True Detective: How is Anders Lund still alive?

True Detective Season 4 Episode 3 delved further into the mystery of Annie K and the Tsalal researchers, including Anders Lund – but how is he still alive? Here’s what we know. 

Issa Lopez has taken over the True Detective world to great effect, weaving a sinister mystery with Season 4 – officially titled Night Country – as detectives Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) try to get to the bottom of what happened to a group of Arctic researchers after they were found dead in the snow. 

Since we’re only halfway through the latest chapter, there are plenty more questions than answers, including what happened to Tsalal researcher Raymond Clark, why his trailer was filled with the mysterious spiral symbol seen in Season 1, and what really happened to local mine protester Annie K. 

After Episode 3 aired last night, another question you might have is: how the hell is Anders Lund still alive after being made into a “corpsicle”? Here’s what we know, including a strong fan theory that would have major implications for the narrative moving forward. Warning: Spoilers ahead!

True Detective: How is Anders Lund still alive?

In True Detective Season 4 Episode 3, Danvers and Navarro come face-to-face with Anders Lund in hospital, but no logical or scientific reason is given as to how he’s still alive. But there are a couple of theories doing the rounds, ranging from the supernatural to the Tsalal researcher’s quest to find an organism that stops cellular decay.

Lund first came into question in Episode 2, when Danvers and her team were excavating the “corpsicle” – the group of deceased Tsalal researchers who were found in the icy Alaskan wilderness, naked, tangled together, and frozen in a “giant block of flesh.” As they dig, one of the officers accidentally snaps off Lund’s arm. 

HBO

“Wilson, what the f*ck,” shouts Danvers, but she soon realizes that’s the least of their worries, as the incident brings Lund back to life and he lets out a blood-curdling scream. After rushing him to the hospital, Danvers speaks to the doctor, who tells her that “it’s not looking good” for him. No sh*t.

In Episode 3, Danvers and Navarro visit Lund in the hospital. He’s in bad shape, having lost limbs and his eyesight while covered in frostbite. Lund says, “We woke her, and now she’s out in the ice,” alluding to Sedna, the Inuit goddess who controls the underworld and the sea –  one who was previously hinted at in a drawing by Peter’s son Darwin. 

But their conversation is cut short when a fight breaks out in reception, leaving Navarro and Lund alone. In a spine-tingling scene, as Navarro looks down the corridor, Lund immediately calms down and slowly sits up from his bed. In a demonic voice, he says, “Hello, Evangeline. Your mother says hello. She’s waiting for you,” before pointing at her.  

Navarro looks like she’s seen a ghost, but before she can make sense of it, Lund starts convulsing and the doctors rush in. The main theory for this interaction is that Navarro was hallucinating, having inherited the same mental health struggles as her sister and mother. But that still doesn’t explain how Lund is still alive.

Speaking to the New York Times, Ken Zafren, a physician and a professor of emergency medicine at Stanford University, said: “If all the tissue in your body is ice, or has ice in it, then you’re not coming back.” But, he added, “I’ve seen plenty of cases in which the person really looked dead, and could come back.” 

Zafren went on to tell the outlet that in hypothermia, the body temperature can go well below the average of 98.6 degrees, causing the person’s pulse and breathing to slow significantly. Eventually, they may go into cardiac arrest, but due to the brain being cold, the lack of oxygen takes longer to cause damage. That person could remain in this condition before becoming fully frozen. 

HBO

But, again, this wouldn’t explain how Lund is still alive – he was definitely frozen, if that arm snap is anything to go by. Over on Reddit, one fan theorizes that it has something to do with the Tsalal research. “It COULD have to do with the regenerative cellular research they were doing,” they said.

Another agreed, writing, “That’s the only thing that makes any sense to me. I’m no doctor, but for a human limb to be so thoroughly frozen it snaps off like a dry twig, the tissue would need to have been literally torn apart by ice crystals at the cellular level all the way through. Deader than dead. If a limb is that frozen, the vocal cords are too. But assuming that somehow the body’s core remained unfrozen, more than one additional limb would need to be amputated. In other words, it ain’t natural.”

“I don’t see any way they can possibly explain this without it being supernatural,” added a third. “I’m ok with supernatural if that’s where they are going with it, but I’ve seen some people say that López has already mentioned it will be explained as a natural thing (haven’t found the source of her saying that).”

A fourth commented, “They vanished two to three days ago, but they could have frozen just 10–20 hours ago. Some people have been known to survive this kind of exposure. The forensics team ought to have taken a measurement of the dead bodies’ internal temperatures and used that information to determine when the deaths occurred and when they came to the place they died.

“Anyway, they don’t have a forensic team, which was emphasized three times, but it’s still weird that they don’t discuss the time of death. It’s kind of the foundation of any investigation. Of course, we can assume they were experimenting with the immortal bacteria, but I’d like to think they spent two days in another place before they died.”

True Detective Season 4 Episodes 1-3 are available on Max now, which you can sign up for here.

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