True Detective: Night Country
Hey everyone and welcome today we will be talking about Season 4 of the show True Detective also known as True Detective: Night Country. Fun Fact, Night Country refers to the vast network of ice caves surrounding Ennis but I also wondered if it also referenced the fact that this show takes place in Alaska where in some places like the Fictional Ennis there is darkness for prolonged periods. This season came out in 2024 and stars Jodie Foster, Kali Reis, and Finn Bennett and was created by Issa López. So without further ado let’s get right into it.
True Detective: Night Country follows Police Chief Liz Danvers who lives in the small town of Ennis, Alaska, and comes across a case where some scientists were frozen to death which leads to a lot of questions about what happened. As we learn more about Liz and her relationships with people in the town, we also come to meet Trooper Navarro who has been trying to solve the murder of Annie Kowtok. As the mystery unfolds we come to learn that these cases might be connected.
True Detective: Night Country is a supernatural horror and detective fiction show. It has similar vibes to Fringe, Fargo, or the X-files.
True Detective is on its 4th season and while it is mainly a detective show this season added in some supernatural elements that made the show have more horror vibes. Alaska was the perfect setting for this because it just looked cold and spooky. The show got off to a slow start with me if I’m being honest but as the season went on I became more and more invested in the murders but also learning more about Liz’s family and her relationship with Navarro.
Jodi Foster co-leads this season and I thought she gave a great performance as this police chief who has very few redeeming qualities but you are interested in her story to figure out why she is the way she is and to see how this case will change her. One of the plot points that kept me coming back was wanting to know not only about her kids but also why everyone hated her. We come to find out that her husband and her kids died in a car accident and that seems to be the moment where most of her likable qualities left. She still has people she cares about but the way that she shows that she cares is deeply flawed and instead pushes them further away. I loved seeing her character development over the season and how this particular case changed her for the better.
Throughout the show, we see Liz and her step-daughter Leah’s relationship and how they constantly clash. I was thinking about why they decided to have that in the show and what I gathered is that this season focuses on this divide between indigenous voices and the white people who are trying to silence them. I feel like even though it may seem like Liz hates Leah and vice versa, Liz is taking care of Leah even though that’s not her daughter which shows she cares and I kind of think that Leah is her connection to the Annie K case. I say connection not because Leah is related to Annie but because she is Inupiat like Annie and understands that the justice system has failed the Inupiat in terms of solving this murder and preventing townspeople from getting sick. Liz and Leah's relationship forced Liz to actually face what was going on in Ennis. Throughout the show, we see that Liz doesn’t want Leah to embrace any of her culture which always comes off rude and disrespectful, which is the way she went about was but I think that Liz was trying to keep her safe and didn’t want her to end up like Annie but she really needed to figure out a better way to bring it up. I’m glad in the end it looks like she loosened up a bit and let Leah embrace her culture and saw that they look out for each other always.
Trooper Navarro was one of my favorite characters who was played by the brilliant Kali Reis and I loved the fact that she was one of the few people who really was trying to figure out what happened to Annie. She is a tough trooper and we find out that she’s been through a lot like her mom dying and never giving her her Inupiat name, her sister having schizophrenia and later killing herself which was heartbreaking to see, and then herself starting to hear and see things. She might have been a cop but she was still advocating for indigenous voices as much as she could even though it was an uphill battle. One thing about Navarro is you could tell she holds a lot and tries to figure out her shit on her own instead of burdening others but also is constantly looking after women who sometimes can’t look after themselves. One scene that stands out when she does this is when she gets the call that her sister died and shows no emotions and doesn’t tell Pete and tells him to go home and you can see her not wanting to ruin his celebration and she handles it in her own way which was kind of self-destructive. The end of the season makes you wonder if she is actually dead or did she disappear on purpose and came back in that final shot. I thought she died and kind of fulfilled her mission but was there still to protect the indigenous women but who knows?
I must say the final shot was beautifully done. Nothing was said between Navarro and Liz but just the way that it was shot from in the house and just focusing on these two characters to the ambiguity surrounding Navarro just made it a great place to end.
We meet Rose Aguineau who seems to have a connection with these dead bodies and I thought Fiona Shaw did such a good job taking on this role. She is a woman who lives by herself and is very mysterious. I would’ve loved to learn more about her character, but every time she was on screen I feel like she kind of stole the show. One part that stood out was at the end when Pete wants to see what she is going to do to his dad and she’s like you want to see me cut your dad's lungs open so he never floats back up again which makes him change his mind and then she tells him that this isn’t the easy part of dealing with this situation, it’s going to be the fact that you will now have to live with it forever. I also loved how she and Navarro had this relationship where they looked out for each other.
Finn Bennett did a good job holding his own against some great actors and showed this character who is being torn between family and work. He sees how his parent’s marriage fell apart because of his dad’s work and in the show, we see how his relationship is suffering because of his work and Liz. It was sad that his dad physically abused him and you could tell that it affected him still and he wanted to break that cycle with his son.
One of the most shocking parts of this season came at the end of episode 5 when we saw Pete kill his father Hank. Hank never seemed like a good cop but in this episode, we see he’s helping this company cover up what they are doing and we just know something shady is going down. Hank kills Otis Heiss who was going to be a witness for Liz and as he is turning his gun towards Liz, he not only says a bone-chilling line “ I didn’t kill Annie, I just moved her body” but then his son shoots him in the head in a shocking twist of events. It was so shocking to have that episode end like that and had me on the edge of my seat waiting for the finale. There’s one scene in the finale of the son cleaning up the blood in his underwear and he with all the blood on him reminded me of American Psycho which I don’t know if that was intentional.
This show highlighted indigenous voices and showed how much they risk not only protecting their health but also the health of the land. The earth should be respected and they do that but these big corporations are greedy and disrespect the land and people who are trying to stop them. In the end, we find out, to no one’s surprise that the company that the Inupiat have been actively fighting against has been poisoning Ennis and faking environmental data. The people of Ennis had been there before the events of the show and clearly, they were going to be there after. I think it’s important to show these indigenous voices on TV shows and while the events of this show are not real, some of the events of the show mirror what indigenous people have to go through to have their complaints taken more seriously and to try and protect the land.
Music in shows is always cool to see and I loved the addition of Bad Guy by Billie Eilish in the intro and Seven Devils by Florence and The Machine. Both songs were a shock to me because I just expected more instrumentals not some songs from pop music makers. Also, the addition of seven devils reminded me of how once upon a time ago I watched this show Revenge just because I heard that song was in the show and I wanted to see how it would tie in.
The show focuses on two murders who have a small connection at first which is Annie’s tongue found at the Tsalal station but we come to find out they are more connected than we thought. It was interesting to see that all the events of the show that seemed to be separated actually weren’t and also highlighted the issues that Ennis was facing.
While I think that Alaska was a great location to add to the spooky and scary vibes the one thing I wondered was why were the characters wearing scarves or face coverings. I get that we want to see their mouths and see them talk but they’re walking in a cold blizzard with warm clothes but their neck and face exposed. It’s just one of those small things that would make more sense for the characters.
I love the slow burn and how it shows the past events of the main characters. These events in this show helped you understand the characters and their relationships which is important but with the slow burn, it keeps people wanting more. With the way they handled the slow burn, it was like a side mission of learning more about the characters but I still think characters backgrounds are just as important to learn about. From this we not only learn about what happened to Liz’s family but we figure out that she and Navarro know each other and were partners on a Domestic Violence case that is classified as a murder-suicide but we come to find out that was not a suicide because Navarro killed him after multiple failures from the police to intervene. This explains why Navarro is a trooper and why she and Liz have a weird relationship.
One thing about Liz is she always encouraged people to ask the right questions and sometimes made people question if they really wanted to ask that. This probably resonated with me because I feel like this is something that is done so often which is people not asking the right questions. When Liz is working with others she always encourages them to ask the right questions that will get them to the answer they need and it was so interesting how that even comes back into play at the end when they realize that there is a question that they didn’t ask correctly in reference with this case. I just loved the focus on how you can ask a question in a way that will help pull out the answer you need.
My favorite part of this season was the story at the end. While the story is being told we see the events as they unfolded and how these women who were Inupiat got justice for one of their own after being failed by everyone else. In this scene, they talk about it like it’s just a story and not the truth which kind of leaves the question of whether this is the truth lingering. I thought it was a great moment to show how these women came together and did what needed to be done but also let the environment or supernatural entity do the rest which leads to the death of the scientist. The way that they told the story was so interesting and to see how they handled everything and kept it a secret. Navarro and Liz decide to not look into it any further and instead close the case and leave the women and the rest of the indigenous people alone seeing as they have been through enough and have the closure they need.
True Detective Night Country was great to me and I loved the detective and the supernatural elements. I thought the cast was great and while I thought the beginning was a bit slow, it steadily picked up and had me on the edge of my seat. I really liked how they elevated ingenious voices and instead of having this white savior in this show, the indigenous people solve the murder on their own and implement their own justice when the police failed them.
