True Detective: Night Country Referencing The Tuttles Is Very Confusing Now.

After True Detective: Night Country finale, its references to the Tuttles seem all the more confusing. In its opening episodes, True Detective: Night Country was jampacked with callbacks to season 1. From the crooked spirals to Rust Cohle’s father, True Detective season 4’s episode 1 featured them all. These early nods to True Detective season 1 greatly benefited season 4 because they made viewers curious about how the show’s overarching mysteries and storyline would ultimately link to season 1’s narrative.

Unfortunately, many of these season 1 easter eggs in True Detective: Night Country remained unexplored throughout its seasons. There were also several theories surrounding how True Detective: Night Country would mark the return of season 1’s big villains after the early Tuttle reference. However, the season’s last few episodes made the name-drop even more baffling.

True Detective: Night Country Didn’t Pay Off Its Tuttle Reference

True Detective: Night Country dropped two direct references to the Tuttles in its six-episode runtime. The first one was in its early episodes, where Peter did some background checks on the Tsalal research facility and learned they were indirectly being funded by a conglomerate called Tuttle United. The second nod to True Detective season 1’s big villains came in season 4’s episode 5, where Pete dug deeper into Tuttle United’s history and figured out that the company was also the founding member of Ennis’ Silver Sky mine.

Given how True Detective season 4 also featured spiral motifs, which were implied to be symbols used by the members of the Tuttle cult to express their devotion to the Yellow King, many viewers could not help but believe that Night Country’s Tuttle callbacks would lead to bigger season 1 connections and revelations. Unfortunately, True Detective: Night Country’s Tuttle easter eggs do not pay off as one expects them to — they turn out to be one-dimensional plot devices that merely hint at the shared universe between the seasons.

Could True Detective: Night Country Have Done More With The Tuttles?

The Tuttle nod seems out of place in True Detective: Night Country from the beginning itself because the family was pretty much done by the end of season 1, and the Tuttle cult had long been defunct even before Childress tried to continue its traditions. There is an argument that, like Travis Cohle’s appearance and the spiral motifs, the Tuttle reference was not supposed to be taken too seriously because it was only introduced for the worldbuilding of the True Detective universe.

However, what is the point of worldbuilding when the connections between the two seasons do not add any heft to the main plotlines in the overarching narrative? Since the Tuttle callback only distracts viewers from what the season is trying to portray, it is hard not to wonder why they were included in the first place. True Detective: Night Country probably could have done more with the Tuttles, but shoehorning them in its narrative made it look like the season was only capitalizing on season 1’s best plot devices to entice viewers.