Where in the world is Raymond Clark? On the second episode of True Detective: Night Country, detectives Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) discover that the scientists at Tsalal Research Center may not have been as isolated as they thought, as the murdered Annie K. and the missing Raymond Clark’s relationship comes to light. In this week’s edition of Still Watching, hosts Hillary Busis, Richard Lawson, and Chris Murphy unpack Annie and Raymond’s “fuck trailer” as well as the the many other mysteries of Ennis, Alaska. Plus, Murphy chats with Christopher Eccleston about playing the police chief who might bogart the case, and baring it all in a sex scene with Foster.

After some quick thinking by Danvers, the “corpsicle” has been moved to the town’s ice hockey rink as they await forensics. As the frozen Tsalal scientists thaw, it’s clear that showrunner Issa Lopez is unafraid to lean into horror with True Detective: Night Country, going so far as to have black sludge pour out of a frozen scientist’s mouth. “If we had any doubt that this was leaning on horror tropes this season, they were quickly gone after this moment,” says Lawson. “It’s terrifying.” To make matters even more terrifying, once “the corpsicle” has thawed, it’s clear that scientist Raymond Clark is missing from the group and remains at large.

While no one knows Clark’s whereabouts, Danvers and Navarro do discover something very important to Clark: the love hut where he’d retreat with Annie K. Although we were led to believe the scientists were completely removed from the townspeople of Ennis, Danvers and Navarro discover by way of a local hairdresser that the scientists did, in fact, interact with the townspeople—and some, like Raymond and Annie K developed quite a fondness for one another. Their secret relationship mostly played out in a trailer Clark owned on the outskirts of town—“his fuck trailer,” as Lawson eloquently put it—which happened to be covered in the spiral symbol that Finn Bennett warned the Still Watching hosts to keep an eye on last week. To make matters creepier, both Annie and Clark have matching tattoos of the spiral as well.

“Not to be the season one police, but we should note that this spiral also has a history in the franchise,” notes Busis. “It’s the symbol of the pedophile cult.”

Clark and Annie are not the only couple to have a secret love connection this episode. Christopher Eccleston makes his first appearance on the series as chief Ted Corsaro, Danvers’s former boss—who is responsible for her transfer from Fairbanks to Ennis, and wants to transfer “the corpsicle” case to his unit. But after Danvers pays a visit to Ted’s hotel room, it's quickly clear that there’s more to their relationship than boss and employee.

“The relationship has gone on for a good few years, so there’s obviously some deep feelings there,” says Eccleston. "Danvers tells herself she’s there purely for the sex. And only Jodie would know the answer to that, but I suspect that he’s in love with her. I think he’s in love with her, and I think he covers it.”

Eccleston says that he had no trouble baring his backside for his sex scene with Foster, particularly because he and Foster were on the same page. “Fortunately for me, Jodie and myself are exactly the same generation,” says Eccleston. “We came up doing sex scenes before #MeToo, before the advent of intimacy coaches—we’d gone the same route, albeit in different genders. So, we were very versed in how to behave towards another actor.”  

According to Eccleston, a happy accident also helped ease the tension of filming the scene. “It was very funny. The first day I met Jodie and Issa in person, we were discussing the sex scene, we were discussing the relationship, and I leant on a rehearsal table and it smashed in two and I fell on my back which made Issa and Jodie hysterical with laughter,” he says. “Then me and Jodie lay down in the debris of this smashed table and to be honest that that did the job for us. That gave us the shorthand because we realized we had exactly the same sense of humor and same approach–You know, take the work seriously, but don’t take yourself seriously at all which really helps in a sex scene.”

By the end of episode 2, major questions still remain. Will the Tsalal case get transferred to the bigwigs in Fairbanks? What transpired on the Wheeler case between Danvers and Navarro all those years ago? And, most pressingly, where is Raymond Clark? For answers to all of the above and more, you’ll have to keep tuning into True Detective: Night Country. As always, send any questions, comments, or theories on the series to Still Watching at [email protected].