True Detective: Night Country, 2024.
Directed by Issa López.
Starring Jodie Foster, Kali Reis, Fiona Shaw, Finn Bennett, Isabella Star LaBlanc, John Hawkes, and Christopher Eccleston.
SYNOPSIS:
The fourth and latest season of True Detective, sub-titled Night Country, arrives on Blu-ray with a smattering of bonus features. While it would have been nice for the extras to dig more deeply into the storyline, the characters, and the unique setting, we still get a taste of that here. And if you’re a fan, there’s no reason not to pick this one up.
True Detective has been a curious HBO series. The first and third seasons were excellent, but I gave up on the second season after one or two episodes. So I wasn’t sure what would become of the fourth season, named Night Country and made without creator Nic Pizzolatto’s involvement.
My fears were allayed, however, by a first episode that pulled me right into an intriguing new storyline. Taking place in Alaska during a time of year when it’s night 24 hours a day for 60 days (no thanks), Night Country stars Jodie Foster as police chief Liz Danvers and Kali Reis as state trooper Evangeline Navarro.
The pair are summoned to a research facility where its resident scientists have disappeared, leaving nothing but a severed human tongue as the only physical evidence that something was amiss. The scientists are soon found frozen to death outside, naked and with various injuries. One of them has a spiral symbol inscribed on his forehead.
The tongue belongs to Annie Kowtok (played by Nivi Pedersen in flashback scenes), a native Inupiat woman who was murdered and had her tongue cut out several years prior, after protesting a local mine. Annie’s murder is still unsolved, and Evangeline blames Liz for the police department’s failure to close that case.
Evangeline is no-nonsense while the best way to describe Liz is as an “Alaskan Karen,” as Foster perfectly put it in an interview. Liz has her own arc of self-realization during the course of Night Country’s six episodes, but it takes her a while to get there and, wow, is she annoying along the way.
Of course, Liz’s irritating personality is required for a storyline that sheds light on the plight of native people in Alaska, who have gotten the same raw deal that many native people have received not only in the United States but in many places around the world too. Liz has to be a “Karen” to help the viewer really understand the kind of condescending attitudes that the local natives have to deal with.
The investigation by Liz and Evangeline becomes more complicated as it proceeds, with each woman carrying past baggage that strains their relationship. They discover a connection between the research station and the local mining company and the story builds up to the final reveal of what really happened to the scientists.
I have to admit while that revelation makes sense in the context of the broader conflicts between local natives and outsiders, it’s kind of hard to square with how the scientists were found at the beginning of the show. At first, their death seems to have involved some kind of malevolent force, but the final explanation is much more pedestrian than that.
That said, even though Night Country doesn’t quite stick the landing, it’s a pretty solid season overall. Between this show and others like the wonderful Reservation Dogs, I’ve learned a lot about native cultures that I had no clue about, growing up as a middle class white kid in mostly suburban environments.
This Blu-ray release from HBO features the season’s six episodes spread across two discs, with a handful of bonus features, each of them five minutes or less, found on each one. Here’s what’s included:
Meet The True Detectives (3 minutes): Foster and Reis talk to each other about their characters. It’s a fun watch since they’re both charismatic actors.
New Chapter (3 minutes): Night Country marks a pivot for True Detective, from the use of a sub-title for the first time to the arrival of a new show runner, and all of that is quickly covered here.
Exploring Indigenous Themes (5 minutes): This is the longest extra, which makes sense given the care and attention that was put into telling the story of the Inupiat people through this show. You get a sense of how the cast and crew approached that here.
Max Inkblots (3 minutes): This is kinda silly, but, yeah, since Foster and Reis are so much fun to watch, I don’t mind a few minutes of them interpreting inkblots and laughing about the results.
Setting (2 minutes): Many times, a story’s environment becomes a character in its own right, and the oppressive 60 days of bitter cold with no sun in Alaska is certainly worthy of that description in Night Country. This featurette offers a quick look at that setting.
Quick (one minute or less) recaps of each episode round out both platters.
Brad Cook
