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Law Enforcement
Liz Danvers
Liz Danvers
- Played by: Jodie Foster
- 0% Approval Rating: The only person in town who seems to remotely tolerate her is Peter Prior; she's seen as a homewrecker by a good portion of Ennis, her step-daughter hates that she's a cop and therefore de facto supporting the mine that's polluting Ennis, and Navarro thinks she let the Kowtok case go cold on purpose.
- Berserk Button: The song "Twist and Shout", because it was the favorite song of her dead son Holden.
- By-the-Book Cop: Zigzagged. After the frozen bodies are found, Capt. Connelly insists on transferring the case to Anchorage. Danvers cites an obscure regulation from the police handbook that says frozen bodies cannot be moved or manipulated until they’re "properly thawed". This gives her 48 hours. On the other hand, she drives while drunk in "Part 4".
- Outliving One's Offspring: Her son Holden died in a crash before the series.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: She's investigating the murders, but she makes casually racist jokes about "spirit animals" to Evangeline and is furious when she catches her stepdaughter receiving Iñupiak facial markings (even though they were made with a marker).
- Really Gets Around: Danvers is disliked by the women of Ennis, Alaska for sleeping with many of their husbands. She's also had an off-and-on sexual relationship with her boss and keeps a Tinder account to use for hookups when she gets lonely during the cold months in Alaska.
- Sherlock Scan: She instantly establishes a timeline for the murders based on the state of the mayonnaise in a half-eaten sandwich, and, equally quickly, observes that the severed tongue at the crime scene could only have belonged to an Iñupiak woman. Subverted when she fails to notice that Wheeler is left-handed, despite multiple encounters with him and the girlfriend he was beating (who was bruised on the right side of her face, where a left-handed person would hit her).
- Sleeping with the Boss: With Connelly. During their encounters, they are in the habit of telling each other that they are "not doing this again" and "this is the last time". She is surprised to learn it is an Open Secret.
- Sour Outside, Sad Inside: She has a tough exterior as can be expected of someone of her position, yet appears haunted by a tragedy in her past. She is seen brooding over a worn out polar bear plushie.
Evangeline Navarro
Evangeline Navarro
- Played by: Kali Reis
- Ambiguously Bi: She gets pissed when Danvers asks her if she's having sex with Eddie Qavvik or is "back to girls," but she noticeably doesn't deny having experience with women. Subverted when she discusses having girlfriends in the past.
- Berserk Button: Cases involving domestic abuse, given her own father was abusive toward his family.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Initially, she wears her hair in a tight braid, in parallel with her emotional closure. As she opens up more (to friendship with Danvers, to Qaavik's love, to the grief of her mother's and sister's passing, and to her own guilt over the death of Wheeler), she starts wearing her hair loose.
- Heritage Disconnect: Per her backstory, her mother died before telling Navarro what her Iñupiak name is. It's "Siqinnaatchiaq" and it means "the return of the sun after long darkness".
- Melting-Pot Nomenclature: The character is of Iñupiak origin and played by an actress of Indigenous and Cape Verdean ancestry. Her name suggests Hispanic ancestry from her father's side.
- Not So Stoic: Most of the time, she is the stoic, but in one exception, she is singing along in her car to the Spice Girls' "Wannabe".
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: She was previously in the Army, and in a flashback we see her cradling a fellow soldier who had half of his head blown off.
- Tattoo as Character Type: Befitting a character as tough as her, Navarro has multiple tattoos, including at least a full sleeve. Her state trooper uniform conceals most of them, but the ones on her neck and hands remain visible. She also has cheek piercings, which seem impractical in Alaska weather.
Ted Connelly
Ted Connelly
The police captain and Danvers's superior.- Played by: Christopher Eccleston
- Dirty Cop: He turns out to be on Kate's payroll and tries to shut the investigation down.
Peter Prior
Peter Prior
- Played by: Finn Bennett
- The Apprentice: With Danvers as his Mentor, who teaches him to ask "the right questions" when studying the frozen mass of corpses.
- Naïve Newcomer: While he is aware of paradoxical undressing in cases of serious hypothermia, he seems rather naive regarding many other things. It does not occur to him that if he steals one of his father's files, Dad might object.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: When his dad threatens to accuse Danvers of pulling a "Mrs. Robinson" on Peter, he has to ask who is Mrs. Robinson.
Hank Prior
Hank Prior
- Played by: John Hawkes
- Abusive Parents: His reaction to finding out Peter took a box of evidence from his house is to punch him across the face and reprimand him for choosing Danvers over "family." Leah calls Hank an animal for this, and Peter defends him by saying Hank's own father was abusive as well.
- Alas, Poor Villain: While he's a Dirty Cop who murders Otis in cold blood and would've done the same to Danvers, his final moments are ultimately played somberly. He's heartbroken over his son choosing to trust Danvers over him and, realizing he's likely facing imprisonment, insists that he only moved Anna's body and didn't kill her before forcing Peter to shoot him to save Danvers. Peter, despite having fallen out with his father, is left devastated by having to kill him.
- Boom, Headshot!: Pete kills him like this.
- Cowboy Cop: Gathers hunters to find Raymond Clark, even though this is against procedure. He is also not very interested in finding Clark alive. He turns out to be much worse.
- Dirty Cop: He agrees to McKittrick's deal to murder Otis and Danvers for knowing too much on the condition that he gets Danvers's job. It's revealed this is the same reward he was promised for transporting Annie Kowtok's body from where she was killed to the spot she was found.
- Dysfunctional Family: He hits Peter when he finds that his son stole the file on Annie's murder.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Despite being a killer for hire, he does genuinely love his son Peter. He relates to Peter a story of how, when Peter was a child, he fell beneath the ice and was swept away by the water, Hank needing to run ahead to break it to save his life. He's also devastated to realize that his Russian girlfriend is really a scammer and not the second chance at love that he thought it was.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Hank's own father may have been abusive, but Leah points out that's no excuse for him to abuse his own son, Peter. Especially since Peter grew up to be a good person despite Hank's abuse.
- Killer Cop: What he turns out to be. He guns down Otis and almost shoots Danvers before Pete kills him.
- Mail-Order Bride: He has a Russian mail order bride who appears to be exploiting him for cash. On the day Hank goes to the airport to pick her up, she isn't on the plane he was waiting for, confirming he was being catfished the entire time.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: His initial sabotaging of Danvers' investigation appears to be born out of a mixture of petty spite and simple incompetence, and he overall comes off as more pathetic than genuinely threatening. Then he manages to get the drop on Danvers in the penultimate episode, murders Otis, and comes close to killing Danvers as well before Peter kills him.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: While he comes off as a bumbling moron, later episodes reveal this to mostly be an act and that he is in fact a shrewd observer who has been actively sabotaging Danvers' investigation under her nose.
Citizens of Ennis
Rose Aguineau
Rose Aguineau
- Played by: Fiona Shaw"Don't confuse the spirit world with mental health issues."
A survivalist who makes the grisly finding that propels the plot of Season 4.
- Cool Old Lady: While talking to Navarro, Rose is rolling a joint.note
- The Hermit: Lives in a remote cabin. Ever since her partner Travis Cohle chose to walk out into the cold rather than succumb to leukemia, she has been by herself.
- Hidden Depths: Prior to coming to Alaska, she used to be a college professor.
- I See Dead People: She can see ghosts. She found the bodies of the Tsalal team after being led to them by the ghost of her partner, Travis Cohle.
Qavvik
Eddie Qavvik
- Played by: Joel D. Montgrand
- Friends with Benefits: His relationship with Navarro.
Leah Danvers
Leah Danvers
- Played by: Isabella Star LaBlanc
- Calling Parents by Their Name: During the series she switches from calling Danvers "mom" to "Liz" to show their growing distance.
- Troubled Teen: Leah is clearly acting out both due to general teenage small-town malaise and due to tension around her developing sense of identity. She is interested in exploring her Iñupiak heritage, even getting traditional facial markings, but Danvers is incensed when seeing her with a temporary version of the same tattoo made with a marker, but she has what seems to be a permanent one by the time of the season finale. She also makes a sex tape with her girlfriend, only for it to get shared around town, and the girl's mother freaks out.
Julia Navarro
Julia Navarro
- Played by: Aka Niviâna
- Driven to Suicide: Her visions ultimately drive her to the point of despair. Leaving the mental health facility she checked into, she heads out to the snowy wastes, takes off all her clothes and keeps walking onto the ice until it gives way and she drowns.
- I See Dead People: She is plagued with visions of her and Evangeline's deceased mother.
- Nonconformist Dyed Hair: She has blue hair.
- Tattoo as Character Type: In contrast to her sister's tattoos, hers (kakiniit
on the chin and eye area) are of the cultural type.
Annie Kowtok
Annie Masu Kowtok
- Played by: Nivi Pedersen
- Cruel and Unusual Death: She was stabbed 32 times and left facedown in the mud. She was also kicked several times and left with broken ribs and teeth.
- Nonconformist Dyed Hair: She appears in the flashback and some pictures with a streak of blue hair. This provides Navarro and Danvers with several clues, since they're able to both tell when certain pictures were taken relative to others by it fading and it allows them to track down the hairdresser who did it for her.
- Secret Relationship: With Raymond Clark.
- She Knows Too Much: As revealed in episode 6, this is the reason she died, since she realized the Tsalal station was falsifying the mine's pollution numbers to speed up their research.
- Tattoo as Character Type: Befitting a midwife/activist she has kakiniit (traditional tattoo) on her chin.
- Tongue Trauma: Her body was found with the tongue cut out and years later it is found at the Tsalal station. Before it is identified as hers, Danvers can tell it belongs to an Indigenous woman, as they traditionally mend fishing nets and this leaves grooves on their tongue.
Kate McKittrick
Kate McKittrick
- Played by: Dervla Kirwan
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: In her first appearance she acts frostily towards Danvers, which is attributed to Danvers's sleeping with Kate's husband. She still allows the ice arena to be used to house the frozen scientists while they raw enough for transporting. She is later revealed to be a Corrupt Corporate Executive and to pay a Corrupt Cop to obstruct any investigation.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Her mining company has been polluting the town's drinking water, causing half of Ennis to rise up in protest. She's also not above ordering hits on people who know too much, like Otis Heiss and Danvers.
Blair Hartman
Blair Hartman
- Played by: Kathryn Wilder
- Chekhov's Gunman: Appears in the first episode and ends up being the key to solving the entire mystery.
- Fingore: Two of the fingers on her right hand are shortened. This is a massive Chekhov's Gun when Danvers finds an identical handprint on the hatch at Tsalal.
Bee Malee
Beatrice "Bee" Malee
- Played by: Diane E. Benson
- Beneath Notice: She and the other local women who do jobs around town are considered this.
- Commonality Connection: When Navarro tells her her Iñupiak name Bee responds that was also her grandmother's name.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: She lead a group of local women to Tsalal to take revenge for Annie's death.
- Wife-Basher Basher: In the first episode she beat up Blair's boyfriend after he hurt her.
Tsalal Artic Research Station
In general
The team of scientists are working on a project to sequence the DNA of an extinct microorganism that could potentially stop cellular decay. Team members are: founder/director Anders Lund, paleomicrobiologist Raymond Clark, geologist Ralph Emerson, geobiologist Li Jie, geophysicist Anton Kotov, environmental chemist Lucas Mehrens, and biophysicists Veer Mehta and Facundo Molina. The station receives its funding from Tuttle United, an NGO. After they are reported missing, the discovery of their bodies sets off the plot.
- Asshole Victim: What they're revealed to be in the finale, as they're the ones who murdered Annie K. when she discovered the secret lab in the ice beneath Tsalal and proof that they were telling the mine to increase their pollutants as it was making it easier for them to harvest the microorganism. Anders started stabbing her, and the rest save Clark joined in, only for Clark to smother Annie with his shirt when she comes to afterwards. When the cleaning staff discover the lab a few years later, they make sure the scientists pay for what they did to her.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Their bodies except for Clark's are found frozen together, naked, with eyes burned out, punctured ear drums, signs of frostbite and self inflicted bites, and expressions of terror. The large animal vet Danvers and Peter Prior consult takes a look and declares that they froze after dying, as death from hypothermia is relatively peaceful.
- Multinational Team: During talk of notifying their families, it is mentioned that they come from different parts of the world. Their surnames alone (Lund, Emerson, Kotov, Molina, Jie, Mehta, Mehrens, Clark) confirm this.
- Work Hard, Play Hard: On their spare time, the scientists record playful videos of themselves singing and cooking.
Anders Lund
Anders Lund
- Played by: Þorsteinn Bachmann
- An Arm and a Leg: One of the officers breaks off his arm while working with the mass of frozen dead bodies. It is not until he starts screaming that they realize Lund is alive, albeit in bad shape. At the hospital, gangrene forces the doctors to amputate both legs as well.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Was the first of the scientists to attack Annie K. when he discovered her in the secret lab, and the others minus Clark joined in afterwards, thus ensuring her murder and its cover-up, thus setting the events of Night Country in motion when the station's cleaning staff accidentally discover the lab a few years later and piece the story together.
The Tattooed Scientist (spoiler)
Raymond Clark
- Played by: Owen McDonnell
- A Lighter Shade of Black: Was complicit with the rest of the scientists in demanding the mine increase its pollutant output to make harvesting the microorganism DNA easier, and while he didn't join the other scientists in stabbing Annie K., he was the one who smothered her to death with his shirt when it turned out she Was Not Quite Dead. That said, he does confess everything to Danvers and Navarro after they find the secret lab and catch him, and also makes a video confession with Navarro's help that is leaked afterwards about what Tsalal and the mine were doing, before willingly going out into the storm to die.
- Arc Symbol: He has a spiral tattooed on his chest identical to one found on Annie Kowtok's body. This symbol is also found drawn on the forehead of one of the scientists.
- Dirty Coward: When the attack began on the station, he immediately ran for the secret lab and sealed himself inside, holding the hatch closed so no one else could get in, including Anders Lund, who was in the room when Clark went in, allowing him to be rounded up by the cleaning staff.
- Naked Nutter: He is observed wandering around town naked… in Alaska. Likely because he was traumatized by what he and the other scientists did to Annie K.
- Redemption Equals Death: Confesses the Tsalal scientists were the ones who murdered Annie K., that they demanded the mine increase the amount of pollutants they were putting out to make it easier to harvest their microorganism to Danvers and Navarro, and later records a message about the pollutants with Navarro on her phone allowing the story to be leaked, before walking out to die in the storm like his fellow conspirators.
- Room Full of Crazy: His entire trailer looks like this.
- Secret Relationship: With Annie Kowtok, which neither wanted other people to know about.
Persons of Interest
William Wheeler
William Wheeler
- Played by: Kasper Leisner
- Asshole Victim: It is difficult to have sympathy for a man who beat his girlfriend multiple times, eventually killing her. He does not look the least bit remorseful when Navarro and Danvers show up for the last time.
- The Killer Was Left-Handed: How Peter realized he didn't actually shoot himself.
Otis Heiss
Otis Heiss
- Played by: Klaus Tange
- Addled Addict: He is found with drug paraphernalia. The next episode has him struggling through withdrawals and demanding that Danvers "help" (i.e. get him some heroin) in exchange for guiding her and Navarro through the cave.
- Eye Scream: Thirty years ago, after a cave-in at an ice cave, he woke up in the hospital with a burned cornea and punctured eardrums. In the present, the damage to his eye remains visible.
- He Knows Too Much: He mapped out the ice caves and can potentially lead Danvers and Navarro to the place where Annie K was murdered. Hank kills him on McKittrick's orders to prevent that from happening.
"She"
"She"
An enigmatic figure who is repeatedly referenced by a few characters and worshipped by the local Native people.- Ambiguous Situation: The season has a heavy sense of ambiguity when it comes to the apparent supernatural elements at play. As a result, even this entity's existence is not explicitly made clear.
- Brown Note Being: If she is real, the only people who encountered her and survived were left with horrendous injuries to their eyes and/or ears.
- Eldritch Abomination: It is said that this entity transcends time and has frightening eyes that seem to naturally leave anyone who is exposed to her suffers damage to their eyes, ears, and sanity.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Her existence isn't really certain. However, the Tsalal scientists are all stated to have died before they froze in the Alaska cold, and their injuries are consistent with Otis's own injuries despite being in a totally different situation, and the killers' story doesn't line up with what happened to them.
- No Name Given: This entity's existence isn't even certain, but not even the Native people who worship her ever give her a name by which to address her.
