True Detective: Night Country Review - New Case, New Nightmares

It's been five years since the last season of "True Detective" debuted on HBO, and 10 years since the show premiered and promptly became a crime drama phenomenon. In that time, a lot has changed, and with its fourth season, "True Detective" arrives almost completely refreshed. The anthology format is still there, as are the show's original executive producers, but series creator Nic Pizzolatto has moved on to other projects, paving the way for new stories and new storytellers.

This brings us to "True Detective: Night Country," a season by acclaimed writer-slash-director Issa Lopez ("Tigers Are Not Afraid") that stars Jodie Foster and Kali Reis. The subtitle is appropriate here — not just because of its thematic and narrative resonance in the season itself, but because it marks a departure from what came before. This is the first season of "True Detective" to bear a subtitle, the first without Pizzolatto as the principal creative force, the first set outside the continental United States, and the first to be driven primarily by women. 

All of these things are intriguing, even thrilling, but it's what Lopez and company eventually do with them that will stick with you. Atmospheric, intense, and driven by a ferocious desire to do something new while never letting go of what made the series work in the first place, "True Detective: Night Country" is an absolute stunner, and proof that the show's emphasis on new blood has paid off in a big way.

"True Detective: Night Country" sets itself apart from the rest of the "True Detective" pack right away by moving the action to the frigid temperatures and endless night that is December in Ennis, Alaska. The small town is also home to a scientific research facility where a handful of scientists are studying something the townspeople are never quite clear about. Life is hard in Ennis, and that's before the locals have to take into account the issues with the local water supply and the dwindling catches coming in from the fishermen every season. It's a rough place, and it's about to get rougher.

Things in "Night Country" get really dark when local police chief Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) is summoned to the research facility after a deliveryman finds the place completely empty save for a few pieces of evidence that something very bad has gone down. What starts as a missing persons case centered on the eight scientists who've vanished soon gets even grimmer, as local trooper Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) senses connections to a cold case she's been obsessed with for years, much to Danvers' chagrin. The two cops had a falling out years earlier, but if they're going to solve this increasingly strange case, they have to work together and venture out into the night.

What made "True Detective" as a series stand out from the very beginning was its ability, in that magical first season, to balance the intimate nature of the case at hand with grand-scale, existential issues for the characters. These elements went hand-in-hand, creating not just a compelling character study, but a larger thematic mythology for the characters to navigate. Issa Lopez clearly understands this, because in "Night Country," she sets out right away to do the same thing. Both of her detectives are haunted by something in their pasts, with darkness that flickers at the edges of every moment and adds resonance to the grim nature of the case they're pursuing — but there's more going on than what's in their heads. The iconography of this season is the most striking and unforgettable "True Detective" imagery since Season 1, and it's thanks to Lopez and her camera that we're able to fully immerse ourselves in a world that's our own, but also clearly an alien landscape beset by monsters.

That sense of something monstrous, even beyond the human horrors of criminals and the bodies they leave behind, is something "True Detective" has strived to capture from the very beginning, and Issa Lopez is clearly reminding us all of that initial magic. It's not an accident that one of the chief visual motifs of the first season, a spiral, is present here in the fourth as well, linking the two visually while Lopez and her team of writers also link them thematically. Here once again, we have a detective in Danvers who just wants to keep her head down and do her job, while Navarro takes a wider view, trying to solve the society around the crime as well as the crime itself. It's a classic mismatched detective setup, yes, but it's also a potent, often profound linking device, reminding us that this story is part of a continuum of stories and a larger thematic picture.

At the same time, the series never feels like it's trying too hard to echo that first season. It's clear from the start, even beyond the visual distinctions of the frozen tundra, that Lopez is setting her season of the show apart. While Nic Pizzolatto's stories flirted with magic and supernatural flourishes, Lopez's tale flat-out crawls into bed with them. There's an almost magical realist sense of wonder to everything, even the most horrific moments — and there are plenty of those this season, more than any other — that gives "True Detective: Night Country" a feeling not just of unpredictability, but of undeniable mystique. And that's all before you get to Jodie Foster and Kali Reis, who do wonderful work together as your new favorite pair of rough-and-tumble detectives. Throw in supporting cast members like John Hawkes, Isabella Star LaBlanc, Christopher Eccleston, and the legendary Fiona Shaw, and it's impossible to resist the pull of this show.

"True Detective: Night Country" isn't just the best season of this series since the first. It's a spellbinding, beautifully dark drama that stands on its own, and is very likely one of the best TV series we'll see all year.

"True Detective: Night Country" premieres on January 14 on HBO.