Viewers were left reeling by the True Detective season 4 ending over the weekend, with the climactic finale revealing an enormous easter egg.
The final episode of the six-part series began with Ennis police chief Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Alaska State Trooper Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) breaking into the Tsalal Arctic Research Station, where they found Raymond Clark (Owen McDonnell).
They were hoping the missing scientist could explain what happened to his seven colleagues, who were found frozen to death on the ice at the start of the story, and how their deaths were connected to the disappearance of Annie K.
He revealed how Annie had snuck into Tsalal and discovered the terrible side-effects the scientists' work was having on the town's indigenous community. He then explained how they killed her when she began destroying their research.
However when Danvers and Navarro asked Clark who killed his colleagues, he told them Annie had done it. "She's been hiding in those caves forever," he said. "Before she was born, after we all die. Time is a flat circle and we are all stuck in it."
"Time is a flat circle" was a line used by Matthew McConaughey's character in the first season of True Detective and including it was irresistible for creator, Issa López, who took over from Nic Pizzolatto as showrunner for this year's fourth season.
"I do completely believe that time is a circle and that experience repeats itself," she told us during a press event. "I believe that everything is connected and everything is happening at the same time. But it's not only a philosophical position, it's physics, it's science."
"I thought that if we had a mad scientist (Clark) who was obsessed with the return of souls and the return of events, who ends up trapped in a circle himself, it was him who could say it.
"It's a gift for the fans of the first series and it's an acknowledgment that we exist in the same universe and that's a truth that applies to both series. But it had to be on the lips of the scientists to exist and I do believe that Annie has forever been in that cave, will forever be and all of us are condemned to repeat that cycle of learning, and rebirth."
You can watch True Detective season 4 on Max in the US and Sky GO and NOW TV in the UK. Also, check out our full True Detective ending explained feature for an in-depth break down of the season finale.
