True Detective Season 4 Episode 6: Finale Release Time and Recap

True Detective: Night Country has been an atypical season of HBO‘s crime anthology for numerous reasons.

For starters, this fourth season is the first to receive its own subtitle, with “Night Country” capturing the pervading darkness of northern Alaska. Night Country is also the first True Detective season to not feature the involvement of original creator Nic Pizzolatto. Stepping in as showrunner is indie auteur Issa López who grafted her own vision of two female detectives solving an icy mystery onto the usual True Detective format. The biggest difference between Night Country and a “normal” season of True Detective, however, may only becoming apparent to folks this week as episode 6 marks the sudden conclusion of this story.

That’s right: unlike seasons 1, 2, and 3, True Detective season 4 features six episodes rather than the usual eight. That should come as either devastating news to viewers just getting into the case of Annie K and the dead Tsalal scientists or relief to viewers who are simply ready for some answers. Well, answers are indeed on their way this weekend, with the premiere of True Detective season 4 episode 6. Here is where and when you can watch it.

What Time Does the True Detective Season 4 Finale Premiere?

True Detective: Night Country is coming off an unusual week in terms of its release schedule. Due to a little football game you may have heard of, HBO opted to premiere True Detective: Night Country episode 5 a little early, with the penultimate episode being made available to stream at 9 p.m. ET on Friday, Feb. 9.

That was just a one-time NFL-assisted treat for viewers though as the Night Country finale is going back to its usual run time at 9 p.m. ET on Sunday, Feb. 18. The episode will begin airing at that time on HBO and will available to stream on Max as well. The finale will premiere in the U.K. simultaneously, airing at 2 a.m. BST on Sky Atlantic and Now TV.

True Detective: Season 4 Recap

True Detective: Night Country is set in fictional northern Alaska hamlet Ennis as it begins its extended period without sunlight. Local detective Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) is brought in to investigate a case of eight scientists who have gone missing from the Tsalal Research Station. Seven of those scientists don’t stay missing for long, however, as their frostbitten naked bodies are eventually discovered encased in ice miles away on the Alaskan tundra.

Danvers’ former partner Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) forces her way onto the case as she suspects it’s connected to the unsolved murder of indigenous woman Annie Kowtok from six years ago. Those suspicions are proven correct when Danvers and Navarro uncover that Annie was romantically involved with Tsalal scientist Raymond Clark … who also just happens to be the only one of the eight scientists missing from the “corpsicle.”

Throughout True Detective: Night Country‘s five episodes, Danvers and Navarro bump up against the politics of the isolated town as they try to figure out a connection between Tsalal and Silver Sky, the controversial mining company that the indigenous locals believe is poisoning their water supply. They also encounter quite a bit of spooky coincidences and even ghostly specters, with Navarro beginning to fear that her mentally ill sister Julia may have been right about the thin connection between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Julia dies by exposure-assisted suicide in episode 4.

In episode 5, the Silver Sky mining company successfully lobbies the state police to close the case of the Tsalal scientists’ deaths as a weather-related event. Silver Sky’s owner Kate McKittrick (Dervla Kirwan) then calls up officer Hank Prior (John Hawkes) to kill Otis Heiss (Klaus Tange), the only valuable source that Danvers and Navarro have remaining to investigate the ice caverns of Ennis. After carrying out the assassination, Hank is ultimately killed by his own son, Peter (Finn Bennett).

Peter offers to stay behind to clean up the crime scene so that Danvers and Navarro can head out to a location on the ice that Otis Heiss pointed to.