True Detective: Night Country Shambles to a Disappointing End

I like my True Detective existentially challenging, emotionally bleak, and dark as a black hole, thank you very much. Unfortunately for me, new showrunner Issa Lopez’s latest installment in the series, Night Country, is only one of those things (the clue is in the title), and even that comes from its moody and icy setting rather than its characters or plot. Despite the unanimously glowing reviews from critics, a big chunk of viewers have shared the same frustration I have throughout its six-episode season: why is this such a plodding slog? Well, I’m here attempting to crack that question with some very subjective answers.

On paper, True Detective: Night Country seemed like the right step to revive an anthology show that was on hiatus for five years: an unconventional female-led cast placed in a small Alaskan town, investigating an eerie case that shows signs of some supernatural force lurking in the shadows. And the task to solve it fell on Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis), two detectives with a violent history who can’t stand each other. Lopez admittedly envisioned this partnership (and story) as a mirror image of Season 1’s star duo, but her execution failed to capture the essence of what made original creator Nic Pizzolatto’s vision so magnetically captivating 10 years ago.

At its core, True Detective has always been more about character than plot. Night Country is neither and both at the same time. Similarly to Rust and Marty in the debut season, Danvers and Navarro are stubborn, obsessive cops living by their own rules and principles. As opposed to those two, however, they’re never actually intriguing. Their vague chemistry is artificial and emphatic, and their pseudo-toughness comes across as manufactured assholery with nothing truly substantive to base it on. Lopez seems to think that if they say “fuck you” at least 10 times in every episode and act like brutish, self-absorbed men, they’ll earn our respect, if not our sympathy. But that’s not how it works. Without redeeming qualities and inherent vulnerability, there’s no connection to be made; instead, we begin to resent nearly every word that comes out of their mouths, so Danvers and Navarro never really become more than fictional characters on the page.

This mainly comes down to the flat and uninspired dialogue Night Country is riddled with. Even the most hated (and underrated) True Detective season offered thought-provoking arguments and snappy remarks (if nothing else) with a specific edge and flavor to them. But Season 4 drowns itself in blatantly one-dimensional conversations that sound immature and dire, which is a shame because the protagonists aren’t awful characters—they’re just underdeveloped with a limited vocabulary that prevents them from fully realizing their potential.

Danvers and Navarro can’t stop expressing how angry and bitter they are throughout (which we already know after spending 10 minutes with them), and that precludes them from saying anything surprising or profound. It’s bare-bones screenwriting with no subtlety or rhythm. A perfect example of that is the car ride scene in Episode 3, perhaps the first time the two let their guards down and open up to each other.

As the two are trapped in that enclosed space—the perfect location to finally connect—they share an awkward and stilted conversation. After going back and forth about Tinder and lonely-night habits, it finally starts getting interesting: Navarro admits that she prays when she’s lonely, to which Danvers laughs, “You pray? What do you mean, like, get on your knees, ‘Our Father who art in heaven,’ pray? Oh, come on, you kiddin’ me? You talk to God?” Navarro answers: “No, I listen,” before the scene abruptly ends just when it feels like they are actually getting somewhere. 

This moment has so much potential, but every dramatic beat is undercut by the forced, cringy “humor” (characterized in that particular exchange by awkward jokes and an outsized amount of ‘f—cks’ that inches toward immaturity) that eliminates the very possibility of depicting these characters more profoundly. Lopez’s writing is incapable of showing instead of telling, conveying deep emotions and thoughts without saying exactly what they are in a trivial way. The most intriguing part of their conversation always starts right when the scene is over. Love or hate Pizzolatto, but his prose was always distinguished, if over-the-top grim and self-serious for its own good at times. Lopez’s dialogue, however, is bare-bones and featureless, virtually dead on arrival in almost every scene.

I’ll even go out on a limb and say that Foster was miscast here. It’s not that she isn’t good enough to pull off a role like this, but Danvers is so hazily written that the actress has nothing substantial to grab onto to portray her better than a shallow stereotype. For instance, her recurring “ask the question” approach is simply lackluster at best and madly irritating at worst. On the other hand, Reis was a fitting choice to play Navarro, but she also struggles to give depth to a vaguely fleshed-out character who isn’t given a chance to fulfill her potential (if you want to see her nailing a similar but actually complex role, I highly recommend Catch the Fair One.) Still, Reis at least has a few moments of genuine vulnerability in the second half of the season.

Considering all that, it doesn’t come as a shock that the central mystery combined with an atmospheric setting (the most appealing quality of the series) is left to do the heavy lifting here. There’s ground for the paranormal in True Detective—and that’s when Lopez’s expertise shows—but the soft-horror elements can’t fix all the other areas where the series falls short. The local lore with stories about the undead isn’t a bad addition, but Night Country mainly uses ghosts as plot devices instead of leaning into their existential and philosophical merits. All the chilling (and occasionally moving) moments are few and far between, and they arrive too late in an already short season. 

But even when they do, you can see how much of Night Country is more a rip-off than a pastiche (or homage) to Season 1. Lopez technically introduces her own version of Carcosa while borrowing crucial plot points from Pizzolatto’s script to bring her story to its predictable conclusion. In the finale, it really sinks in how literally she meant to create a mirror image that paralleled Rust and Marty’s journey. Though, I will say that the final episode is also the strongest because we’re finally allowed to get inside the protagonists’ traumas. It’s there when Danvers and Navarro really come alive (even if only momentarily) as deeply damaged, real human beings with personal demons instead of try-hard detectives.

Yet, the last hour somehow makes everything that came before it feel worse, if you look back on all the dull and underwhelming episodes that could’ve delved more profusely into our heroes’ tortured souls and haunting memories. But I have to give it to Lopez, she at least had an apt ending in mind with a climax that leaves no loose ends and wraps up every plotline.

Still, I just can’t escape my general disappointment given how much promise Night Country initially had, which quickly flickered out like wasted breaths under the Alaskan sky. Ultimately, the failure of Season 4 isn’t that it couldn’t live up to its superior debut season—I mean, all True Detective fans knew that wouldn’t be possible—but that it never actually had any ambition to swing for the fences and attempt to be something different. And while there’s nothing wrong with paying homage, empty dialogue, cheap nihilism, and pretentious characters aren’t the way.

Akos Peterbencze is an entertainment writer based in London. He covers film and TV regularly on Looper, and his work has also been published in Humungus, Slant Magazine, and Certified Forgotten. Akos is a Rustin Cohle aficionado and believes that the first season of True Detective is a masterpiece. You can find him talk about all-things pop culture on Twitter (@akospeterbencze) and Substack (@akospeterbencze).

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