The Night Country, Part 4

Episode 4:

(2/5/24)

Alright, you had me at Mazzy Star (“Into Dust” from 1993 at the 33-minute mark of the episode). Oh no, 33. Whatever happened to that dark pixie, Hope Sandoval? According to the Internet, it’s a tragic story. We’ll have to research it further, on our own time. Of course, this is roughly past the halfway point of Episode 4 but we are getting ahead of ourselves.

It’s Christmas Eve (not in Hollis, Queens) in Ennis, Day Seven of darkness, and they are really pushing the mental health narrative in this one. Complete with a thoughtful disclaimer provided for our more sensitive viewers prior to the episode. Chief Danvers can’t sleep. She is obsessed with the Annie K screaming death video. The Captain (her not-so-secret lover) is back in town to oversee the body transfer to Anchorage and help her get control of this shit bowl of a case. On her way to the station, Danvers comes across Navarro’s “mentally ill” sister, freaking out in the cold, half-naked, a sad harbinger of near-future events. Navarro finally convinces her to get some help and accompanies little blue-haired sister to the Lighthouse for treatment. Shockingly, her first night in inpatient, alone in her room, a ball strangely rolls out from under her bed. (Another oddly Stephen King-esque moment abounds.) She sees a frightful looking corpse wearing a crucifix under the bed. The corpse’s hand moves. Something tells us, she won’t be staying at the Lighthouse for long. And such a nice place, for Ennis.

Meanwhile, poor lovesick Hank, beyond excited to pick up his Russian mail-order bride at the airport, gets (shocker alert) stood up, totally stiffed. Hammering Hank had big plans: a stuffed animal in hand, chilled champagne, rose buds on the bed, the whole romantic nine yards. And that nasty Nastassia totally ghosted him, the poor schmuck. Another perfect sampling of what independent journalist Miles Mathis might call the ongoing “Men are Pigs/Women are Pigs” gender dividing agenda perpetrated by the CIA-controlled media. A digression far beyond this discussion. Later on, moping in the darkness of the police station and drinking his Christmas Eve sorrows away, Prior and late-working Junior have a confab. You didn’t send (that grifting foreign skank) any money, did you, Daddio? Poor Hank deftly avoids the non sequitur. We find out that Junior has been busy doing some real police work. At the Chief’s request, he has been looking into hospital records to find any victims suffering injuries similar to the frozen scientists’, frozen corneas, scratched-out eyeballs, blown-out eardrums, etc. Prior Jr has uncovered another shady off-grid character named Otis, an addict with a long criminal history and frozen eyeballs.

Download to read the complete article.