So, "True Detective" is back for another round. This time Mexican filmmaker Issa Lopez takes over as showrunner, for a murder mystery set in the frozen north. During the two weeks of darkness in the Arctic circle, eight scientists at a research center mysteriously disappear. The local sheriff, Liz Danvers, (Jodie Foster) and Trooper Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis), discover that the case might be connected to the unsolved murder of an Inupiat woman that happened six years ago. As the two of them untangle the mystery, they also have to confront their own messy personal lives and pasts. Other characters include father and son lawmen Hank and Peter Prior (John Hawkes, Finn Bennett), Danvers' hostile step-daughter Leah (Isabella Star LeBanc), and the odd woman who discovers the bodies of the scientists, Rose Agineau (Fiona Shaw).
From everything I've read, "True Detective: Night Country" is designed to be a dark mirror to the first season of "True Detective." Instead of two male officers in the humid American south, this time it's two female officers in the icy Alaskan winter. The supernatural and magical realism elements are back, with a possible cause of the deaths being angry spirits out of Inupiat mythology, or perhaps the vengeful ghost of the murdered woman. There are signs and symbols that keep recurring, some linked to Carcosa and the Yellow King from the first season of "True Detective." These connections don't really come to much, and the show probably would have been better off leaving them out. "Night County" functions pretty well as a standalone mystery, and a character study of its two very imperfect leads.
The show's setting is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. The tiny, fictional town of Ennis is a place where everyone knows everyone, and there are all sorts of terrible traumas and festering resentments in everybody's pasts. The biggest employer, a nearby mine, is almost certainly illegally polluting and poisoning the community. The Inupiat population is struggling, including Navarro's schizophrenic sister Julia (Aka Niviana), the only family that she has left. We're warned from the outset that the weeks of darkness with no sun has a tendency to drive people a little crazy, and soon everyone is hearing voices, hallucinating dead loved ones, and drinking too much. The constant darkness and cold are incredibly oppressive, and the atmosphere of rising dread is terrifically captured onscreen. We haven't even gotten to the more traditional horror imagery yet, including wildlife acting strangely, cracking sea ice and subterranean caves, and some frozen corpses that had me flashing back to certain episodes of "Hannibal." There's also a killer title sequence, set to a creepy Billie Eilish song.
My biggest criticism of the show is that it felt rushed. "Night Country" is six episodes compared to the eight that the previous seasons got, and I think it needed more time. The mysteries in all of the "True Detective" installments have been pretty poor when you get down to the mechanics, while the character studies and performances are the main event. That's definitely true of this year as well, though I think it ties together pretty well on a thematic level in the end. Jodie Foster is great, because she's always great, but Kali Reis was the one who really impressed me. This is the first time I've seen her in anything, and I found her screen presence instantly engaging. Both of them are playing difficult, often unlikeable characters, who end up doing some terrible things over the course of the season. I really wish there was the space to dig further into their psyches, and spotlight some of the interesting secondary characters. I definitely didn't get enough Fiona Shaw.
Fortunately, "Night Country" has done well enough that HBO will surely be making more "True Detective" in the future. And we also know it works fine with different showrunners, so hopefully we'll continue to see more interesting talent get a chance to introduce their own takes to the series. Maybe let Foster direct next time?
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