‘True Detective’: What Is the Meaning of the Spiral Symbol?

‘True Detective: Night Country’ just aired its second episode, and the more we go into the mystery, the more messed up it seems to be. One significant clue now points in the direction that the case of Annie Kowtok is even more connected to the case of Tsalal station than ever before, and a strange spiral symbol seems to be at the center of everything. Let’s see whether we can figure out its meaning.

The spiral is the biggest clue in ‘True Detective’ season 4

Think about the intro credits and the scene of an orange peel; think about that scene when Liz is observing the photographs on the floor of her house, and the photographs are lined up in a spiral pattern around her. Yes, the spiral keeps popping up in ‘True Detective,’ but it took Rose Aguineau to point that out.

Following the discovery of the bodies in the glacial fields of Ennis by Rose and “Travis” the whole team was shaken as it’s most likely one of the worst crime scenes they have ever witnessed. Yes, one of the researchers turned out to be alive but severely frozen, but he isn’t that much of a helper considering that he is in a coma and might wake up with severe brain damage due to hypothermia affecting, well, pretty much every piece of soft tissue in his body.

Rose, however, noticed that one of the researchers had a spiral symbol on his forehead. Rose seemingly recognized that the symbol was something old, ancient, older than ice itself, but she failed to provide any useful clues regarding what it meant.

Following this, we soon learn that one of the researchers at the Tsalal station had the symbol tattooed on himself, more specifically on his chest. We found out that from a delivery guy, who claimed that Clark wasn’t exactly all here in the head. He frequently walked naked and fell into psychosis.

Since Clark’s body is still missing, presumably in the ice that still didn’t thaw properly, Liz didn’t have the opportunity to check out his claims. She took his credit statement and contacted the tattoo salon where he got the tattoo, as it turned out the tattoo that he had was identical to the one that Annie Kowtok had. Not only that, it turned out that this was the reason why Clark bought the wan as the two were dating, in secret.

I mean, you can’t exactly blame the guy; it gets really lonely, cold, and dark in Ennis, so it’s natural for him to want to get some action on the side. But, when Navarro and Liz located his trailer, they had something to see.

Annie and Clark were into some messed up stuff, although the extent of Annie’s involvement remains to be discovered

As soon as Navarro asked herself the right question, “Where” did Clark hide with Annie? She was able to locate his trailer pretty easily; it was in “The Nook.” She contacted Liz, and the two went to investigate what just might as well be a crime scene in itself.

The trailer was obviously abandoned for some time, and even though Annie’s phone was found on the scene, that doesn’t exactly mean that something sinister took place here, the other things that Liz and Navarro found however mean that. The trailer that was found was filled with scribbled spiral patterns, filled with dolls, bones of both large and small animals, and filled with nonsensical quotes.

It was a truly grisly scene and heavily implies that Clark was involved in something occult that Anna may or may not be a part of. I mean, she had the tattoo, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that she understood the full extent of it.

In any case, as soon as the trailer with all the sacrificial and ceremonial stuff in it was found, Liz and Navarro got another shock for the night when Prior contacted them to let them know that Clark’s body was not in the “corpsicle” pile, meaning that Clark is either still alive and heavily involved in the murder of Annie but also heavily involved in the disappearance of his co-workers in the Tsalal station.

The meaning of the spiral symbol was possibly already revealed

Even before all of this was revealed, Liz went to visit Bryce, her apparently old flame and friend, to ask him what the guys from Tsalal were researching in the first place. The exact terms that Bryce used were “microorganism with properties to stop cellular decay,” which aligns with something that we’ve heard in episode 1, that they were researching the origin of life.

If such an organism did exist, its cellular properties would allow scientists to develop cures for cancers, autoimmune diseases, genetic disorders, and even aging. This is one of the most peculiar properties of ice and cold temperatures in general: the preservation, the ability to keep something alive or as close to life as possible in perfect condition for a seemingly indefinite amount of time.

Life, or life after death and preservation, will turn out to be one of the biggest themes of this season, as several clues point in that direction. On more than one occasion, the people around Ennis mentioned seeing deceased people, primarily Rose and the delivery guy. He mentioned that the dead in Ennis don’t exactly stay dead for long. This might be a product of some mass psychosis induced by special conditions such as arctic nights. But it also might be “something in the water,” so to speak, something external, a result of poisoning.

It quite possible that Clark saw something in this ancient symbol that reminded him of his work, maybe the scientists after all did uncover something that turned out to be much more dangerous than they initially believed and he became obsessed with it.

But how does Annie fit into that story? Well, Annie was a native, and considering that Rose seemingly recognized the symbol and lived in Ennis for a long time, it’s quite possible that the native of Ennis used the symbol as a representation of eternal life or life after death. We’re too early in the show to guess exactly what the symbol means, as it would totally mess with the pacing, but I’m willing to bet that it’s connected to native beliefs, Clark’s work, and the fact that people in Ennis seem to see dead people, quite literally.

What do you think the symbol means? Let us know in the comments below!