We finally know who killed Annie (and what happened to the Tsalal men) in True Detective: Night Country

True Detective: Night Country has taken us on an intense ride in the fictional town of Ennis, Alaska, where the polar night consumes each day and the past comes back to haunt its residents. The latest installment of the acclaimed HBO series stars Jodie Foster as Chief Liz Danvers and Kali Reis as State Trooper Evangeline Navarro, former partners who must put their differences aside to tackle a new case together. After workers at a local place called Tsalal Research Station go missing and turn up dead in the snow, Danvers and Navarro are quick to connect it to a murder case from years ago.

The big questions of the season are: Who killed Annie, a native woman who was stabbed repeatedly years ago, and what happened to the Tsalal men, who were found naked and frozen with terrified looks on their faces? Fortunately, now that the finale of True Detective: Night Country is out, the mysteries are solved and we have a lot to go over! To be honest, I was a bit disappointed in the finale, but the season overall is generally entertaining.

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE TRUE DETECTIVE: NIGHT COUNTRY FINALE.

So let's get into it. We answer those two big questions here as we recap the True Detective: Night Country finale.

The Tsalal researchers killed Annie

At this point, we pretty much knew the answer to who killed Annie before episode 6, but the True Detective: Night Country finale confirms it and gives us a flashback scene to see what went down and why. In the finale, Danvers and Navarro locate Raymond Clark — the remaining Tsalal researcher who made it out alive — in the snow tunnels which, as they find out, lead to the research station. They're able to question him on what happens and comes clean.

Annie, who was Clark's girlfriend at the time, found out the researchers were actually asking the mines to create more pollution for the sake of their work, and she destroyed everything. Remember, Silver Sky Mines is a corrupt company that's been causing stillbirths and sickness in the town, and Annie was one of the many native people to protest against them.

One of the Tsalal workers intervened and realized what Annie had done, stabbing her repeatedly in the station. Clark was seemingly horrified and watched while the other workers came into the room and began attacking Annie for destroying their research. That didn't actually kill her, though. It was Clark who actually delivered the final blow, taking off his shirt and suffocating her with it. Apparently, the Tsalal men weren't the ones who removed her tongue, though. As Clark explains it, the mines had a cop come to clean up the whole thing, which was presumably Hank Prior, and he thinks he must have done it.

The Tsalal cleaning crew got revenge

But Danvers and Navarro aren't the first people to discover how Annie actually died. As it's revealed later in the finale, native women who worked as the cleaning crew at Tsalal figured it out, and they decided to get revenge. Understandably, they couldn't trust the police would do anything about it, so they took matters into their own hands. Danvers and Navarro realize this and go see the women, speaking to Beatrice and Blair who we'd seen briefly in episodes before, and they come clean.

"Those f**kers killed Annie K," Beatrice explains to Danvers and Navarro, saying that for years they thought it was the mines that killed Annie like everyone else did. But once Beatrice discovered the tunnels underneath Tsalal Station, she started putting the pieces together. The women wanted to create their own story this time, so they entered Tsalal with guns and ordered the men to get into a truck. They drove them out deep into the snow, removed their clothing, and left them to die. Whether it was the cold that killed them or a ghost is up for speculation, but we know Ennis is full of spirits and paranormal happenings.

Ultimately, Danvers and Navarro are understanding of Beatrice and the crew's choices, and they don't escalate it further. They let the women know that the Tsalal case has been closed after it was determined that they froze to death, and they won't be reopening it.

Finally, by the end of the True Detective: Night Country finale, there is light. Not only in the resolution of finding out what happened to Annie after all these years but also literally, as the days of night end with the new year. There's no more snow or days of darkness, though that doesn't put a stop to the spirits living in Ennis. Navarro ends up walking out in the snow to face her death, and we see her visit Danvers, presumably as an apparition. The ending of the latest season feels a bit melodramatic to me, but it's satisfying enough to get our answers.

You can now stream all four seasons of True Detective: Night Country right now on HBO's platform Max.