The Big Picture

On True Detective: Night Country, Jodie Foster shines in her first starring role in a television series in over 40 years. The cinematography of True Detective: Night Country effectively captures the darkness and moody atmosphere of the show’s setting. Night Country affords a welcome depth and focus to its Indigenous characters and their stories.

As a series, True Detective: Night Country represents a lot of firsts. It’s the first installment of the long-running anthology show that doesn’t have creator and executive producer Nic Pizzolatto at the helm. It’s also Jodie Foster’s first starring role in a television series in over 40 years, although the actor has also carved out a name for herself as a director for various shows recently within her career, from Orange Is the New Black to Black Mirror. And while previous installments of True Detective have boasted all manner of polar-opposite investigative partners, Night Country also represents the first time the series is anchored around women, as Kali Reis (Catch the Fair One) steps into a role that positions her opposite Foster for arguably the show’s most complicated and intriguing dynamic.

With all those firsts in mind, there’s no question that showrunner, director, and writer Issa López had expectations to meet. Subsequent seasons of True Detective have struggled to reach the heights that were achieved in its first installment starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson — and although Mahershala Ali’s third season partially succeeded at learning the right lessons from the second’s failures, it remained to be seen how a new showrunner would do in the wake of Pizzolatto’s move to FX. Even with that big question hanging overhead, the very first episode of Night Country should successfully silence any doubters. Foster, Reis, and López are the creative force behind this chilling thriller that fits right into the franchise, which moves up north to Alaska for a mystery that combines the supernatural and the mundane — and where it’s impossibly easy for secrets, and people, to become lost in the night that blankets everything at this time of year.

True Detective 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

Jodie Foster Is Impossible to Look Away From in ‘True Detective: Night Country’

Previous seasons of True Detective have been anchored on the success of their actors, and Night Country continues that trend. It’s impossible to look at Ennis police chief Elizabeth Danvers and not see Foster, who feels simultaneously meant to play this character and perfectly suited for such a role at this stage in her career. In lesser hands, Liz could run the risk of becoming a stereotype — a hardened woman who eschews emotional connection for convenient physical flings (many of them with already-married men, earning the ire of their wives) and successfully damages most of her other relationships. But Liz is also a shrewd investigator, even if she’s been relegated to a small, somewhat sleepy Alaskan town by her superior, Ted Corsaro (a delightfully utilized Christopher Eccleston), in a move that feels distinctly punishing. One has the sense that her skills are being wasted in Ennis, even if she’s making her own, unique effort to pass on valuable lessons to young cop Peter Prior (Finn Bennett) under the wary eye of his father, Hank (John Hawkes).

When Liz, Peter, and Hank are called to look into the disappearance of eight men from a nearby arctic research station, the strangeness of the case proves to be exactly what Liz has been waiting for — something to sink her teeth into and doggedly refuse to let go, even if Corsaro is hovering in the wings to assume command of the investigation. Liz’s various leads force her path to cross with local trooper Evangeline Navarro (Reis) when the two discover these disappearances are connected to another case: the murder of an Indigenous woman named Annie K, a local midwife and activist, that still remains unsolved. Liz and Navarro’s pasts are hopelessly intertwined for reasons that are slowly and gradually bared to us as the story progresses, and as they enter into this new partnership with begrudging reluctance, they stumble into a greater conspiracy that forces each of them to confront their most pervasive ghosts. Night Country, like the best installments of True Detective before it, knows how to walk the line between the inexplicable and the obvious, irresistibly dangling each possible narrative thread in front of us to tug on. But, as Liz frequently reminds us throughout the season — of which all six episodes were provided for review — sometimes it’s not about trying to nail down all the answers, but making sure you’re asking the right questions.

Alongside Foster, Night Country’s supporting cast is an undeniable wealth of talent. Hawkes, best recognizable for his role in the renowned HBO series Deadwood, brings just the right level of gravitas to his scenes opposite Foster while the clash between their characters’ investigative methods remains at its starkest. Meanwhile, Reis proves herself a force of nature once again, with her physicality as a former boxer allowing her to take up space in every scene where Liz and Navarro directly square off. As local recluse Rose Agineau, who stumbles across a ghastly display out in the Arctic dark (can you say corpiscle?!), Fiona Shaw possesses a presence unlike no one else on-screen, and the role Rose finds herself playing in the resulting investigation features some of the biggest surprises of the season.

‘True Detective: Night Country’ Thrives in the Darkness

Let’s face it: a lot of recent TV shows (and even some movies!) don’t know how to make true night scenes look very good. Whether it’s trying to manipulate scenes clearly filmed in the daylight into representing a different hour, or newly-released film stills forcing us to squint to make out any kind of character detail, certain cinematography just succeeds at looking muddy rather than rendering the scene effectively moody.

Ongoing debate about the ideal format to watch these sorts of projects in aside, True Detective: Night Country doesn’t struggle in the slightest when working within the Icelandic environment that doubles for Alaska. Director of photography Florian Hoffmeister (Pachinko, The Terror, Tár), paired with López’s keen directorial eye, makes the show an evocative, striking feast to look at but also makes it impossibly easy to see what’s happening, even in some of the season’s blackest moments. As the investigation plays out against the backdrop of a polar night, in which even the most infrequent light casts a distinct blue tint over everything, it lends an unmistakably eerie feeling to certain events. Characters are swiftly swallowed up in darkness with one wrong step — the term “Night Country” is given stark meaning later on in the season — and the unpredictable terrain of ice and snow can be just as treacherous as those in Ennis who might be willing to kill to protect certain secrets.

Watching Night Country calls to mind another show that also made use of Iceland as its backdrop, FX’s A Murder at the End of the World — and like Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij’s twisty mystery-thriller, True Detective’s fourth season knows how to wield its setting to unnerving yet arresting effect — thanks to a director and cinematographer who willingly lean into the gloom in all its forms.

‘True Detective: Night Country’ Is Strengthened by Its New Perspectives
Image via HBO

In retrospect, True Detective is the type of franchise that only benefits from the inclusion of more creatives. While Pizzolatto did redeem the series in its third installment, the increased gap between seasons made it difficult to sustain excitement. On a greater level, sometimes having one person solely responsible for churning out new stories doesn’t always lead to the greatest result. Night Country is a breath of fresh air, not simply because it injects the series with new perspectives but also because of its willingness to highlight people who are so often shoved to the margins.

In recent years, Hollywood has made minimal strides to address the lack of Indigenous stories being told — Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon is successful only to a point, and your opinion might vary on how gainful Taylor Sheridan’s past efforts have been. But Night Country marks a significant step forward in this regard, alongside other recent series like AMC’s Dark Winds and FX’s Reservation Dogs, in which Indigenous characters are not simply treated as window dressing for someone else’s narrative but given depth, complexity, and focus. Reis’ Navarro frequently wrestles with her responsibilities as a local trooper and her ties to her heritage, caught between the two as she finds her identity largely at odds with her occupation. Liz’s relationship with her adoptive daughter Leah, played brilliantly by Isabella Star LaBlanc, is strained mostly as a consequence of Liz’s inability to understand Leah’s pull toward her own culture. Even the biggest “twist” of the series — if you can even call it that — is made more refreshing by involving some of the last faces you might have expected, but shouldn’t have underestimated.

True Detective: Night Country’s only flaw — and I say this in the lightest sense of the word — is its smaller episode count, a total of six compared to the eight that previous seasons were able to stretch their legs in. Some of the show’s undercurrents aren’t tied up in the neatest of ways as a result of working within the confines of less time. That said, by the time I pressed play on the show’s riveting finale, I realized that I would have gladly spent more time with this winding narrative, these thorny, complicated women, and this cold, unforgiving landscape. But the best stories are always the ones you never really want to let go of, and True Detective: Night Country will keep you held fast in its grip right up until the ultimate black of the end credits.

Rating: 9/10

True Detective: Night Country premieres Sunday, January 14 on HBO and will also be available to stream on Max in the U.S.

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