HBO’s True Detective: Evening Nation has run its chilling course, treading the road between chilly, arduous actuality and the supernatural. And it is right here, clambering out of Alaska’s lengthy evening, that we have now one lingering query about state trooper Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis): What precisely went down on the market on the ice?

Within the eighth and final episode of the collection, Navarro has a deeply religious expertise exterior the Tsalal Arctic Analysis Station, after she disappears right into a storm. What really occurred to Navarro?

Let’s dig into it.

What occurs on the finish of True Detective: Evening Nation?

Credit score: Michele Ok. Brief / HBO

After discovering out the reality about Annie Ok’s homicide and interrogating their prime suspect, Raymond Clark (Owen McDonnell), Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Navarro have to attend out the storm. There is no energy, no communications, they usually cannot drive within the blizzard, so that they construct a fireplace within the loading bay to maintain heat. Navarro appears unsettled.

“There’s something on the market, calling me,” Navarro tells Danvers as they sit across the hearth. To exhibit her connection to the religious world, Navarro reveals she’s seen visions of the older lady’s son, Holden, who died in a automobile accident years earlier. (In episode 3, when Navarro slips out on the ice, she has a imaginative and prescient of a rocky plateau from her time within the navy. That is when she meets Holden, who’s put on pyjamas and holding a luxurious polar bear. He whispers, “Inform my mommy.”). They’ve each been seeing these polar bears, actual and plush, all by means of the collection.

Danvers doesn’t take this revelation nicely and leaves, however when she returns, her companion is nowhere to be seen. She tracks Navarro out onto the ice, the place the trooper is strolling with intention. As Danvers makes an attempt to catch as much as her, Navarro has a flashback to the identical rocky terrain. Blood pours from her ear as a cacophony of screams builds, however Navarro appears to silence them by closing her eyes. She continues to stroll, and a voice whispers, “Come, Evangeline.” 

We see Navarro’s hand outstretched, and a lady’s tattooed hand kindly reaches out towards her. The voice provides Navarro what she’s lengthy yearned for, her religious Iñupiaq identify: Siqiññaatchiaq.

Credit score: Michele Ok. Brief / HBO

In the meantime, Danvers loses observe of Navarro within the storm. Instantly, she hears Holden calling for her by means of the wind, then she sees a imaginative and prescient of him trapped underneath the ice. Danvers begins chipping away on the ice and falls by means of, however Navarro drags her out of the water and saves her life by maintaining her heat by the fireplace. Lastly accepting the opportunity of the past, Danvers asks Navarro what Holden mentioned. “He says that he sees you,” Navarro says. With none data of their private ritual, Navarro holds her hand as much as Liz’s eye, similar to Liz used to do with Holden, once more connecting the pair with the one-eyed polar bear.

Later, after they work out the reality of what occurred to the scientists from Beatrice (L’xeis Diane Benson) and the Iñupiaq ladies of Ennis, time shifts barely ahead. Danvers is tight-lipped about the place Navarro is and her cabin is empty, apart from the plush polar bear and a video recording of Clark’s confession. Eddie Qavvik (Joel Montgrand) finds his SpongeBob toothbrush — the one Navarro borrowed — left exterior his home. However the place did she go?

Credit score: Michele Ok. Brief / HBO

When the daylight returns, Navarro is seen strolling out onto the ice. She’s not sporting a hat or gloves, however she appears calm and decided. We see Danvers and her daughter Leah (Isabella Star LaBlanc) driving, adopted by a quick scene of Danvers inside a lakeside cabin; she places down a crossword and goes to chill out on the verandah. Navarro joins her on the balcony, although they do not say something to at least one one other. 

The colder they get, the extra visions they see.

When the facility cuts out on the Tsalal station, so does the heating. As we have beforehand heard as an evidence for the horrified faces of the corpsicle, hypothermia may cause hallucinations. The colder Navarro and Danvers get, the extra they hallucinate and expertise unusual issues. And it is not simply Navarro this time. Danvers finds Navarro’s mom’s pendant in her hair whereas making an attempt to get heat in one of many beds, and she or he sees a hubcap roll down the hallway, prompting a flashback to her son’s demise in a automobile accident.

Navarro, whose connection to spirituality has meant quite a lot of visions for her through the collection, is drawn out to the ice by voices. That is the place she finally has her rocky plateau imaginative and prescient.

What’s with Navarro’s completely different hat?

This is likely to be a purple herring or a continuity error or a “time is a flat circle” second, however when Navarro is maintaining Danvers heat to avoid wasting her life, she’s sporting a special beanie than the one she was sporting out within the snow. That was a coral/orange, and this one is inexperienced. After all, this might be defined away simply; maybe Navarro donned a dry hat again within the station to maintain heat. However this element is noticeable sufficient to lift questions, or at the least one large one.

Did Navarro die out on the ice?

Although it is barely ambiguous, I personally do not assume Navarro died. Positive, there is a risk she’s showing to Danvers and the Iñupiaq ladies of Ennis, very similar to the ghost of Travis did to Rose Aguineau (Fiona Shaw), or like Annie’s spirit could should the scientists out on the ice (in the event you imagine that a part of the story). However within the finale, I feel Navarro really comes into her energy on the market.

Navarro herself has been tormented by visions and voices all through the collection, with every imaginative and prescient usually that includes an individual pointing at her menacingly. In episode 4, she feels drawn by voices by means of the dredge to the Christmas tree, the place the scream of her late sister Jules (Aka Niviâna) fills her ears, making them bleed. She’s instructed Danvers of a “curse” on the ladies of Ennis, and her intention of strolling out on the ice early within the season. In episode 5, after the burial for her sister, Navarro finds herself straying too far on the frozen plateau; she finally ends up needing Rose’s assist to get again safely. It is like Navarro tells Danvers within the last episode, “There’s something on the market, calling me.”

Credit score: Michele Ok. Brief / HBO

Nonetheless, two main issues have occurred: She solved Annie Ok’s case, and she or he obtained her Iñupiaq identify, Siqiññaatchiaq. Beatrice tells Navarro it was additionally her grandmother’s identify and that it means “the return of the solar after the lengthy darkness.” That feels extremely highly effective after the trauma Navarro has gone by means of, particularly along with her sister’s demise.

Navarro’s religious expertise within the storm provides her the power to each save Danvers and open her thoughts to the past, introduce herself anew to the Iñupiaq ladies of Ennis, resolve to maintain Annie’s case closed, and eventually transfer on from the city — away from her trauma and grief, and into the long run. When Navarro and Danvers are consuming whiskey within the Tsalal station after the debacle within the storm, Navarro speaks about being unsuitable about “holding the hatch” and being terrified about who was making an attempt to open it. On this second, it appears like she’s discovered her interior power, her religious identify, and a way of her future.

Credit score: Michele Ok. Brief / HBO

The cops interviewing Danvers say there have been experiences of sightings of Navarro within the space, which suggests she’s not only a figment of her former boss’s creativeness on the verandah. However when questioned about her whereabouts, Danvers is loyal and ambiguous.

“Let’s put it this fashion — I do not assume you will discover Evangeline Navarro on the market on the ice. That is Ennis: No one ever actually leaves.”

Who you will discover? The reborn Evangeline Siqiññaatchiaq Navarro, extra highly effective than ever.

True Detective is out there to stream on Max.