True Detective Season 4: What were the missing scientists working on?

❘ Published: 2024-01-22T10:33:23

Jodie Foster investigating the True Detective Season 4 case.

HBO

Episode 2 of True Detective Season 4 aired overnight, meaning the show’s central mystery is coming into focus. So what were the missing researchers up to before they disappeared?

True Detective Season 4 – aka True Detective Night Country – got off to an intriguing start, with eight men at a research station in Ennis, Alaska going missing, without a trace. As Detective Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) states, “It’s like they went to take a leak, and never came back.”

The men then show up, naked, and frozen to death in the arctic wilderness. Stuck together in what one character calls a “corpsicle.”

But what were the men up to before their horrid end? We’ve got the details of their work below, so beware of TRUE DETECTIVE SPOILERS ahead…

True Detective Season 4: What were the missing scientists working on?

The scientists were working for a company called TSALAL, for whom they were essentially searching for the origin of life – meaning the stakes were pretty high.

In Episode 1, we learn that the team – all of whom are men – has been operating in the area for 18 years, investigating arctic geology, biology, and the impact of climate change.

In Episode 2, we hear more about their secretive activities, to do with the sequencing of DNA. According to a teacher friend of Danvers’, The TSALAL team was using robots to extract an organism that could potentially stop cellular decay. Which might mean a cure for cancer, autoimmune diseases, and genetic disorders. Or as the teacher puts it, “an absolute f**king game-changer.”

What else do we know about the TSALAL men?

We also know that the TSALAL researchers have good taste in movies, with Ferries Bueller’s Day Off playing when the authorities arrive. The Thing is also prominent on their DVD shelf – a horror classic that’s clearly an influence on Night Country.

We’ve learned that one of their number – Raymond Clark – was dating a Native American woman who was murdered months previous. While his body is missing from the corpsicle. Making Raymond a person of great interest to the Alaska Police Department…

You can read our spoiler-free review of True Detective Night country here. While more articles about Season 4 can be found below: