With panoramic pictures of a wind-swept tundra and a skyline studded with jagged mountaintops, the opening scene of True Detective Season 4 Episode 1 strikes a grandiose tone.
It feels nearer to Sport of Thrones’ Wildling storylines than to the claustrophobic, gritty interiors that we’ve come to anticipate from HBO’s divisive cop drama.
Even after the requisite giant firearm makes its first look — through a frightened hunter aiming his rifle at a herd of stampeding reindeer — there’s little to offer the viewer the sense that we’re in Twenty first-century America, slightly than someplace far more unique and archaic.
It is solely when the motion shifts inside that the present’s fourth season — helmed by Issa Lopez, who replaces sequence creator Nic Pizzolatto as showrunner — begins to bear any resemblance to its first three.
The Tsalas Analysis Station — situated simply outdoors of Ennis, Alaska — is well-lit after we first enter, however regardless of the illumination, one thing feels a bit off.
Perhaps it is the incongruity of this vivid, trendy facility within the middle of all that snowy darkness. Or maybe we’re simply overly acutely aware of the truth that that is an episode of True Detective.
Regardless of the case, our expectation of dread is shortly met, as one of many males stationed on the facility — a extremely careworn fella, from the seems to be of him — whispers, “She’s awake” seconds earlier than the lights exit.
What occurred at nighttime? Properly, evidently’s the thriller we’ll be exploring in True Detective: Night time Nation.
(Sure, in one other change of tempo, True Detective Season 4 is the primary to hold a subtitle.)
As a supply man surveys the eerily silent facility and discovers a disembodied tongue on the ground, horror followers would possibly discover themselves drawing comparisons to John Carpenter’s 1982 traditional The Factor.
All the weather are there: the remoted wintry setting, the crew of more and more edgy dudes, and, after all, the willingness to “go there” when it comes to violent acts of dismemberment.
There’s even a call-back to the Reagan period within the type of the traditional ‘80s comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, one scene from which performs on an eerie loop on the ability’s TV.
The homage is clearly intentional (be aware the copy of a Factor DVD on the laboratory shelf later within the episode), and we’re slightly giddy with the hope that Lopez has extra such Easter eggs in retailer.
Night time Nation most likely will not be bringing its protagonists into battle with any extra-terrestrial monsters — however hey, you by no means know!
After that chilling chilly open (a number of puns supposed), we reduce to a fittingly spooky opening credit sequence.
(Diehards would possibly gripe in regards to the present’s use of a success Billie Eilish single instead of the deep-cut tunes that served as earlier seasons’ themes songs, however “When We All Fall Asleep, The place Do We Go?” matches the credit’ sinister visuals to a T.)
The main target then shifts to a really completely different — and sadly all-too-common — type of violence, as Kali Reis’ state trooper Evangeline Navarro responds to a name at a fish cannery, the place a city drunk (the primary of many we’ll meet this season) has been subdued after exhibiting up unannounced at his spouse’s place of business.
After studying {that a} feminine cannery employee defended her buddy by knocking the man out, Navarro casually arrests the wife-beater whereas taking a name on her cellphone.
It is a brutally efficient scene that serves to determine Navarro’s badassery, in addition to a theme that is positive to be revisited all through the season:
It is a brutal, male-dominated world the place ladies are compelled to fend for themselves or fall sufferer to males who’re each bit as savage because the local weather.
After a couple of extra snowy establishing pictures (the present was filmed in Iceland, a serviceable stand-in for Alaska), we meet Chief of Police Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and her associate, Hank Prior (John Hawkes) as they arrive on the scene decked out in full winter cop regalia, a la Frances McDormand in Fargo.
Danvers shortly will get to the underside of the repeating Bueller state of affairs, and surprisingly, Ben Stein was not the offender. (Our youthful readers will simply need to belief us that that joke was mildly humorous.)
And with that, we’re off to the races.
Proper off the bat, we now have the standard True Detective indications that this explicit crime has metaphysical implications that may check the investigators’ religion in a simply and merciful universe. The analysis workforce was learning local weather change; one of many guys was studying Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, and so on.
Danvers shortly establishes herself as the highest cop within the room by utilizing a mother’s data of decaying discarded meals to find out that the lads have been gone for at the very least 48 hours.
The scene establishes not solely Danvers’ powers of deduction but additionally the theme of parenthood and its challenges, which is a standard space of curiosity for True Detective and is definite to be revisited.
We study that fresh-faced cop Peter Prior is Hank’s son, and from the stress between them (and a snide comment from Danvers), we get the impression that the connection between them just isn’t of the Ward and Beaver Cleaver selection.
Danvers’ eye for element additionally leads her to the conclusion that the tongue on the ground as soon as belonged to a Native American lady.
Just like the Billie theme music, the eccentric detective wowing her colleagues along with her quirky however efficient strategy to the case could be a tad typical for some viewers who loved the just about Lynchian weirdness of the OG True Detective.
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However across the 15-minute mark, Lopez demonstrates that — like Pizolatto earlier than her — she’s prepared to go so darkish with the noir tropes that she virtually takes us into horror territory.
It is then that Danvers discovers a whiteboard on which the phrases “WE ARE ALL DEAD” are scrawled in eight-inch letters.
It may very well be an indication that this season will get into territory as grimly existential, as quasi-mystical as Matthew McConaughey’s “time is a flat circle” tirades from Season 1.
That may very well be a very good factor — or not. Clearly, nobody desires the True Detective franchise to lapse into stock-standard police procedural territory, however hopefully, Lopez doesn’t really feel undue stress to observe her predecessor into Philosophical Hellscape Land.
And hey, the whiteboard message might’ve been somebody’s thought of a foolish little prank! In spite of everything, you possibly can’t have a twisty thriller with no few purple herrings alongside the way in which!
From there, we’re handled to one of the crucial memorable — and creepy — character introductions in True Detective historical past (which is absolutely saying one thing).
Fiona Shaw’s Rose Aguineau is skinning a wolf on the subzero tundra (as one does) when a shoeless man sneaks up on her.
She’s not startled, however she greets this “Travis” fellow with some clear misery in her voice.
She asks what he desires, however that is True Detective — we’re not about to get solutions to philosophically dense questions within the season premiere!
We do, nonetheless, get handled to a gangbuster meet-not-so-cute second when Danvers and Navarro’s paths cross.
Navarro has caught wind of the tongue discovered on the ground, and she or he believes it may very well be tied to a chilly case that is clearly of super significance to her.
However there’s rigidity between the ladies, who was once colleagues earlier than Navarro elected to grow to be a state trooper. Sure, these bitter rivals will wind up working collectively to crack the case, however Lopez should not be faulted for trotting out that exact trope.
Some conventions of the gritty cop style are just about unavoidable.
Talking of acquainted territory, it seems that Danvers is sensible at her job however a little bit of a bungler with regards to her private life.
She responds to a telephone name from an offended father or mother who informs her that their teen daughters have been making sexually express movies collectively.
Whereas scolding her on the experience dwelling, Danvers practically collides with one other driver who seems to be closely intoxicated — and a recurring offender (city drunk quantity two!).
There are momentary flashbacks and hints of buried trauma as Danvers confronts the boozer within the different automotive, and as soon as once more, we’re reminded that Lopez intends to carry true to what this franchise has come to characterize:
These are troubled cops, and the present’s exploration of Danvers and Navarro’s psyches could show as disturbing as their investigation of the central thriller.
For her half, evidently Navarro’s trauma is linked to the investigation.
She believes the tongue on the analysis lab belonged to somebody named Annie, and she or he meets up with Annie’s brother, Ryan, to guarantee him that she’s nonetheless on the case.
On the time of her demise, Annie was protesting the development of a mine that many thought-about important for the city’s financial survival.
These protests introduced her into battle along with her brother and, it appears, Navarro’s fellow officers.
When Ryan asks Navarro if she believes in God, she bucks the True Detective development by answering within the affirmative — however her reply comes with a qualifier.
Her religion is predicated on a grisly encounter with a wounded soldier throughout her time within the navy, and whereas she believes in a better energy, she additionally believes we’re “alone,” including, “So is God.”
The push of character improvement continues as we study that Navarro has a sister named Jules, who’s susceptible to episodes of extreme psychological sickness.
Phew. It is a variety of exposition for a half-hour of tv, however let’s pause for a second to benefit from the attractive cinematography on show right here.
Lopez demonstrates a knack for fantastically bleak exteriors that recall to mind the work of Chloe Zhao and does as a lot because the dialogue (a few of which veers a bit into info-dump territory) to determine the backstory of this forgotten city and its beaten-down residents.
The surreal great thing about True Detective Season 1 helped to immediately set it aside from the police procedural pack, and Lopez clearly intends to hold the torch.
From there, we get some welcome comedian reduction as Danvers insists that Stacy, the DUI perp, stay within the drunk tank for the evening.
Apparently, she’s been identified to offer, um … favors to Hank Prior, who informs Danvers that he has a mail-order bride on the way in which from Vladivostok.
This dialog takes place in entrance of Hank’s son, after all.
It is the True Detective model of a household sitcom second.
The scene concludes with Danvers requesting Annie’s file from Hank, who slightly conspicuously performs dumb. Lopez could be signaling Hank’s villainy a bit too heavy-handedly, however we’ll see the place she takes it.
Prior enterprise (once more, pardon the pun) involves the forefront when Danvers duties Peter with retrieving Annie’s file from his father’s home.
He will get away with the theft — simply barely — and it turns into clear that that is going to be certainly one of Hawkes’ Menacing Redneck performances.
After a scene through which pioneer lady Rose follows the mysterious Travis into the tundra, Peter delivers the recordsdata to Danvers, who rewards him with some extra exposition:
The topic of the chilly case is Annie Masu Kowtok, or “Annie Ok.,” who was stabbed 32 instances, and Navarro — throughout her days with Danvers’ Ennis PD — was the primary on the scene.
Danvers reveals that Navarro was “obsessed” with the case — and that their relationship soured when the previous refused to reopen it after taking up as chief.
Based on Danvers, it was the city itself that murdered Annie, and “no killer was ever gonna be discovered.”
It is then revealed that the teenager lady who lives with Danvers just isn’t her organic daughter and that they share some trauma associated to drunk driving.
Once more, it is an episode that devotes a variety of time to desk setting, however what a desk it’s.
When you’re a fan of what True Detective has executed previously, then you have to be enthusiastic about what’s in retailer right here:
We have now the troubled cops who do not get alongside, certainly one of whom enjoys blowing off steam through one-night stands and booze (each consuming it and pouring it within the fuel tanks of home abusers), alongside one who’s making an attempt — and often failing — to keep up a lifetime of quiet domesticity.
They’re like a gender-swapped model of Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson from True Detective Season 1, and we imply that as the best reward.
We even have the customary trace of an otherworldly ingredient to the case, this time within the type of visions of a one-eyed polar bear that confronts each Danvers and Navarro — to say nothing of Shoeless Travis and that helicopter looming menacingly over the analysis middle.
And this time, there’s an added dimension of racial politics, which first bubble to the floor when our two foremost cops cross paths at Tsalas, and Navarro alleges that Danvers would’ve dealt with Annie’s case in another way had the sufferer been white.
The motion ends with one of many extra unsettling photographs within the present’s historical past — a huddled mass of frozen, screaming corpses — made all of the extra creepy by the truth that it was found by Travis, who’s now not among the many residing.
Will this be the season that the sequence lastly goes full-supernatural? We doubt it, however we’re actually intrigued!
In fact, it is unimaginable to attract strong conclusions a couple of season of True Detective till we now have a firmer sense of the place the thriller is headed.
Sure, Half 1 masterfully cultivated a way of impending doom and gathering darkness (far more actually than in seasons previous), however the present’s second and third seasons skillfully set the tone as nicely — and to say that these installments did not fairly nail the dismount could be placing it very mildly.
If all these twists, turns, dreamlike visions, and encounters with the shadow realm add as much as a satisfying whodunnit that demonstrates as a lot curiosity within the inside lives of its principal gamers because it does within the id of the killer?
Properly then, we might have one other trendy traditional on our fingers, a la True Detective Season 1.
If not, we could discover ourselves pissed off by one other fantastically eerie expanse that seems to be as empty because the Arctic Circle.
Tyler Johnson is an Affiliate Editor for TV Fanatic and the opposite Mediavine O&O websites. In his spare time, he enjoys studying, cooking, and, after all, watching TV. You possibly can Follow him on X and electronic mail him right here at TV Fanatic.
