True Detective has returned in 2024 with what is its fourth season. The acclaimed series has also done it through the front door. Polar Night is being greatly celebrated by fans thanks to a very strange new case in which the supernatural is present again. And, in addition, it has important connections with previous seasons. The most obvious and transcendental, the disastrous spiral that has caused so many headaches for ten years.
In True Detective: Polar Nightthe detectives Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) must investigate a mysterious event in Ennis, Alaska. Eight researchers from the Tsalal Research Station disappeared in the middle of the night. Their bodies appeared frozen and naked in the ice, but they indicated that they had actually been victims of some attack. And, if that were not enough, everything seems to connect with the murder of Annie K.an indigenous woman from the area, six years ago.
Under that prize, True Detective It could very well have moved away from the previous three seasons and focused on one new independent story. However, from the first episode, the sinister spiral began to make an appearance. The most obvious thing is that, on the one hand, one of the researchers’ corpses appeared with it tattooed on its forehead. But, on the other hand, it turns out that Annie He also had it tattooed on his back. Something that, after her death, she transferred to someone else.
Before she died, Annie had a secret romantic relationship with another of the station’s researchers, Raymond Clark. When she was murdered, he became so obsessed that he even tattooed it on her chest. But the madness did not stop there, because at the end of the second chapter his caravan is discovered. In it, dozens of symbols and wool dolls “decorate” the interior. All of this is crowned by a doll that could serve as a representation of the deceased. Annie. And, above it, the same spiral drawn on the enormous ceiling.
The spiral of True Detective: Polar Night
Until now, we do not know what implications the spiral will have in the new installment of True Detective. What has become clear in just three episodes is that it is going to be one of the central axes of the entire season. It all started when Annie He got the tattoo when he was young. According to her friend and hairdresser Susan, this is because the deceased had a recurring dream. “She dreamed it. In high school. Many times. “She got the tattoo and the dream stopped,” it is revealed in the third episode. Her dream about her spiral is not explained, but it is explained that, by capturing it on her skin, it became the remedy to avoid nightmares.
And until now, in True Detective There have been many characters with visions of ghosts and other strange phenomena. In the case of Annie, this would have manifested itself in the form of dreams. The young woman managed to nip it in the bud, but after her death, those phenomena would have been transferred to Ray. Because, although it is not said, it seems clear that it is the spiral—or what it symbolizes—that led to the dementia and extreme obsession that manifests itself in his caravan.
Finally, there is the researcher, fellow Ray, with the spiral tattooed on his forehead after dying frozen in the ice. The connection with the above is still not clear, but one theory suggests that everything has to do with the study they were carrying out at the Tsalal station. The team was searching for a suspected very ancient organism capable of reversing cellular decay. That being may have the shape of a spiral. In episode 2, Rose tells to Navarrese that the symbol is something “older than “older than Ennis and older than ice.” Some words that can refer to that prehistoric creature.
In fact, at the end of the third episode the last moments of Annie with life. The young woman is in a frozen cave. “I’ve found it. It’s here. That’s it, I’ve found it,” she says when, suddenly, her mysterious attacker attacks her and the phone falls to the ground. What the camera seems to focus on is a kind of fossil with the shape, of course, of the spiral. Something or someone does not want this discovery to come to light and that is why they would have also killed the researchers.
Connections to the series’ past
While True Detective: Polar Night continues investigating the symbology of the spiral and its consequences, we must remember where it comes from. Because it is an element with a long history behind it in the mythology of the series. Mainly, the project featured her during its first season. That one was starring the detectives Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson).
During those episodes, highly celebrated by both critics and the public, the spiral appeared on several occasions. After investigations it was concluded that the symbol was linked to Errol Childressa serial killer of children, as well as the dangerous cult of Yellow King. This included some supernatural elements, such as the iconic moment where a flock of birds spiral in the sky.
But, in addition, it also seemed to be related to the Tuttle. This is a very powerful dynasty that basically controlled all of Louisiana acting from the shadows. They managed to emerge unscathed from the case and have already been referenced in the fourth season of True Detective. It turns out that the Tsalal Research Station is funded by Tuttle Unitedcompany of said family.
Finally, in the third season, the spiral of True Detective was mentioned as “a sign of pedophile groups.” Something that, once again, put the focus on the sect of the Tuttle. With all this background, the series seems ready to continue expanding the story of the demonic symbol in an installment that, for now, does nothing but sow doubts.