True Detective season 4 is hiding an Easter egg that connects to the first season's big mystery
Jan. 17, 2024Return of the Yellow King
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It’s time to get those conspiracy boards out again. True Detective: Night Country’s opening features a quote that, on first showing, may not seem like much – but it’s actually got ties to the acclaimed first season of HBO’s crime anthology series.
“…For we do not know what beasts the night dreams when its hours grow too long for even God to be awake,” reads the epigraph at the start of Night Country’s premiere.
The line is attributed to ‘Hildreg Castaigne’. Don’t worry if you haven’t brushed up on your 19th Century literature, as Twitter user _JudyRuliani has done some digging.
“The opening quote is attributed to a ‘Hildred Castaigne’, who is the protagonist and narrator of the short story ‘the repairer of reputations’ by [Robert] W. Chambers which is featured in his 1895 collection titled ‘the king in yellow’,” the user writes.
The King in Yellow will be a familiar name to those who lived through the halcyon days of True Detective’s first season, where many messageboard theorists – and even some of the show’s characters – pinned the gruesome murders on a cosmic entity known as the Yellow King.
In truth, the facts were a little more grounded: Errol Childress (who owned Chambers’ book) was revealed as the murderer and follower of the Tuttle Cult, the powerful group who worshipped the (unseen) Yellow King.
It’s never explained whether those in the Tuttle Clan perceived the Yellow King as real or just as a fictional being designed to terrify its victims, but it was a lingering plot thread that fans have been desperate to pull at in the years since.
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To add fuel to the fire, Night Country’s director Issa Lopez tweeted in response: “Someone is paying some serious attention…”
I’m the Senior Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, focusing on news, features, and interviews with some of the biggest names in film and TV. On-site, you’ll find me marveling at Marvel and providing analysis and room temperature takes on the newest films, Star Wars and, of course, anime. Outside of GR, I love getting lost in a good 100-hour JRPG, Warzone, and kicking back on the (virtual) field with Football Manager. My work has also been featured in OPM, FourFourTwo, and Game Revolution.
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