True Detective: Night Country

This season of True Detective is testing my curmudgeonly limits. First of all, I can’t just watch all of them in one day. I’m not used to that anymore and it makes me cranky. As with the first season of True Detective, the bulk of the episodes are all about piling mystery on top of mystery on top of unknowns and having the detectives bumble around working hard to get not much done. I guess the viewer is supposed to be caught up in it anyway, waiting for crumbs to fall from the clue monster and admiring the atmospheric look of the show and the actors’ work while we wait.

The basic story is that, in the far northern Alaskan town of Ennis, just as winter’s permanent darkness falls, all the scientists in a fancy research station suddenly go missing. Local police chief Danvers (Jodie Foster) makes everyone around her crazy with her foul personality and brilliant detective work. When the scientists are found gruesomely dead in the cold dark of arctic winter, she finds herself having to work with state trooper Navarro (Kali Reis, a world champion boxer in her third acting role). The two used to be friends and working partners but are now well known antagonists.

I was very taken with the gorgeously shot first episode  – except for the stupidly fake caribou – and set in a place that is exotic but not somewhere I would ever care to live. I felt the same way about season one’s setting of hot and sunny Louisiana. I was there a couple of times in the 1960s and all I remember is it’s insufferably hot, the people talk funny, and all the water is yellow. They told me it was because of the sulphur. I would like to believe that. The trouble began when I innocently looked online for a little background information about True Detective season four.

The first thing that really knocked me out was the opening credits song, Bury a Friend by Billie Eilish. I thought it was a great, dark song for a show set in perpetual darkness. But apparently, the song has been used in a lot of other places, and boy did I read a lot of “fans” going off on that. There is a lot to read about Night Country, between vociferous fans and breathless critics it’s pretty easy to go down the rabbit hole of theory and conjecture. People were excited and angry that this fourth season is obviously closely tied to the characters and plot of the first season, so then I had to veer off to watch all of season one again. 

There are a lot of ways they are very similar, like, my dislike of the actors playing the main characters. This year it’s Jodie Foster, who is talented I suppose but I just don’t like her which matches my description of season one’s Matthew McConaughey (detective Cohle). They play characters who are smart but complete assholes. I don’t know about season one, but this time around, Officer Danvers (Foster) is specifically written to be a jerk and she doesn’t disappoint. Everyone in the tiny Arctic town of Ennis hates her, even the guy she’s secretly sneaking booty calls with. The other main character, trooper Navarro isn’t a reprehensible human like season one’s Woody Harrelson character Detective Hart, but of course she has secrets so there’s still time for that.

The personalities and dynamics of the main characters are by far not the only close similarities of the two seasons. The supporting cast is fantastic and necessary for the plot. Through them a viewer really gets a feel of the depth of mysteries and secrets tying things together even if they aren’t given anything beyond vague clues and heightened tensions to base their speculations on.

The location is an important character in both seasons. It’s always sunny and hot in Louisiana, and it’s always cold and dark in Alaska. The crime is huge in both seasons and yet the detectives must force their way against a tide of nefarious opposition to find the few and seemingly unrelated clues. Those opposing forces are powerful and entrenched in the region, with toxic religiosity in season one and toxic mining poisoning everyone in Ennis in season four. The backstory of the crime is a lot larger than can even be imagined at the beginning, and there is an ongoing hint of supernatural in both though it’s much stronger in Night Country.

Beyond thematic similarities, there are some direct ties between season one and season four. Characteristics of the crimes are similar, especially a recurring glyph that is exactly the same and never really explained. It’s just there, on dead bodies, tattoos, drawings. Detective Cohle’s father features in episode one of season four and the discovery of that concrete connection made the fans of season one really nuts.

There’s a lot to like about season four, like the heavy use of indigenous actors and a female heavy production, from show runner to producer, director, writer, and main characters. Except for the ridiculously obvious cgi caribou everything looks great and the writing is just as frustrating in its sparingly delivered clues and wonderfully rounded out characters. If it looks like the actors were working in a super frosty deep freeze, it’s because they filmed in Iceland. If you love disliking characters, there’s a lot to choose from, like officer Danvers and her nemesis officer Hank Prior. It’s actually fun trying to decide which one you hate the most, and kinda hoping they end up beating each other to death before it’s all over.

After watching the first three episodes of this six episode series I have mixed feelings. Because the fourth and first seasons are so similar, I’m having certain expectations about how it will end. I don’t know how I feel about that. Do I want to be surprised, or do I want another slam bang and shocking ending like season one? I’m not sure how I feel overall about the ties between seasons. Is it a cool geeky thing that keeps everyone searching under every rock for easter eggs leading to endless speculations? Or is it an exercise in unoriginal storytelling?

Now that I’m halfway through I will of course continue watching. Do I recommend it? If you liked season one, definitely see this. Everything but the caribou is well done. You might wait till you can watch it all at once, though, or you’ll end up being frustrated for a lot longer at the slow leak of clues and revelations, and will drive yourself insane reading countless stories online about every hint of the show’s connections to season one.

LINKS:

• True Detective: Night Country – Official Max Website
• True Detective: Night Country – IMDB
• True Detective: Night Country – Wikipedia

CFR: In Addition:

I love it.

Ok, I mean I would. Alaska Native people and the issues they deal with; spirituality; and cold. I. Love. Winter. I love snow and cold and would be very happy in such a climate. The town however, Ennis, uh no. Mean people there and that is not something I could deal with.

Plus Jodi Foster and OMG Kali Reis are awesome!!! I could watch them for days! I love how relationships are revealed during conversations that don’t sound like true exposition. I love the dark. I love the cold. I’m rooting for the indigenous people of Alaska.

As I write this I have 35 minutes to view the next episode. I admit it: I wish I could have binged it all. However I do remember the long ago days of having to wait for weekly episodes so I shall handle it. In fact, I may just watch the next episode during the day so I don’t get too spooked. LOL on me.

One thing I want to mention here, and this will require a future post, is the nasty, and whiny nature of fandom. Here is a series that got a HUGE following and love for season 1. (I need to watch that, no I haven’t.) But no matter what the other seasons do, fans have to be nasty. The nastiness ruins the show/franchise for many and it seems no matter what Toxic Fans just won’t STFU.

STFU, ok? Or as one friend once said “Don’t yuck my yum.”

So look, you may not like the new seasons of True Detective (TD), but so what? You can’t recreate season one, that is the truth!!! That was a once in a lifetime experience. So punishing TD for being unable to do this, is well, kind of mean and silly.

Granted yes, sometimes sequels are just as good as the original. Yes there are times when series get it right. And times they don’t. Just enjoy, ok? Or at least let others enjoy.

I have to work on this too. I am not innocent of being hyper critical. But I also know I need to let others enjoy their joys.

In short, tolerance. We need more of it.