HBO's TRUE DETECTIVES: NIGHT COUNTRY (2023) 1 1

[Bosco685]

Quote

The official teaser for “True Detective: Night Country” is finally here, and we can expect a less than perfect partnership between detectives played by Jodie Foster and Kali Reis.

 

In the teaser, which was revealed during Warner Bros. Discovery’s unveiling of the Max streaming service, Foster and Reis must put aside their shared resentment of each other to solve a frigid mystery after six workers disappear in the dangerous Alaskan landscape.

 

The official logline is as follows: “When the long winter night falls in Ennis, Alaska, the six men that operate the Tsalal Arctic Research Station vanish without a trace. To solve the case, Detectives Liz Danvers (Foster) and Evangeline Navarro will have to confront the darkness they carry in themselves, and dig into the haunted truths that lie buried under the eternal ice.”

 

 

[▫️]

This looks great. The tone we should have got with that terrible Whiteout movie adaptation. I’m looking forward to this.

[thegiftedone45]

On 4/13/2023 at 5:32 AM, Bosco685 said:

 

 

This looks great.  Coming this year?! What a tease

[Bosco685]

True Detective: Night Country Review: A Frightening and Frigid Return to Form

Quote

The first season of True Detective debuted in 2014 and, thanks in large part to it being developed by the mostly unknown writer Nic Pizzolatto, the series became a surprise success. Anchored by top-tier stars Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, and Michelle Monaghan, that first season took a traditional detective story and injected it with time jumps and a sense of the supernatural to elevate the adventure into an immensely engaging experience. Being an anthology, the next two seasons, while written by Pizzolatto and also featuring impressive actors, failed to capture the attention of audiences or critics in quite the same way. Now, with True Detective: Night Country, showrunner Issa López brings the series back to its more unsettling roots, delivering audiences a twisted and terrifying tale that is the best the series has been since that debut season.

 

Set in northern Alaska, a team of researchers working on a mysterious project goes missing, causing Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) to investigate. When the men are found, evidence of the bizarre event could provide a connection to an unsolved murder that Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) could never let go, as the pair work together to uncover the events that led to the grisly deaths of these researchers. In traditional True Detective nature, their investigation unravels a web of revenge, greed, coverups, politics, racism, and even a bit of the supernatural.

 

With all seasons of True Detective being anthology narratives, both audiences and filmmakers have struggled to define what it was about that first season that resonated so strongly with viewers and what it is that defines the nature of the concept. For the first three seasons, the essence of the series was that they were all detective stories that Pizzolatto wrote, regardless of what themes these narratives touched upon. Interestingly, Night Country started its life as an entirely independent story from López that had nothing to do with that iconic TV show, with HBO noting there were enough similarities to their popular program that, with some tweaks, this story could easily be folded into the True Detective banner. This could prove to be the key to this season's revival of the franchise, as López seemingly was able to avoid aiming to replicate the success of the debut season and could instead deliver the best story imaginable, only to retroactively find some tonal and narrative connections to its predecessors to make for a more cohesive venture.

 

López landed on many genre fans' radars thanks to her 2017 film Tigers Are Not Afraid, a magical-realist story about young children caught in the aftermath of a Mexican drug war. Fans of that film will quickly connect with the tone of Night Country, as it not only offers an entertaining story on the surface, but she also managed to organically inject culturally relevant conflicts of this isolated community. Complicating the overall events of Ennis, Alaska are the growing tensions between the Inuit community and the rest of the town's residents, as a mining operation brought money and jobs to the town, though at the cost of the mining operation destroying the land, increasing pollution, and contaminating water supplies. None of these concepts are being explored for surface-level enrichment or narrative distractions and are key components of the entire storyline. 

 

Night Country feels less like a replication of that first season and instead serves as a mirror of that journey's more effective elements; Season 4 trades the humid and sun-baked South for the frigid winter of Alaska at the time of year when the darkness is inescapable. Rather than the fringe beliefs of more radical religions, revival tents, and cult-like worship seen in Season 1, we're seeing communities who believe in the land and something far more ancient and powerful than can even be grasped by outsiders. While previous seasons had opening credits featuring Blues-inspired riffs, Night Country opens with Billie Eilish's "bury a friend," signaling to audiences just minutes into the season premiere that we're venturing into fresher territory.

Overall: 4.0/5

[Bosco685]

 

[Bosco685]

[thegiftedone45]

Watched the first episode last night.  It wasn't a bad start definitely has me interested.  I'm not a big fan of the supernatural elements, but I'm sure that a state that has 30 days of nights has some weird things that happen.  

[Bosco685]

On 1/15/2024 at 9:27 AM, thegiftedone45 said:

Watched the first episode last night.  It wasn't a bad start definitely has me interested.  I'm not a big fan of the supernatural elements, but I'm sure that a state that has 30 days of nights has some weird things that happen.  

I'm with you. It was a good start. And I am a fan of mixing the paranormal/supernatural with a murder/detective show as the violence of such cases would seem to link horrible events leading to such situations.

Looks like it had quite the audience for Episode 1.

 

[Bosco685]

It feels like this is strongly linked to Season One.

True Detective: Is Night Country a Direct Sequel to Season 1?

Quote

Two episodes of True Detective: Night Country have now aired, and the connections to True Detective Season 1 keep coming. The references seem to go beyond simple nods or homages and they have fans everywhere wondering if Night Country is actually a straight-up sequel to the original installment.

Spoiler

The Spiral
Let's get the obvious one out of the way first. The spiral drawing that marked the cult at the center of True Detective Season 1 is already a focal point of Night Country. The mark was drawn on the head of a dead researcher and tattooed on the back of Annie K, a local woman who was found dead six years prior. Another researcher, Clark, was revealed to be in some sort of relationship with Annie, and got the same mark tattooed on his chest after her death. 

 

There are more indirect references to the spiral as well, like when Danvers spreads the photos of the researchers around and they make a spiral on the floor beneath her.

On its own, the spiral can just be chalked up to a piece of creepy occult art that makes reference to the overarching True Detective motto, "Time is a flat circle." It's representative not just of the recurring evil in the world, but how our history tends to repeat itself again and again. 

 

When paired with another big Season 1 connection, however, the spiral in Night Country becomes even more of a head-scratcher.

 

The Tuttles
The appearance of the spiral seems to coincide with the presence of the evil Tuttle family. In Season 1, the Tuttles are the family behind the cult that Rust and Marty were trying to stop. One of their followers, Errol Childress, was the killer at the center of the mystery.

 

The Tuttle family had a lot of power and money, with one of their members (Edwin) involved in politics. The one-time Governor of Louisiana went on to become a US Senator. The family has deep roots and deeper pockets, which leads us to Night Country.

 

Peter mentions in Sunday's new episode that the TSALAL research lab, where the scientists went missing, was being funded by Tuttle United. Even if that's just an Easter egg, it's definitely not a coincidence. The lab was reportedly researching an ancient microorganism that could help cure cancer and illness. Some referred to the venture as the search for the "origin of life." Pouring endless amounts of money into that kind of venture has "cult" written all over it.

 

Travis Cohle
There was a theory floating around after the first episode of Night Country that Travis, the ghost who led Rose to the bodies of the researchers, was actually the father of Season 1's lead character, Rust Cohle. After all, Rust did claim at one point that his father went to Alaska and was dying of cancer. Not to mention the two men share a resemblance.

 

Night Country Episode 2 all but confirmed that connection. Rose revealed to Navarro that Travis was dying of leukemia before he walked out into the ice to die years prior. She also called him by his full name: Travis Cohle (spelling confirmed by HBO's subtitles). 

 

Everything we know about Rust's dad lines up with the mysterious Travis character in Night Country, further bringing the DNA from Season 1 into the new installment. It's unlikely Matthew McConaughey shows up or anything, but there are definitely some deep connections to Rust's story. 

 

 

[sd2416]

Yeah, when the lady said the name, I had to rewind it to make sure.  

[eastriver400]

Ok, after reading about the connection above I have to rewatch both episodes and give this season another chance.  So far I am finding it uninteresting and quite boring. Couldn't find myself caring enough about the plot or any characters to continue with the series. 

[fantastic_four]

Supposedly Issa Lopez had an inspiration for the story--a group of nine hikers in the USSR in 1959 were missing and later found dead under similar mysterious circumstances to the people in this show.  The cause of the 1959 deaths was probably an avalanche, and analyzing the seemingly-bizarre evidence with that as a starting point does make almost complete sense.

If you think of this show as Lopez's more-interesting explanation of the Dyatlov Pass incident with elements of Carcosa peppered in it does seem to fit pretty well.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident

Edited January 25 by fantastic_four

[Bosco685]

 

[fantastic_four]

I'm generally enjoying it.  I'm not really seeing any of these numerous ties to season 1 of the show while watching other than the spiral, but they all make some sense when I see critics and fans point them out.

Can a human really survive being completely frozen for days like the one guy does in this show?    He's pretty terrifying, reminds me of the Sloth guy from David Fincher's "Seven" in terms of severe body horror.

Edited January 29 by fantastic_four

[Jayman]

This series totally slipped under my radar. I had seen the promos with Jodi Foster and the wife and I decided to watch. As modern technology goes, I simply said “True Detective” into my voice remote and the first episode was on. To our surprise we see Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson and wonder when Jodi Foster is going to show up? Then I looked and saw that there are 4 seasons of this show! 

Anyway, we watched them all up to the end of season 3 (which we thought was the best so far) and there are tie ins to the first season throughout every season. We will be starting season 4 tonight and looking forward to it!

[g-man]

Watched episode 3….slow burn so far….waiting for the sh*t to hit the fan but keeping my interest. 

[Forbush-Man]

How True Detective: Night Country created the frozen-corpse pile

[drmccoy74]

On 1/29/2024 at 8:51 AM, Jayman said:

This series totally slipped under my radar. I had seen the promos with Jodi Foster and the wife and I decided to watch. As modern technology goes, I simply said “True Detective” into my voice remote and the first episode was on. To our surprise we see Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson and wonder when Jodi Foster is going to show up? Then I looked and saw that there are 4 seasons of this show! 

Anyway, we watched them all up to the end of season 3 (which we thought was the best so far) and there are tie ins to the first season throughout every season. We will be starting season 4 tonight and looking forward to it!

Season 3 was my favorite also.  Feel that Stephan Dorff has been passed over and is a very good actor. 

[Bosco685]

[thegiftedone45]

I'm enjoying season 4 so far.  I think it will pick up a lot these next couple of episodes. I'm not a fan of the spiritual stuff though.