In True Detective: Night Country, Beatrice Malee and Blair Hartman turn out to be conspirators behind the Tsalal men’s deaths. Diane Benson plays Beatrice, whereas Kathryn Wilder plays Blair.
Beatrice Malee and Blair Hartman are two of the cleaners who used to work at the Tsalal Arctic Research Station for two shifts a month before the deaths of all the scientists there.
Beatrice Malee and Blair Hartman first appear in the premiere episode of True Detective: Night Country.
Beatrice had hit Blair’s partner with a metal bucket for hitting Blair. Trooper Navarro had picked up the case. Blair had recently moved in with Beatrice after moving out of her partner’s house.
Liz’s team had questioned Beatrice, Blair, and the cleaners regarding the Tsalal men’s case as well. However, they don’t become important to the investigation until the finale.
The clue that leads to Blair
As per Raymond Clark’s confession, it’s Annie’s spirit that killed the Tsalal men as revenge for killing her six years ago.
However, the fingerprints on the hatch under which Clark was hiding tell a different story. The fingerprints belong to Blair Hartman.
After learning that Beatrice and Blair may have something to do with the deaths of Tsalal men, Liz and Navarro realize that they were asking the wrong questions.
The question isn’t who killed Annie K; the question is who knows who killed her. Beatrice, who leads the cleaners, admits that they knew the Tsalal scientists killed Annie K.
However, even they found out after six years. Beatrice discovered the hidden cave one day while working at Tsalal. She and her crew soon came across reports on Annie K there.
Beatrice and her crew believed that reporting to the cops wouldn’t have made a difference. Hence, they took matters into their own hands.
Did Beatrice and her crew kill the Tsalal men?
It wasn’t Annie who came for the Tsalal men. Beatrice and her girls raided the place with guns. They took the Tsalal men hostage, forced them to strip naked, and made them run into the ice.
They claim that the Tsalal men brought their deaths upon themselves by digging into the ice of the spirit that resides in Ennis and killing her daughter, as in Annie.
The cleaners allowed the spirit to decide whether she wanted to take the Tsalal men; they didn’t kill them.
According to Beatrice, the Tsalal men would have survived the storm if the spirit had decided not to take them because the cleaners didn’t leave the Tsalal men’s clothes far away from them.
However, as per Beatrice, it seems like the spirit did decide to kill all of the Tsalal men.
Beatrice, Blair, and their crew are not arrested. Liz and Navarro decide to go with the official report submitted by Kate and Connelly. It suggests the Tsalal men died due to a weather event.
Also Read: The Tsalal men’s case in True Detective: Night Country explained