Warning: spoilers ahead for True Detective season 4.

Summary

• Jules' tragic death in episode 4 raises questions about her suicide and its impact on others. Her struggles with mental health and visions played a major role in her decision.
• Oranges serve as a symbol of impending doom in True Detective: Night Country, foreshadowing tragedies for Jules and Navarro. Jules seeing the orange before her death symbolized her tragic fate.
• Jules returns as a ghost to Navarro, potentially to guide or warn her. Their shared visions may be a supernatural ability rather than a mental health condition. Jules' death will drive Navarro to uncover the truth behind Annie K's murder.

A character's tragic death in True Detective: Night Country's episode 4 leaves several questions surrounding her suicide and its impact on others. Like the previous episodes, True Detective: Night Country's episode 4 walks through everything Danvers and Navarro do to get to the bottom of the central murder mystery. However, similar to episodes 1, 2, and 3, it also highlights how Danvers struggles to maintain her relationship with her daughter, Peter finds it hard to find time for his family, Hank learns a harsh truth, and Navarro tries to protect her sister.

While the Annie K and Tsalal investigations make some progress, all four characters experience tragedies in their personal lives. While Danvers' daughter, Leah, leaves home on Christmas Eve, Peter's wife asks him to leave their home. In the meantime, Hank gets ghosted by the woman he believed was going to be his wife. Navarro's arc, too, takes a grim turn when she learns that her sister took her own life.

Why Jules Takes Her Own Life In True Detective: Night Country Episode 4

Jules' struggles with mental health may explain her death

Since the beginning of True Detective season 4, Jules was seemingly haunted by strange visions of the dead. Navarro had also asked Jules to move to Alaska with her because she believed that staying with family would help her. Since Jules and Navarro's mother also used to get similar visions, the two sisters could not help but assume that it was a mental health condition Jules had inherited. Although Navarro tried to help her and encouraged her to seek professional help, Jules was initially apprehensive about it because of her experiences with medication and mental health institutes.

However, as the season progressed, Jules' condition seemingly got worse, and her visions became even more intense. In True Detective: Night Country's episode 4's opening moments, there is a scene where Danvers spots Jules taking her clothes off in the blistering cold but saves her before it is too late. After this incident, Navarro got Jules itted to Ennis' psychiatric facility, but one final vision of her mother took a massive toll on her mental health. After seeing her dead mother under her bed, Jules seemingly grew tired of her family's "curse" and decided to take her own life.

She spent most of her life feeling scared of her visions and seeing them as a curse she inherited from her mother. Towards the end of her arc, she did not want to feel scared anymore. Therefore, she died by suicide.

What Jules Seeing The Orange Before Her Death Symbolizes

The orange foreshadows Jules and Navarro's future

Oranges have always been symbols of impending doom or something unfortunate for characters in movies and television shows. For instance, in The Godfather, Vito Corleone gets shot moments after he goes on the street to buy oranges. Similarly, the camera features shots of a man peeling an orange while Harry and Tyrone try to score drugs in the backend of a supermarket in Requiem for a Dream. In True Detective: Night Country's episode 3, Navarro, too, finds an orange in the snow and later chucks it to discover it rolling back towards her.

Just like The Godfather, Requiem for a Dream, and several other movies and shows, True Detective seems to use oranges to foreshadow a forthcoming tragedy in a character's arc. The orange rolling back toward Navarro was likely foreshadowing her sister's death and her own struggles with mental health. Jules seeing the orange before her death seemingly symbolized her tragic fate and also her mother's traumatic demise, given how she sees her dead mother under her bed right after an orange rolls out at her feet.

Why Jules Returns As A Ghost To Navarro

Jules seemingly returned to guide or warn Navarro

Just like the ones in M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, the scary ghosts in True Detective: Night Country are trying to help their loved ones or seeking help.

In True Detective: Night Country's episode 4's final arc, Navarro and Danvers visit the dredges after the local fishermen spot a mysterious man in the location. While Danvers goes on to find the man, expecting him to be Raymond Clark, Navarro finds the body of a woman floating under the dredge. When she goes down to investigate, she finds herself face to face with her sister's screaming ghost, seemingly trying to tell her something. Why Jules returns as a ghost to Navarro remains a mystery, but it seems like Jules was trying to warn her about something.

Considering how Navarro, too, is starting to have the same visions as her mother and her sister, it seems likely that their visions are a supernatural ability and not a mental health condition. In episode 3, Navarro also had a vision of Danvers' dead son and even saw him holding his polar bear toy, which further confirmed that her visions are a gift. Jules likely showed up as a ghost to assure her that her ability is not a curse.

Just like the ones in M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, the scary ghosts in True Detective: Night Country are trying to help their loved ones or seeking help. Danvers' son had likely appeared in episode 3 to assure his grieving mother that he was okay. Similarly, Navarro's sister likely returned after dying to either guide, warn, or assure her sister.

What Jules' Death Means For True Detective: Night Country Episodes 5 & 6

Jules' death will prompt Navarro to double down on her efforts to find the truth behind Annie's death

Jules' death has left a significant impact on Navarro. Although Navarro previously trusted her supernatural inklings, Jules' death had made her question her own mental health. This is why she keeps telling Danvers in episode 4 that the "curse" will take her just like it took her mother and sister. However, with nothing left to lose, Navarro will likely throw her caution to the wind and go all in to get to the bottom of the mystery behind Annie K's murder.

Part of the reason why Navarro was so deadset on serving justice to Annie's murderers was because her mother was also killed when she was much younger. Her mother's killer was never found, which likely served as a catalyst for Navarro to law enforcement. Jules' demise in True Detective: Night Country will likely further fuel her to seek justice and uncover the truth behind Annie K's death and its connections with the Tsalal researchers.

True Detective season 4 drops new episodes every Sunday on HBO Max.