Unveiled during the launch event for Warner Bros. Discovery’s new streaming service, Max, the trailer for the upcoming fourth season of “True Detective,” entitled “Night Country,” provides our best look yet at the Jodie Foster-led season. The episodes are set in Ennis, Alaska, where, as the official synopsis explains, “eight men who operate the Tsalal Arctic Research Station vanish without a trace.” This being “True Detective,” a pair of seemingly mismatched investigators, this time in the form of Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis), are tasked with solving the case.
But by far the most intriguing part of the trailer is when Foster’s Danvers discovers a red spiral symbol painted on the side of a storage tank. Illuminated by torchlight, the crooked motif should be very familiar to fans of the show, especially those who can’t get enough of the first season.
The same spiral appeared throughout “True Detective” season 1 and represented the secret, Yellow King-worshiping pedophile ring that Rust and Marty investigated. In the very first episode of the season, it’s seen carved into the back of Dora Lange, a sex worker whose body is discovered in a sugar field outside of Erath, Louisiana. As the season continues, the spiral shows up in Rust’s hallucinations, in graffiti at crime scenes, and even in the freshly-mown lawn that Errol Childress traverses ominously on his riding mower. But what does it mean? And why is it showing up in season 4? At this point, nothing is certain, but it could mean the show is returning to one of the most compelling and disturbing storylines to come out of “True Detective” yet.