The Big Picture

The new season of True Detective takes place in the Arctic during the Polar night, adding a creepy and atmospheric backdrop to the show. The first episode introduces a chilling mystery involving missing researchers, severed tongues, and a connection to a past murder case. The main characters, Detective Danvers and Trooper Navarro, have personal dramas and encounters with supernatural elements, tying their lives to the unfolding mystery.

Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for True Detective: Night Country Episode 1.

The Polar night is a natural phenomenon that captures the imagination of those who have never experienced it. The sheer idea of a darkness that lasts for way more than merely 12 hours haunts us and promises us a world of spooky wonders far beyond our imagination. Or maybe it promises us a world of sadness. After all, night is the time of day in which we let our woes out, as well as the time in which monsters reign. It’s a time for longing and a time for ghosts. With so much associated with it, it is honestly a bit strange that we don’t have more stories set in the Arctic during its long months of seemingly endless night. Well, Issa López is here to correct this mistake. The Polar night, with all its gruesomeness and its mystique, serves as the backdrop for the new season of True Detective, written and directed by López. And after two runs that have left fans of the original show created by Nic Pizzolatto more than a little disappointed, this creepy, atmospheric Arctic exploration might just be what the series needed after all.

True Detective Anthology series in which police investigations unearth the personal and professional secrets of those involved, both within and outside the law. Release Date January 12, 2014 Creator Nic Pizzolatto Main Genre Crime Genres Crime , Drama , Mystery Rating TV-MA Seasons 4 Studio HBO Streaming Service(s) Max

Titled True Detective: Night Country, López’s creation stars Jodie Foster and Kali Reis as two police officers trapped between the present and the past. Episode 1 of the show’s new season kicks off with an almost The Thing-like plot before taking us to a world in which female and Native lives have no worth, in which asking too many questions may cost you more than just your job, and in which activism is punishable by death. It also takes us to a world in which ghostly figures appear in the middle of the never-ending night, and in which a message echoes through dreams and radio waves alike — a message that says, simply, “She’s awake.” Who is she is something that we are still to find out, but her presence sure brings more than a little chaos into the so-called order of our day-to-day lives.

‘True Detective: Night Country’ Opens With a Chilling Mystery

The first person to utter the words “She’s awake” in True Detective: Night Country is a man named Clark at the Tsalal research facility in Ennis, Alaska. Seemingly having a seizure right in front of his research mates, he stops cold and delivers the ominous warning. In the next scene, we learn that all the men working at the facility have gone missing. In the place in which they once stood lies nothing but a severed human tongue. Where did it come from? Who does it belong to? What happened to the men that kept Tsalal running? Who is behind the research being done at Tsalal? All of these are questions that are raised in the aftermath of this bizarre, chilling event.

Officially on the case is Detective Liz Danvers (Foster), accompanied by father and son policing duo Hank (John Hawkes) and Peter Prior (Finn Bennett). However, there is also a state trooper with a vested interest in the case: Evangeline Navarro (Reis), a woman of Inupiaq origin who still hasn’t gotten over a case that she never managed to close. You see, years before the disappearance of the Tsalal researchers, Navarro worked alongside Danvers investigating the murder of another Native woman, a known midwife and activist by the name of “Annie K,” aka Anne Masu Kowtok (Nivi Pedersen), who was found stabbed and with her tongue chopped off. While the tongue found by Danvers inside the research facility doesn’t seem to be more than a few days old, Navarro believes it might belong to Kowtok.

Initially skeptical, Danvers eventually concedes, though she doesn’t open up about it to Navarro. In the down-low, she procures the files of Kowtok’s case and begins to look into possible connections between the murdered activist and the Tsalal men. What she finds is a picture of Clark wearing a parka that looks a lot like an outfit that Kowtok sports in one of her photos. The sole difference is a smiley yellow patch over what was once a rip. Upon going to the research station to look for the coat, Danvers bumps into Navarro, and the two begin an exploration of the facility that proves fruitless, though probably not for long.

‘True Detective: Night Country’ Gives Us a Look Into the Personal Dramas of Its Main Characters

As Navarro and Danvers go about their investigation, we are also introduced to the other characters that inhabit the two detectives’ lives, as well as the lives of those around them. Navarro seems to be forever broken by the case she never closed and thus tends to take justice into her own hands whenever she perceives the laws of men to be flawed, particularly when the crime in question concerns women. However, she is also marked by her own personal tragedies: True Detective: Night Country Episode 1 introduces us to her sister, who suffers from some kind of paranoia-inducing mental disorder, an illness that seems to have also affected their mother.

Meanwhile, Danvers faces her own share of problems in the form of her teenage daughter — or stepdaughter, as we later learn – who has taken to shooting videos of herself having sex with her equally adolescent girlfriend. The two seem to have been bound together by some sort of car accident involving a drunk driver, as evidenced by Danvers’ violent reaction after stopping a woman driving under the influence and by her daughter’s insistence on talking about something that happened to them following the incident. Danvers also seems to have lost a child: while she’s asleep, she’s awakened by the ghostly hands and voice of a young boy named Holden who has a message for her. The message? You guessed it: “She’s awake.”

Navarro also has her own run-in with the cryptic omen while driving and talking on the radio with someone involved in Kowtok’s case. Suddenly, the radio dies, and a strange voice delivers her the warning. In front of her car, a polar bear with just one good eye appears — an animal that looks a lot like the plushie that Danvers found by her bed upon hearing Holden’s words. It’s a nice way of tying up the private lives of the show’s main characters with the overarching mystery of the season. And it doesn’t stop there: at the Prior residence, Peter grows worried about a drawing that his son has made of a human-like creature that seems to be holding tongues in its hands. His wife explains to him that it’s a being from a local legend, so maybe the next few episodes will deal with a little more Inupiaq mysticism. There have been talks about a more supernatural season of True Detective, so let’s see what awaits us.

The World Is Filled With Unknowable Horrors in ‘True Detective: Night Country’
Image via HBO

Still, there isn’t a single ounce of ordinary life that is free from the horrors that come with the seemingly endless night — and the events of True Detective: Night Country happen in less than a week after the last sunset of the year. The whole world seems to be taken by madness, perhaps brought on by the woman or female entity that is now awake: caribous throw themselves off cliffs and ghosts appear in the middle of the night. The most important of them all is the spirit of a man named Travis, who, through an odd display of interpretive dance, reveals to a certain Rose Aguineau, played delightfully eerily by Fiona Shaw, the most bizarre of all the frights brought on by the night.

It all happens slowly throughout the episode, but also very fast: while they are looking into the Tsalal research facility, Navarro and Danvers receive a call stating that Aguineau has found something. It’s in a desolate area in the middle of the snow, far from any town or research station. Clumped together under the whiteness, what seems to be the decomposed bodies of a group of men lie with their mouths wide open. Are they the missing scientists? Maybe. Most certainly, perhaps. But, whatever they are, we can rest assured of one thing, something that we once heard in another show: the night is dark and full of terrors.

True Detective REVIEWThe first episode of the new season breathes new life into the show with a supernatural promise.Anthology series in which police investigations unearth the personal and professional secrets of those involved, both within and outside the law. ProsGreat performances by the entire cast. A thrilling plot that leaves us thirsty for more. A highly atmospheric vibe that will certainly please fans of the original series.

True Detective: Night Country Episode 1 is now available to stream on Max in the U.S.

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