The fourth season of HBO's True Detective, Night Country, came to an end with last night's finale, which provided resolutions for most of the show's biggest mysteries while leaving certain things - including the fate of a main character - a little more ambiguous.
Spoilers follow.
After the events of last week's shocking penultimate episode, detectives Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) finally manage to solve the murders of the eight men from the Tsalal Arctic Research Station and Annie K. - who, it turns out, was actually killed by those same men after destroying their equipment upon discovering that they were deliberately polluting Ennis' water supply in order to create a better environment for their research.
So, did Annie's ghost return to exact her vengeance? This is certainly what we are led to believe based on the surviving scientist, Clarke's, account of what happened, but we later learn that the women of the Tsalal cleaning crew found out about the murder and decided to take matters into their own hands, forcing the men out on to the ice at gunpoint.
Later, we are told that Nabarro vanished after going on an icy a "walkabout" of her own. But did she walk to her death, or was she simply leaving Ennis and the horrors of her old life behind to start a new one?
"I’m not saying that she’s alive, and I’m certainly not saying that she’s dead," showrunner Issa Lopez tells Deadline when asked for an explanation. "I very carefully crafted this as an ink block test for you to discover yourself as an audience member. I do love that Navarro states very early in the series that she has this impulse to just walk away and leave everything behind. On the other hand, the entire series is an exploration of the fact that she feels a calling to the beyond. In the climax of the finale, and instead of fighting it and going in with pain and fear, she surrenders to it. And in doing it, she receives a piece of herself. So that call that she was afraid of is solved. The Aboriginal people in Australia go and walk about, find themselves and then come back, which is I think is what Kali embraced [for the character]. However, there is a chance that she is also going to be with the women before her to visit them. You can read it both ways and it’s up to you to interpret which one fulfills your heart.
The final scenes show Danvers and her stepdaughter Leah driving towards a cottage in the distance, and the episode concludes with Navarro joining her partner on the porch to watch the sunset.
Do you think Navarro lived, or was this supposed to represent her spirit being at peace in the afterlife? Let us know in the comments section.