The Curtain Rises on a New Mystery in True Detective Season 4 Premiere
The long-awaited fourth season of HBO thriller anthology series True Detective finally hit screens last week, plunging viewers into a new complex and chilling investigation filled with dark secrets. Set against the backdrop of remote Alaska, the premiere episode wasted no time in establishing an ominous tone and foreshadowing supernatural forces at play.
Centered around Detectives Liz Danvers and Evangeline Navarro, the season 4 opener, titled “She’s Awake,” drops clues about the show’s latest confounding case involving missing scientists and eerie occult references. It also continues True Detective’s tradition of stylish opening credit sequences that often tease vital details about the season’s central mystery.
Cosmic Horror Influences Loom Large
Season 1 famously drew inspiration from weird fiction authors like Chambers and Lovecraft with its references to the mythical Yellow King. This new batch of episodes also seems to be taking a page from that unsettling playbook.
The quote that opens the premiere — “For we do not know what beast the night dreams when its hours grow too long for even to be awake” — comes from a fictional 1895 book of horror stories called The King in Yellow about a supernatural entity who can possess people. The mention of this evil god-king surely can’t bode well.
Additionally, the research base where the scientists went missing has a mysterious “Blue King” sign, likely meant to evoke the Yellow King of the first season. And the use of words like “beast” and “dreams” in the opening quote signal that cosmic horrors beyond human comprehension will play a role in whatever darkness consumes this remote Alaskan locale.
The Titular “She” Remains a Mystery
The most direct clue comes early on when one of the missing scientists regains consciousness for a moment and utters “She’s awake” before his eyes roll back in his head. Danvers later hears the same phrase — this time in a little girl’s voice — as she startles awake from a dream.
So who exactly is this “she”? An ancient eldritch goddess? Something else entirely? It’s too early to say, but fans are already speculating it could be a reference to the being known as Shub-Niggurath from Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Apparently this dark fertility deity is often referred to as “The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young.” Whether that connection pans out or not, it seems this mysterious “she” will be a central piece of the puzzle.
Climate Change Meets Cosmic Dread
Of course, True Detective has always skillfully grounded its paranormal undertones in tangible real-world issues. Season 1 used its occult-laced mystery to explore the underlying darkness of religious extremism in rural America. The latest batch of episodes looks to have climate change driving its narrative.
The missing scientists had been researching the effects of global warming, so it’s likely not a coincidence that their disappearance coincides with Alaska plunging into weeks of unrelenting darkness and brutal cold as the sun disappears.
When Danvers remarks that it looks “like the damn apocalypse out there,” the viewer can’t help but wonder if she’s foreshadowing an environmental catastrophe tied to the show’s building supernatural dread. Perhaps some long-dormant entity has chosen this moment of climatological turmoil to awaken.
More Questions Than Answers
Of course, True Detective premieres are designed to establish an atmosphere of uncertainty and unknown threats rather than definitive answers. But a few other intriguing notes stand out that seem potentially meaningful.
- Why does Danvers possess a one-eyed stuffed polar bear, a recurring image in this first episode? What tragedy in her past does it represent?
- What happened three days ago when the darkness descended and the water supply went bad?
- Who is the figure with the blood-red eyes in the young native boy’s drawing?
- And were those reindeer leaping suicidally off a cliff near the start of the episode an omen of some apocalyptic doom?
So far more puzzles than solutions. But the groundwork has been laid for another riveting and genuinely creepy True Detective season rich with complex characters and increasingly unnerving mysteries. Strap in things will likely only get darker from here now that “she’s” awake.