‘True Detective: Night Country’ review: HBO crime series goes horror

‘True Detective: Night Country’ review: HBO crime series goes horror

(NEXSTAR) — It’s been five years since HBO’s critically acclaimed anthology series “True Detective” aired its last season but the wait is finally over as a new mystery begins. This time, the U.S.-set series takes itself way up north to Alaska for a head-scratcher of a crime that’s sure to unsettle you.

“Night Country” stars Academy Award-winner Jodie Foster (“Nyad”) as Det. Liz Danvers, a widowed chief of police who’s reunited with former colleague, trooper Evangeline Navaroo (Kali Reis) when eight men who operate a local research station disappear, seemingly into thin air. Left behind on a whiteboard are the words: “We are all dead.”

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The disappearances happen in the dead of Alaskan winter, when the fictional town of Ennis is shrouded in darkness all day and all night. Adding to the spookiness is Ennis itself. The town is haunted by very real specters: the unsolved murder of an indigenous woman, locals with unchecked mental illness, and a controversial mine that keeps the town afloat but poisons the water supply on the poor side of town.

The new six-episode installment is the brainchild of showrunner Issa López, who also serves as writer, director and executive producer. While the fourth season of the show bears all the markings of a “True Detective” season — a complex lead, secret backstories, religious symbolism — “Night Country” is decidedly more frightening than the previous three seasons.

As the mystery deepens, horrors become more real. And for some characters, the line between the living and the dead begins to blur.

Like its predecessors, “Night Country” gives its detectives more to struggle with than just a grisly case.

Danvers is very much the kind of character Jodie Foster should be playing and the Academy Award winner expertly delivers the aggressively-serious-but-also-deeply-broken performance you would expect. Viewers meet Danvers at a crossroads in her life: she’s unable to move on from the loss of her family and failing at raising the stepdaughter her husband left behind. At work, she’s fighting to lead the male peers who doubt her. Danvers’ stepdaughter Leah (Isabella Star LaBlanc) resents her and much of the parental struggle focuses on the dynamic of a white agnostic raising a young indigenous woman trying to hold on to her culture. This battle is one of the most effective and fresh interpersonal through lines of season 4.

Meanwhile, as Navarro, Reis (who’s a professional boxer, in addition to actor), matches Foster’s workplace toughness but adds a layer of fragility as it pertains to her family and her identity. Navarro is also indigenous and like many officers of color, she struggles with upholding systems she sees as harming her own people. Though Reis is still relatively green, her performance here shines, especially in scenes with Navarro’s troubled sister, who Navarro is determined to save.

Adding to Danvers’ and Navarro’s troubles? Each other. Though the two were once partners and friends, they haven’t spoken in years due to a dark secret they share.

But the women aren’t alone. They’re also flanked by rookie officer Pete Prior (Finn Bennett) who’s trying to make his mark at the police station without letting Danvers walk all over him. In Prior, “Night Country” finds some of the softness its two female leads often repress. Bennett plays the young father without any hints of toxic masculinity and it’s refreshing that of the three lead investigators, Prior is the one seen holding babies, crying, and torn between trying to have a career and a family. It’s a refreshing gender dynamic to see on an American crime series.

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The six episode-run of “Night Country” flies by quick and once we arrive at the big answers in the last two, it becomes clear how tightly showrunner/writer López and her fellow EPs (including Foster, series creator Nic Pizzolatto, and director Barry Jenkins) laced the season’s themes into its mystery. Like any good solution, it’s a logical end-point that still manages to surprise.

All-in-all, López and Co.’s take on a “True Detective” season appear to have shaken some life into a sometimes flailing series. While the first season, starring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, received near-universal praise, the anthology hasn’t flown that close to acclaim since. Though season two, starring Colin Farrell and Rachel McAdams, isn’t without its fans, it remains somewhat polarizing. The third season, which aired in 2017 and starred Mahershala Ali, was generally seen as an improvement, despite flying under the radar.

Based on early reviews, the strange turns taken by “Night Country” might be exactly what was needed for a season to individuate itself from the impact of the first. The season currently holds a 93% Tomatometer score across 70 critical reviews. “Night Country” isn’t without some flaws — frustrating character beats, some less-interesting side plots — but it’s ultimately a riveting watch, especially during the winter months.