True Detective Banishes the Darkness as Death and Other Details Finds the Light

A sun-soaked, Mediterranean luxury ocean liner and a research station in Alaska during weeks of 24-hour darkness don’t seem to have much in common. For starters, packing for each location requires an entirely different wardrobe. Thankfully, a murder mystery does not consider climate, and whodunits are never out of season.

The exploration of fragmented memory, profound loss, and the role of whistleblowers against a damaging powerful company reveal similarities as True Detective: Night Country wraps up, and Death and Other Details heads toward its conclusion. Both investigating duos dig deep to repair a past rupture, and nothing says healing quite like getting stuck back into work that caused a rift in the first place.

[Spoilers for the True Detective: Night Country finale and Death and Other Details Episode 7.]

The Silver Sky Mine drilling for oil on the outskirts of Ennis, Alaska, in True Detective links Annie Kowtok’s (Nivi Pedersen) unsolved murder from six years ago to the disappearance and subsequent deaths of seven Tsalal researchers — in the finale, it claims the final scientists. This death toll isn’t counting the stillbirths and cancer that plague this community. Chief Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Trooper Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) put aside differences stemming from a murder-suicide case that didn’t go down the way they reported to uncover deep-rooted corruption. The six-episode series from Issa López is as much about the memories these characters repress as the details they cling to — as well as finding enough evidence to expose Silver Sky.

“Memory amplifies, memory diminishes. It is malleable. Memory is a mother****er,” says amateur detective Rufus Cotesworth (Mandy Patinkin) in Death and Other Details, an observation that applies as much to True Detective’s exploration of how a traumatic event impacts recollections. There is also a difference between what characters hide from themselves and what is being withheld from the audience to keep the mystery alive. For example, it is clear early on that Danvers lost her young son, Holden, in a car accident, and each subsequent flash of a broken glass on the road or happier times singing “Twist & Shout” illuminates this theory. It also seems likely that her husband died in the crash and was possibly under the influence. Not explicitly confirming the particulars about this loss until the finale could be read as unnecessarily dragging it out, but this is less about creating a jaw-dropping reveal and more about highlighting how Danvers cannot handle anyone referencing her family.

Grief is not one-size-fits-all. Danvers lives by the denial method in how quickly she explodes at the likes of step-daughter Leah (Isabella Star LaBlanc), her sometimes lover Captain Connelly (Christopher Eccleston), and Navarro even vaguely mentioning the car accident or either of the deceased by name — or how it has made Danvers an even bigger assh*le. Taking the tried-and-tested skeptic and believer dynamic perfected by Mulder and Scully in The X-Files, Navarro is in tune with the supernatural rhythms of this location, whereas Danvers thinks it is BS. Not that Navarro doesn’t take cajoling to share, and a family history of death and mental health issues is shown as eerie flashbulb memories.

A lack of identity contributes to how Navarro approaches Annie K’s murder, as her law enforcement role is at odds with the Iñupiat people like Annie K protesting Silver Sky for killing their homeland. Navarro has long tried to discover her Iñupiaq name, and in the finale, she finally hears this name on this wind. Is this a forgotten memory that has resurfaced, or something her dead mother tells her? Either way, unlocking this gives Navarro a sense of peace she has been lacking. Similarly, when Danvers eventually opens her mind to the possibility of ghosts, she can finally have a relationship with the living.

Change is coming to Ennis, stemming from solving Annie K’s cold case and getting the now-deceased Raymond Clark (Owen McDonnell) to blow the whistle on Silver Sky’s detrimental environmental impact on the Ennis water supply. Sure, he kept trying to beat the drum that their research could cure cancer and, therefore, balance the damage incurred, but ultimately, he did the right thing. The video is a confession beyond the grave, ensuring some justice. Though it is far too late for some.

Corporations like Silver Sky as an antagonist give a criminal case different points of entry and potential suspects, with Death and Other Details turning to fast fashion and textiles for backstory and a decades-long vengeance plan. When Imogene (Violett Beane) is accused of killing Danny (Michael Gladis) aboard the SS Varuna, she must look to an old mentor-turned-enemy for help in solving cases from the past and present. Eighteen years earlier, a then 11-year-old Imogene witnessed her mother’s fiery death in a car bomb that remains unsolved. Imogene’s mom, Keira, worked as a personal secretary for the textile giant Collier Mills, and the billionaire family took her in as one of their own. After six months of zero leads, the Colliers hired the proclaimed “world’s greatest detective,” Rufus Cotesworth. But when he couldn’t solve this case, it exposed him as a phony sleuth who drinks too much.

Alcohol also impacts Danvers’ ability to investigate midway through True Detetive when she turns to vodka in a bid to block memories edging closer to the surface. In the Showtime psychological thriller The Woman in the Wall, a heady combination of getting blackout drunk and acute sleepwalking further adds to the layered confection of unreliable memories with a powerful institution at the center. While the Catholic church isn’t committing environmental crimes, the (based on real-life) horrors of the Magdalene Laundries have poisoned a community and shattered the lives of women like Lorna Brady (Ruth Wilson).

Motherhood and abandonment thread their way through these shows, and The Woman in the Wall also depicts overlapping stories that ask a lead character to put faith in investigations that have already failed her. Imogene reluctantly teams up with Cotesworth again, and piecing together her memory of the events that led to her mom’s murder could hold the key to proving her innocence in the present. Some tricks and methods of dragging out the series have been a little tedious, but Death and Other Details comes into its own the closer it gets to revealing the truth of the parallel plots. Turning back the clock to 2005 gives insight into the lead-up to the explosion, showing Keira gathering evidence that Collier Mills is to blame for the deaths of at least five employees. Not only that, but she has a witness willing to go on the record and expose the textile titan.

Cotesworth repeats that “memory is a mother****er” in Episode 7, “Memorable,” and the cloud of grief hanging over Imogene is a barrier to the past. Imogene realizes there is one moment that causes her to clam up, and just as Danvers doesn’t want to confront the reality of her dead family, Imogene has erected walls around a pivotal interaction. Imogene is concerned that the bodies piling up aboard this cruise liner are also her fault, but she is not to blame for her mother or the current string of tragic events.

Again, it is a company pushing its agenda and trying to maximize profits while having little regard for the health of a community. Keira was attempting to expose Collier Mills for knowingly using a banned ultra-bright pigment in their factories, which is a cheap dye that causes cancer, dementia, and other ailments. Imogene discovers a shipping receipt proving this chemical was still being used at a factory in Jiangsu, China, in 2005 — the year her mom was murdered — and all the pieces fall into place.

It is a corrupt tale as old as time, which is also why it is a recurring theme in a TV whodunit wanting to spread suspicion over multiple episodes. True Detective’s examination of painful personal memories doesn’t bear too much on the crime motives, but for Imogene, the two are intrinsically interwoven. Details about her mom’s meeting with a witness in the diner are buried deep, and we follow adult and 11-year-old Imogene through a labyrinth of recollections. Aesthetically, Death and Other Details is a cocktail of Agatha Christie, Knives Out, Only Murders in the Building, and The White Lotus, but some of its exploration of memory is reminiscent of Benedict Cumberbatch’s mind palace ventures in Sherlock.

After all the half-clues and conversations about a larger conspiracy, we finally get to the emotional bones of this story. Here, Imogene learns that her mother told her to forget everything she saw in the diner, which her daughter dutifully did. Fragments turn into a fully formed memory of the “woman with the mole” who lost her husband due to Collier Mills using the banned chemical. Yes, that woman is Celia Chun (Lisa Lu), the matriarch of the fast-fashion company that has just bought a majority stake in Collier Mills. Rather than keep this secret to herself, Imogene tells all the major players (including Celia) that her mother was a whistleblower who was killed to silence her and that Celia is her witness.

Having this breakthrough with three episodes remaining indicates there are more surprises in store, including the identity of the collective taking down corrupt corporations. But when it comes to her traumatic past, Imogene and Cotesworth, like Danvers and Navarro, are no longer scrambling around in the dark.

Emma Fraser has wanted to write about TV since she first watched My So-Called Life in the mid-90s, finally getting her wish over a decade later. Follow her on Twitter at @frazbelina.