True Detective: Night Country - Review. Season 4 is Mastery, Yet Lacks Original's Artistic Frenzy

There is something magical about combining supernatural stories with thrillers or crime novels. We could experience this marriage at its finest in Harry Angel, The Devil's Advocate or even Constantine, not to mention series like The X-Files or Supernatural. This combination of hunting for the perp and the feeling that something unfathomable, perhaps infinite, is waiting around the corner, adds an extra chill, which is hard to find in "pure" crime novels, unless they are top-notch. Simply put, such mixes of crime and supernatural can develop in really unpredictable ways which the viewers love.

Shadows of the past

The first season of Nic Pizzolatto and Cary Fukunaga's neonoir True Detective played on this note. That season captivated viewers and stood among the champions of the television quality revolution. It was a revelation that everyone was talking about - grandmas too. The next two installments had strong points that worked in their favour, but they did not captivate the viewers the same way. In the meantime, a lot has happened behind the scenes - Pizzolatto and Fukunaga stopped working together. As a result, the fourth season was developed by a new showrunner - Issa Lopez. The director of Tigers Are Not Afraid introduced a lot of freshness to the formula, but also made sure it retained some of its key elements. One is missing - that spark of divine madness, with which Pizzolatto hit our hearts without a miss in the first season, and in the second overplayed it, missing it by several lengths. The end result is a masterpiece of craftsmanship, engaging but not stupid, although not that magnetic and intriguing.

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Is that bad? Well, ultimately no. True Detective is, after all, an anthology series, so not only cast and location are subject to change, but also the formula has to evolve to maintain interest. Besides, several fundamental elements of the series were preserved. A mood of eeriness and the suggestion that some strange evil lurks just beyond the field of vision? Check. Enhanced realism (verging on sci-fi)? Sure as hell. A pair of tormented cops with a dirty past and messed up psyche? Absolutely there. And this time we are taken to Alaska right before the perpetual night.

True Detective: Night Country, dir. Issa Lopez, HBO 2024

This time, when it comes to the cast, we have Jodie Foster as the bitter, unyielding Liz Danvers, the local police chief, and her partner is Kali Reis, who plays detective Evagelina Navarro. Both women are tough officers who harbor a deep dislike for each other, rooted in the past and poorly healed wounds. The acting of both leads, especially Foster, makes the relationship (although not the only one brilliantly outlined in this season) the focal point of the season - we really want to know the bottom of it and what happened years ago. And that both of them lead twisted personal lives - this is already a "staple" for this series.

However, both heroines have to combine forces to solve a case where victims are from a nearby polar research station, found naked and frozen to death. Their investigation will drag them through the underbelly of the fictional city and its inhabitants, as well as pierce large holes in the heart. There is no shortage of themes that can be interpreted as hallucinations from the subconscious, straight out of magical realism, but there will also be arguments for treating them as childish ghost stories. Everything is augmented by local color and mysticism, on top of that we have environmental decay. Issa Lopez drew the environmental-social commentary a bit too broadly and took the easy way out here, but in reality, it's one of the few criticisms that can be made of the story being told.

Artists and craftsmen

Lopez opted - perhaps apart from the aforementioned aspect - for constructing a more precise, less inscrutable narrative, which pushes us through all the points of the story in a more lucid way. Because of this, the storytelling turns out to be slightly more linear (this time no timeline jumps). Even the dreamlike and fantastic elements become only a disciplined element in the plot, they do not play as freely and philosophically as in Pizzolatto's works. Because of all this, the puzzle we are provided with seems simpler - it's easier to put it all together. There is less madness and grandiose here than in the initial seasons of the series, for which Fukunaga was responsible.

Is that bad? Definitely not. True Detective, with Season Four, lost some of the soul that made the first season great but managed to retain the discipline lost in the second installment. The new season is carried by the performances of Foster, Reis and the rest of the cast. Mysteries will find their explanation, some unambiguous, others being like a maze. We follow the heroes with genuine curiosity to the heart of their personal problems and to the solution to the macabre puzzle. The story keeps pace, and even seemingly insignificant scenes and exchanges build the atmosphere and character of the heroes, revealing their relationships. Side stories melt with the main plotline almost unnoticed, so we don't have the feeling of having our time wasted. Everything is mandatory here, every scene carries some "nutritional value" to the plot, character development, or tone of the story. Plus, we have some comedy undertones listening to the verbal fencing between the main characters. These "small big" scenes brilliantly show the chemistry between the actresses.

True Detective: Night Country, dir. Issa Lopez, HBO 2024

From a technical and audiovisual perspective, it's still a top notch crime series. The shots of the snow-covered town and the icy wastelands at night are impressive, they amaze us with an infinite space where we almost expect ghosts or personified remorse to come take and haunt us. The eerie, dense atmosphere is also emphasized by the music, both that recorded for the series and tracks borrowed from other creators. If the Beatles, apart from the tragedy-marked Helter Skelter, can inspire anxiety - here is where it happens. In addition, the opening credits set to Bury a Friend by Billie Eilish really do the job. The series still looks and sounds phenomenal. Not quite as much as in the first, hallmark, season - but still.

However, one thing connects Issa Lopez with Pizzolatto. He likes to borrow, process, and quote. Lopez took from different sources than the creator of season one, but maintain the same level of quoting. Except that Chambers and The King in Yellow were replaced by a more Lovecraftian flavor - this shift, in fact, results in the change of the series' character from visionary to masterful. There are currently as many secrets in Lovecraftian horror as in a Dungeons & Dragons manual, so all the tricks involving fantasy/horror and hallucinations are easy to decipher and embed in the work.

I also couldn't shake the feeling that True Detective borrows the idea for the main character, Danvers, from another HBO series - Mare of Easttown, where the great Kate Winslet played a similar character - a caustic, experienced provincial policewoman burdened with personal problems. Well, if you're going to borrow, it might as well be from the best - especially after such a treatment as Lopez has done.

Masterful job

Let's be honest. All the accusations that can be made against the new season of True Detective are trivial. Lopez is more a master of her craft than an untamed artist with an inflated ego (which brings a lot of benefits for all interested, if you read about Pizzolatto's excesses). The fourth installment will not be such a bolt from the blue as the original, but the author's solidity and sensitivity as well as a hand for the depressed characters ensures the series' revival. Even though the series is easier to read, it still retains this gloomy, inscrutable note. And for this we watch True Detective . To plunge into the thick darkness together with a few tired cops.

OUR SCORE: 8,5/10

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Hubert Sosnowski

Hubert Sosnowski

He joined GRYOnline.pl in 2017, as an author of texts about games and movies. He's currently the head of the film department and the Filmomaniak.pl website. Learned how to write articles while working for the Dzika Banda portal. His texts were published on kawerna.pl, film.onet.pl, zwierciadlo.pl, and in the Polish Playboy. Has published stories in the monthly Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror magazine, as well as in the first volume of the Antologii Wolsung. Lives for "middle cinema" and meaty entertainment, but he won't despise any experiment or Fast and Furious. In games, looks for a good story. Loves Baldur's Gate 2, but when he sees Unreal Tournament, Doom, or a good race game, the inner child wakes up. In love with sheds and thrash metal. Since 2012, has been playing and creating live action role-playing, both within the framework of the Bialystok Larp Club Zywia, and commercial ventures in the style of Witcher School.