True Detective Season 4, Night Country, includes multiple references to Season 1 – including a direct shoutout to the Tuttle Cult. So, what exactly is the Tuttle Cult’s role in True Detective Season 4?
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How Is the Tuttle Cult Involved in True Detective Season 4?
It’s not – at least, not directly. Only the Tuttle family (who founded the cult, natch) factor into True Detective Season 4’s plot, and even then, only in a roundabout way. In Night Country Episode 1, we learn that the Tuttles’ corporation, Tuttle United, is the financial backer of Tsalal Arctic Research Station – the site where eight researchers mysteriously vanished in Episode 1. A few episodes later, we find out that Tuttle United is also one of shady mining outfit Silver Sky’s founding partners. As such, the Tuttles are also potentially linked to the killing of anti-mining activist Annie Kowtok six years earlier.
With the circumstantial evidence stacked against them, you’d expect True Detective Season 4’s finale to out Tuttle United – and by extension, the Tuttle Cult – as the culprits behind the fourth season’s intertwined murder mysteries. But as it happens, the Tuttle Cult’s apparent involvement in Night Country is largely a red herring. Nobody on Tuttle United’s payroll ordered Annie K.’s death, nor did they have a hand in the researchers’ disappearance and subsequent demise.
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That doesn’t mean the Tuttles aren’t guilty of any wrongdoing in True Detective Season 4 – far from it. One of their employees, Silver Sky executive Kate McKittrick, covered up the Tsalal researchers’ role in Annie K.’s murder. McKittrick subsequently deployed her political influence – as well a dubious “accidental death” ruling – to quash Night Country protagonists Liz Danvers and Evangeline Navarro’s investigation into the Tsalal killings, too.
If that’s not enough, the Tuttles are also responsible (again, via Silver Sky) for poisoning the water supply of Ennis, Alaska. They knowingly did this because the mine’s pollution made Tsalal’s groundbreaking research possible. But as for any actual cult activity? It seems the Tuttles limit that stuff to their Louisana home base, despite the prevalence of the spiral symbol associated with the Tuttle Cult’s beliefs throughout True Detective Season 4.
Why True Detective Season 4 References the Tuttle Cult
So, if the Tuttle Cult isn’t the answer to True Detective Season 4’s central mystery, why did showrunner Issa López reference the Tuttle United in Night Country? Mostly because she thought it dovetailed neatly with established canon, according to a recent Variety interview.
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“[I]f you have an evil corporation in the first season where politicians and powerful people are cooperating with the government, isn’t it interesting that they have an investment in the company that is founding the mine in this town?” López reasoned. “It doesn’t mean that they’re doing bad things everywhere. It’s just bad money, and bad money brings bad things.”
All six episodes of True Detective: Night Country are currently streaming on HBO and Max.
