them. In the 1st season of the franchise, the cult of the Yellow King demanded that spirals be drawn on their victims before killing them.
  
• The Tsalal research center is funded by an NGO which, in turn, is linked to a shell company called NC Global Strategies, owned by Tuttle United. Only prodigious memories would remember, but yes, it’s from the same Tuttle family that in season 1 was exposed as the main force behind the cult of the Yellow King.

The possible – or we could already say the probable – return or appearance of Rust Cohle is more than constructed, which would make it a coincidence that he is in Louisiana and Alaska where the Tuttle family conducts their strange business. The design of everything seems extremely personal to me.

There are only six episodes and in two there was no feeling of rush. There is something rotten and sinister in the lands of Alaska, but the detectives, now united, are on the right path.

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