True Detective Season 4 Just Solved One Last Rust Cohle Mystery

This article contains spoilers for True Detective: Night Country episode 2.

Fans. We all love ’em. Sometimes they’re a touch delusional but other times they’re dead on. In the case of True Detective season 4, dubbed True Detective: Night Country, longtime True Detective fans’ sleuthing really panned out. Here’s how.

Following the premiere of True Detective: Night Country episode 1, many True Detective true detectives took to social media to share a very peculiar theory. They noted that new character Rose Aguineau’s (Fiona Shaw) dead lover and current specter was named “Travis.” It just so happens that someone else in the True Detective canon is named Travis: season 1 lead Rust Cohle’s (Matthew McConaughey) estranged father.

Back in season 1 episode 4 “Who Goes There?” True Detective confirmed that, not only is Rust’s dad named Travis, but he also lives in Alaska – or at least he lived there at one point as far as Rust knows. Given that new True Detective: Night Country showrunner Issa López hasn’t been shy about including Easter eggs from previous seasons, it seemed unlikely that the inclusion of this Travis was a coincidence. Now episode 2 has confirmed that it indeed was not.

Midway through this second installment, Rose and her friend Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) retire back to Rose’s home to decompress after witnessing the horrors of the corpsicle. Rose and Navarro reflect on their relationship and how they met. It turns out that Travis had leukemia and opted to go out via exposure on the ice rather than subject Rose to his gradual death. Funnily enough, back in True Detective season 1, one of the cops in the present narrative doesn’t believe Rust’s story about going to see Travis because “Near as we could tell, his pops never had leukemia. No hospital records of that.” Well, there wouldn’t be if Travis self-diagnosed and committed suicide shortly thereafter.

Navarro found Travis’s body and that’s how she entered Rose’s orbit. Or as Rose puts it: “One last gift from Travis Cohle, I got to meet you.”

There you go, Redditors. You got this one. Well done!

What significance will Travis Cohle being Rust Cohle’s father play going forward on True Detective: Night Country? Perhaps nothing. The appeal of True Detective‘s anthology format is that any viewer can tune into a fresh season without needing extensive knowledge of what came previously. It seems unlikely then that Travis Cohle will be revealed to have been the undead author of all these crimes.

Still, it’s a satisfying little Easter egg for those paying attention.

New episodes of True Detective: Night Country air Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO, culminating with the finale on Feb. 24, 2024.