Peter Prior is a character played by Finn Bennett in True Detective: Night Country. He is the son of fellow police officer Hank Prior.
History[]
Childhood[]
When Pete was nine, he felt through the ice and was swept away by the current. Hank ran up ahead and used an ice axe to break the ice, then pulled Pete back up to safety. Then he kept Pete awake for the entire drive to the hospital. As an adult, Pete claimed to have little memory of this incident.[1]
Tsalal Deaths[]
Pete went with his father, Hank, and Liz Danvers to Tsalal Arctic Research Station, where all eight scientists living there were reported missing. Pete looked into the history and funding of the station while Hank and Danvers looked around for clues. He said he believed they were looking for the origin of life.
When they got back to the police station, Danvers sent Pete to find the Annie Kowtok file and when she realized it was at Hank's place, she sent Pete there over his objections to retrieve it. Pete used the ruse of looking for a picture of himself to show his son to get into his father's house. He was able to toss the case box out the window and take it to Danvers. Danvers reluctantly told Pete about the case and Navarro's obsession over it.
Pete later contacted Danvers to inform her that the scientists' bodies had been found buried in ice.[2] They started examining the corpses and taking pictures. They observed that they were naked and had multiple injuries. While they were working to free the corpses, Trooper Willson accidentally broke off Lund's arm, revealed that he was still alive. Once he was taken to the hospital, Pete continued working to move the bodies without damaging them. They got them moved to the ice rink, where they could thaw in a controlled environment. Pete then interviewed Bill Wallis, who said the scientists were weird and reclusive, especially Clark. When Pete showed him a picture of the symbol they found, he said that Clark had it tattooed on his chest. That night, Danvers left Pete in charge of watching the corpses thaw, even though he'd promised to put Darwin to bed. As they thawed, Peter realized there were only five bodies there, meaning someone was missing. Danvers and Navarro came over and they did a roll call and realized Clark was the one. Navarro said she believed he was alive and out there somewhere.[3]
While helping Danvers with the evidence collected from Clark's trailer, Pete asked about the last case she worked on with Navarro, the Wheeler case. She told him about it, but lied and said that he had shot himself before they arrived. Danvers had Pete search for Oliver Tagaq, an equipment engineer who had worked at Tsalal, but Pete was unable to find anything.
When Pete came home in the early hours of the morning, he accidentally woke Kayla and Darwin. He put Darwin back to bed and apologized to Kayla, but they got into a fight about how much he worked and how he always answered when Danvers called. Pete then had the idea to call his cousin, who is a vet, to look at the bodies before they were sent to Anchorage. Vince looked at the bodies and said he believed they died before they were frozen as freezing to death was peaceful and they looked more like animals he'd seen scared to death. He was frustrated when Navarro was able to find Tagaq while he had failed.
While Danvers and Navarro were at the hospital to talk to Lund, who had woken from his coma, Pete came and showed them Annie's phone. He'd unlocked it and found a video of Annie saying she'd found something. Annie then screamed and disappeared.[4]
On Christmas Eve, Pete told Danvers that a team had arrived to transport the bodies to Anchorage, but Connelly was there to supervise. At the police station, Pete told Danvers he'd found someone whose injuries matched the scientists', Otis Heiss. Unfortunately, he hadn't been seen in years. Danvers told Pete to have the people searching for Clark to start looking for Otis as well, which he did despite it being Christmas Eve.
Just as Pete was preparing to leave for the day, Danvers called and had him pick up Navarro to go see Oliver Tagaq at the nomad camp. They found Tagaq gone and the spiral written on a piece of cardboard in his place, along with a stone that had the same symbol. Dominic Pitka told them Tagaq left the day after their previous visit.
When Pete finally got home, he got into bed with Kayla and apologized, though she didn't believe him. He wondered why she wouldn't just tell him that he ruined her life and that she didn't want to have the baby.
The next morning, Pete told Danvers that some fishermen found something near the dredge and sent her a picture of a man wearing Clark's coat.[5]
Upset with Pete being at Danvers' beck and call, Kayla packed him a bag and told him to leave their home. Pete took his bag to his dad's house, where he called and pretended he wasn't already there. Hank said Pete could stay with him.
At the station, Danvers confronted Pete and asked if he knew Leah was going to the protest at the mine. He said he wasn't even staying at home because Kayla had kicked him out. He refused her offer to stay with her. Pete then showed Danvers that he'd used tax returns to trace the station's funding back to the mine. The mine was funding the station, which then put out environmental reports that covered up the harm the mine was doing.
Pete then went to see Leah, whom Danvers had had booked in. He brought her a drink and a snack and she told him that Kayla just wanted the guy she fell in love with back, because he was a good guy. She cautioned him not to let Danvers destroy that guy.
Danvers had Pete come into her office, where she confronted him about keeping an easy to guess password on his computer, which allowed Hank to get in and see that Pete had looked into the Wheeler case and knew that Pete had figured out it wasn't a suicide after all. Danvers challenged him to ask the right questions, which led up to him asking if she'd killed him. He explained that he'd figured out that all the photos of Wheeler's victim were flipped to make it look like her attacker was right-handed, to match the bullet wound on the right side of Wheeler's head, but Wheeler was actually left-handed. Danvers told him that he was smart, but sometimes, he needed to learn when to stop asking questions. Then she gave him the key to the shack in her backyard, saying he couldn't stay with his father anymore and they didn't have to have any contact if he didn't want.
Pete went to Danvers' shack and settled in. When he heard gunshots coming from her house, he entered with his gun raised and found that his father had shot and killed Otis Heiss. Hank tried to get Pete to help him cover up the crime, but when Hank tried to raise his gun to shoot Danvers, Pete shot him in the head, killing him. Navarro arrived soon after and told Danvers they needed to stage it to look like Hank had killed Heiss and then gotten into an accident on his way to hide the body because if they reported it to Connelly, he'd use it to bury all of them, because he was in on the conspiracy. Pete agreed to stay behind and clean up, over Danvers' objections, while Navarro and Danvers went to find the location of Annie's murder.[1] As promised, Pete cleaned up the house and wrapped up the bodies. As he was putting on the finishing touches, Leah came home, startling him. He told her Danvers had been called away and on emergency and offered to drive her back to his place, not wanting Kayla and Darwin to be alone for the holiday. As he dropped her off, Kayla came out to the car. He told her he had to do something and then he would come back. She worried Danvers had gotten him into something, but he said that wasn't the case. She kissed him and told him to be safe. Pete drove his father's truck, with both bodies, out to Rose's place. She directed him on how to cut through the ice, then cut Hank's body to release the air from his lungs so he would sink. Then she had Pete dump the body into the water. She told him he probably thought the worst was over, but the worst was forever.
Months later, Hank's disappearance remained an unsolved mystery.[6]
Relationships[]
He is married to Kayla Prior, with whom he has a son, Darwin.[2]
Career[]
He is a police officer, like his father.