The Pitch: At the end of every year in the small Alaskan town of Ennis, the sun sets for a weeks-long period in which the sun sets entirely from mid-December to after the new year. In that darkness hides all manner of things: corruption, sin, violence, and memories we’d just as soon choose to leave out in the black. Add to that a pollutant-heavy mine, a group of Indigenous activists eager to shut it down, and
In that oblivion lies eight bodies, nude, frozen, and screaming in agony — the entire complement of a nearby research station investigating new tech solutions out in the permafrost. It’s a bizarre crime scene for Ennis Police Chief Elizabeth Danvers (Jodie Foster) to handle, complicated all the more by the reappearance of her former partner Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis), now a state trooper after an incident years ago that tore apart their dynamic. Navarro is insistent that Danvers reopen a cold case involving an Iñupiaq activist found brutally murdered years ago. Little do the two know that the cases may be more connected than they thought.
Bury Your Friends: In its first three seasons, True Detective was a testament to the highs and lows of Nic Pizzolatto’s writing prowess: Spooky and melancholic in its excellent first season, pulpy and exploitative in its second, murky in its third. Bless us, then, that HBO saw fit to hand the reins over to Mexican filmmaker Issa López for its fourth season, subtitled Night Country — a refreshing revamp to the formula that brought some much-needed mystery (and mysticism) back to the gritty crime anthology series’ DNA.
López, a veteran of Mexican film whose most familiar work for U.S. audiences is likely her superlative 2019 horror film Tigers Are Not Afraid, builds her spin on the series’ essential formula — two mismatched detectives, a complicated case that tests their personal and professional fortitude — into her signature slow-paced fairytale sensibilities. In interviews, she’s described this season as a “dark mirror” of Season 1, which bears out in its opening seconds: A quote from “The King in Yellow,” the metaphysical hub of the show’s first season.
Then, the first few minutes, following the inhabitants of Tsalal Research Station before their mysterious disappearance, play out like something from The Thing. Throw a stone at the TV landscape over the last few decades, and you’ll hit a dozen miniseries featuring a small town coming apart at the seams in the wake of a mysterious murder. But Night Country elevates its concerns with López’s superlative command of tone: The chilly Alaskan environment, perpetually cloaked in darkness, reflects the darkness that lies underneath each character and the original sins that took place upon that land (systemic racism, abuse of women, Native displacement and disenfranchisement, the crime of manmade climate change) in ways that weave together such disparate concerns into a cohesive whole.
Ask the Question: It’s not True Detective without that most classic of crime-drama staples: A pair of messed-up cops trying to repair their broken lives through the case they’ve chosen to pour all of themselves into. In some respects, Danvers and Navarro follow the rough outline set up by Rust Cohle and Marty Hart in the first season — Foster is the grizzled old hand with extraordinary detective skills and a messed-up personal life, while Reis’ search for justice is complicated with mysterious visions of something… else. Something beyond.
True Detective: Night Country (Max)
