Contains spoilers for this episode and earlier episodes.
The recovery of the frozen researchers produces a shock when Anders Lund proves to be alive. He is taken to hospital, while the remaining bodies are moved to the town's ice rink so they can thaw for examination. Danvers notices injuries and a spiral mark that do not fit an uncomplicated disappearance. She resists Connelly's effort to transfer the investigation to Anchorage, keeping the evidence and the work in Ennis for now.
The tongue is linked to Annie, and Raymond Clark's similar tattoo draws the detectives further into the old murder. Peter traces Tsalal's funding through companies to Tuttle United and continues gathering records despite Hank's anger over the stolen file. Danvers asks a teacher about the researchers' scientific project, learning what they claimed to be trying to recover from the ice. Navarro visits Rose, whose account of Travis and the dead offers beliefs about Ennis rather than a police explanation for the bodies.
Danvers finally asks Navarro to work with her because Annie's case can no longer be kept apart from Tsalal. Information obtained through Qavvik leads Navarro to Clark's trailer, where the two women find Annie's phone, photographs and objects arranged around her memory. The trailer makes their hidden relationship harder to dismiss. Back at the rink, the count shows that Clark is absent from the recovered group. The investigators now have a missing man to search for as well as deaths to explain.