review by Michael McCarthy
I ended up really liking True Detective: Night Country. At first I was skeptical because I couldn’t tell if there was supposed to be a supernatural element to this season. A bunch of people had died under very weird circumstances and I couldn’t come up with any rational, scientific explanation for how that could’ve happened. And I felt like they were toying with me, trying convince me that it was reality based one minute and supernatural the next. Eventually, I kind of ruled out the supernatural possibility, although that was largely just because the previous seasons of the anthology series weren’t even remotely supernatural so it would’ve been odd for them to go there with this season. In any case, the season proved to be very, very suspenseful and constantly had me guessing. And once everything was finally explained in the sixth and final episode of the season, I was left feeling quite satisfied. I especially liked how some of what we learned in the finale was so obvious yet for some reason it was still something I’d never considered. Meanwhile, the rest of the developments were things I could never have guessed. All of it was very surprising, too.
I suppose I should probably tell you a little bit about what it was about. Basically, it took place in the arctic during the first couple of weeks of total darkness. The story begins with a detective played by Jodie Foster being called to the scene of some mysterious deaths. There was a group of scientists doing research and several of them were found completely naked, frozen to death outside in the snow. But they weren’t lying on the ground like people who’d just gotten hypothermia and died. They looked like they were running and screaming when they froze. You just couldn’t fathom how they wound up like that. It just didn’t make any sense. They looked like someone had posed them like that. Also, some of them had apparently clawed their own eyes out and scratched themselves bloody. Suffice to say, it was a very, very weird scene and the season evolved around the investigation into their deaths, which was quite fascinating.
The other detective investigating all of this is a Native American woman whose tribe resides there and which is at odds with this mining company that’s polluting the area and making the Native Americans sick (literally). This Native American detective and Jodie Foster’s character hate it each other as the story begins. All we really know is that something happened in the past that put them at odds with each other; we learn more and more about that as the season goes on. Jodie Foster was terrific in this role. Her character was supposed to start off being a very abrasive person and Foster totally nails it. Even though you want her to solve the case, you pretty much loathe her at first. And the Native American detective is very harsh and confrontational at the beginning as well. Watching the two detectives butt heads gives the series much of its tension. But in some ways the real star of the show is the location. You really get a feel for what it must be like living there in complete darkness for months at a time. Doesn’t matter if it’s day or night, you can’t see anything outside without manmade light. And even that doesn’t give you a whole lot of visibility. Meanwhile, it’s freezing. And there’s always wind and snow threatening to rip your face off every time you’re outside. And there aren’t a whole lot of people around. Plus, you can fall into the ice and drown pretty much anywhere and there are lots of caves to make you claustrophobic. All if this kind of makes the viewer feel as though you’re going insane along with the characters as the story unfolds. The whole arctic setting has been done before, including in Max’s excellent series The Head, but Night Country does it so masterfully that it takes it to a whole other level, hitting one hell of a home run.
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