True Detective Season 4: Who left the tongue?

There are two mysteries at the heart of True Detective Season 4 – a murder, and the death of a group of scientists. But a third has remained unsolved throughout the six episodes – who left the tongue?

The so-called “corpsicle” has been at the heart of True Detective Night Country – a pile of male researchers found frozen to death on the Alaskan ice. How and why they got there has been the show’s central question. But there was an additional wrinkle to their disappearance and death in the shape of a severed tongue.

That tongue was found at the research facility where they worked, and belonged to Annie K, a woman who was stabbed 32 times in a murder case that went unsolved.

So, how did the tongue get there? Here’s what we know, just beware of TRUE DETECTIVE SPOILERS AHEAD…

True Detective Season 4: Who left the tongue?

There is no concrete resolution regarding who left the tongue, but we do have several suspects. Detective Danvers and Navarro believe Raymond Clark – who dated, then murdered, Annie K – cut the tongue off, which is why it was found on the floor of his research facility.

But Clark has no idea what they are talking about when the detectives point the finger at him. And bearing in mind Raymond just confessed to everything, it doesn’t make sense for him to lie at this point.

Clark claims it was Hank Prior, stating: “They sent a cop to move the body. He must have cut out the tongue to send a warning.” But Prior wants the truth buried, so leaving evidence at the scene of the crime make no sense either.

The women who forced the scientists out onto the ice for what they did to Annie are the other obvious suspects. But when their ringleader Bee is asked about it, she says: “That’s not part of our story. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” And like Clark, having just told all about her/their part in those seven deaths, Bee has no reason to lie.

So as prime suspects Raymond, Hank, and Bee have no real motive, the answer might be more supernatural, as while much of True Detective Season 4 has been rooted in reality, there’s also been as much that’s inexplicable.

Showrunner says “You don’t always get all the answers”

When asked about the tongue question by The Hollywood Reporter, showrunner Issa López isn’t giving anything away, and says she had to fight to keep the answer ambiguous, “because so many people working with me were like, ‘No, really? You’re not going to give that to us?’ And you know, in life, you don’t always get all the answers. Some of them are for you to figure out. I’m not going to do all the homework on my own for you.”