True Detective: The Night Country is dark and full of terrors!

[The Dragon Demands]

I’ve watched the four current episodes and loved it. Story is a bit thin, but presentable; good actors, but must of all the cinematography is amazing. It’s more of a “mood” show than complex plot, but still makes for good horror.

[Iskaral Pust]

I’m still watching and will finish the season.  Ep4 felt too much like horror for my enjoyment though.  

The claustrophobia of the darkness, the snowbound small town, the economic tension (the poisonous mine is what keeps the town alive), mental health problems, and the fraught relationships is the tone they want to convey, and it works.  And horror seems to be the natural genre for such claustrophobia, although I don’t enjoy it.

There is a detective investigating a crime but the thread is messy and overwhelmed by the horror elements and committing so much to the tone.

[Nictarion]

Episode 5 was pretty intense. 

Spoiler

As soon as John Hawkes showed up at the house shit was obviously about to pop off, but I didn’t expect that.

Poor Pete. 

 

Edited February 10 by Nictarion

[TheLastWolf]

Ugh. One more to go

[DireWolfSpirit]

Every family/household is dysfunctional in the night country.

[Isis]

On 1/24/2024 at 1:54 AM, TheLastWolf said:

Someone noticed Foster slipping up and saying Icelandic village in an episode and told me. Didn't revisit to check but, true?

Still better than Starbucks 

We saw from the episode 1 credits that most of the names were Icelandic. 

I do love me some arctic or antarctic horror and there's only six episodes so I think I'll last the distance. It's not as good as Fortitude so far and tbh I don't think it will beat that. But let's see where we end up.

[Ran]

Episode 5 is probably the best episode since episode 1, but at the same time there's some real issues. Why, for example

Spoiler

Did we need to see Prior and McKitterick speaking at all? This would have been much much better if they didn't reveal, basically, everything about the fact that they had a direct role in Annie Kowtok's death, that Prior moved her body for them, etc., and that he was being sent to kill Heiss.

And for that matter... where did they pull this "OMG, Tsalal is funded by Silver Sky so they can verify their bullshit pollutin numbers" thing out of? Never once has Tsalal been said to be anything but a  private research station looking into prehistoric DNA or microbes or whatever. But now, suddenly, we learn that they were apparently trusted to back pollution reports? This should have been a detail in episode 1, or 2 at the latest.

Finally, the insanity of Pete saying, sure, I'll stay in your unheated shed without so much as a mattress to sleep on, just so they can put him in place for the final scene (which, don't get me wrong, was a great set-piece in and of itself) was silly. We just learned he was a high school ice hockey guy? What, he has no contact with any of his former teammates in Ennis who he could ask to crash with for a night? Just nonsensical.

Annnnd ... no talk of Evangeline's bleeding ears from the finale of episode 4? The last five minutes of each episode seems to not exist in the follow-up episode, the way the show treats these "shocking" turns and then just deflates any tension or interest out of them.

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

On 2/12/2024 at 11:30 AM, Ran said:

Episode 5 is probably the best episode since episode 1, but at the same time there's some real issues. Why, for example

  Hide contents

Did we need to see Prior and McKitterick speaking at all? This would have been much much better if they didn't reveal, basically, everything about the fact that they had a direct role in Annie Kowtok's death, that Prior moved her body for them, etc., and that he was being sent to kill Heiss.

And for that matter... where did they pull this "OMG, Tsalal is funded by Silver Sky so they can verify their bullshit pollutin numbers" thing out of? Never once has Tsalal been said to be anything but a  private research station looking into prehistoric DNA or microbes or whatever. But now, suddenly, we learn that they were apparently trusted to back pollution reports? This should have been a detail in episode 1, or 2 at the latest.

Finally, the insanity of Pete saying, sure, I'll stay in your unheated shed without so much as a mattress to sleep on, just so they can put him in place for the final scene (which, don't get me wrong, was a great set-piece in and of itself) was silly. We just learned he was a high school ice hockey guy? What, he has no contact with any of his former teammates in Ennis who he could ask to crash with for a night? Just nonsensical.

Annnnd ... no talk of Evangeline's bleeding ears from the finale of episode 4? The last five minutes of each episode seems to not exist in the follow-up episode, the way the show treats these "shocking" turns and then just deflates any tension or interest out of them.

 

Agree with most of these, especially the deflation of tension, but 

Spoiler

If Tsalal is doing ice core samples checking historic pollution levels would be something they could be monitoring on the side.  Don't remember the specific phrasing of Pete doing the exposition brought to you by Gooogle but maybe they could have cleaned up the specifics better to make it more plausible.  

Pete staying in the shed doesn't seem that weird if you look at it as he's been burying himself in work.  It's a step away from sleeping in the office, and there's electricity so he can just chuck a space heater in there.

 

[Annara Snow]

On 2/12/2024 at 2:15 PM, Isis said:

We saw from the episode 1 credits that most of the names were Icelandic. 

I do love me some arctic or antarctic horror and there's only six episodes so I think I'll last the distance. It's not as good as Fortitude so far and tbh I don't think it will beat that. But let's see where we end up.

Eh... no. But it's sure not as crazy as Fortitude (I would not call that show good, but I loved it for its unabashed insanity).

[Annara Snow]

On 2/8/2024 at 4:34 AM, Madame deVenoge said:

I’m actually really enjoying the show, even though we get a lot of weird supernatural stuff that I have the feeling will all be explainable in the end.

I feel the "supernatural" stuff (which is really just people seeing dead people) will be left ambiguous, as it should be. Maybe people are just hallucinating, but you can also choose to believe there's actually a spirit world.

It's unlikely to affect the whodunit anyway.

[Annara Snow]

On 2/7/2024 at 9:20 PM, The Dragon Demands said:

I’ve watched the four current episodes and loved it. Story is a bit thin, but presentable; good actors, but must of all the cinematography is amazing. It’s more of a “mood” show than complex plot, but still makes for good horror.

Definitely, and I felt that was even more the case with season 1, where the whodunit of it all turned out to be very underwhelming, but it was all about the characters and their issues and Rust's musings and the atmosphere.

Spoiler

At least the killer in Night Country will apparently be someone we already know, or so they are saying, and not some dude that pops up at the end.

 

Edited February 14 by Annara Snow

[TheLastWolf]

3 hours ago, Madame deVenoge said:

No one is forcing you to watch, bro

I can shit on it all I like though, free world sis

[The Dragon Demands]

6 hours ago, Madame deVenoge said:

Agreed on the whole “seeing dead people” - could be spirit world or hallucinations; heck, however many days of night all the time would drive me a bit batty.

The symbol, though, that was explained - as a hunter warning signal. Makes sense, but a bit dramatic in how it was hyped up in the first place. Then again, it’s a drama / mystery, so it meets expectations, IMO.

Well it’s an ancient symbol they’ve come to USE as a warning sign for thin ice

[TheLastWolf]

53 minutes ago, Madame deVenoge said:

Ok, “hate watching” is a thing. Kind of like a grudge f—- or something? 

Hmm more like I got OCD about closure and don't walk away if I can help it. Let's say they were making sequel seasons, then I'm out. 

[IFR]

So...what's the verdict? Were the critics right: was this another HBO masterpiece?

[SpaceChampion]

Dropping that line

Spoiler

time is a flat circle, gave me cringy fan fiction vibes. 

 

24 minutes ago, IFR said:

So...what's the verdict? Were the critics right: was this another HBO masterpiece?

No.

 

ok, who is "She"?  Neither of them thought to ask that?

Edited February 19 by SpaceChampion

[Ran]

An interminable episode, with an oddly saccharine conclusion. The episode dragged on and on and on. Jeebus.

I feel like I am living in Bizzaro-world as far as critical response to this goes. I love me some Jodie Foster too, but come on, folks.

ETA:

Spoiler

You know the angry indigenous women crew had to have spent hours -- hours -- choreographing their overly-dramatic entries and show of solidarity for the occasion when someone finally realized that they had a hand in the killing of the scientists. 

 

Edited February 19 by Ran

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

So… stopping after episode 4 was a good call?

[Larry of the Lawn]

I liked it but it wasn't anything amazing, I thought the first half was pretty solid but there were absolutely things that broke my suspension of disbelief.  Ran named one in his spoilered edit, 

Spoiler

It would have been more effective to just have them all hanging out on New Years or a few of them there.  Were they all just waiting around for ten days for the cops to show up to do this silent trickle in entrance?

Also, as far as the deaths of the scientists, minus Lund and Clark: 

Spoiler

The deaths story actually doesn't make sense.  We heard how that's not how people freeze to death, all contorted.  Unless there really WAS a "slab avalanche" that some how shit way across the ice?  Ok, I guess.  Using the crab freezer would have made more sense.  

Also, Navarro's ambiguous ending felt unearned, and what the fuck was the deal with the tongue.  Prior cut it out and then somehow planted it there when he shows up 6 years later with Danvers and Pete?  Ok.  

 

 

There was enough mystery to keep me watching and I didn't mind 

Spoiler

The looming threat of the actual existence of supernatural forces, or that they turned out to be essentially mundane.  I thought one thing plot wise that was well done was setting up the community of women as responsible for the deaths of the scientists, there were plenty of clues right there for us.  

Thank God they didn't end it on the slow "Twist and Shout", that would have been fucking terrible, and I was worried that they were going to do that.  

3/5 stars, mostly because of the last half of the final episode not being very strong.  Gotta stick those landings with style.

 

[IFR]

6 hours ago, Ran said:

An interminable episode, with an oddly saccharine conclusion. The episode dragged on and on and on. Jeebus.

I feel like I am living in Bizzaro-world as far as critical response to this goes. I love me some Jodie Foster too, but come on, folks.

ETA:

  Hide contents

You know the angry indigenous women crew had to have spent hours -- hours -- choreographing their overly-dramatic entries and show of solidarity for the occasion when someone finally realized that they had a hand in the killing of the scientists. 

 

I think this show is quite a good case in point and gets to the heart of my grievance with critics. The critics tell you exactly why they liked this.

In an article by Alan Sepinwall, entitled "‘True Detective: Night Country’ Just Gave the Series Its Best Finale Ever", he first notes:

Quote

The finale to the inaugural Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson first season felt like a letdown, whether or not you were invested in the idea that the Yellow King references were meant to be literal.

And then comments that the season 4 finale improves upon it as follows:

Quote

In many instances, there are wholly real explanations for what happened. Annie K found out that the Tsalal scientists were not only falsifying pollution reports, but actually encouraging Silver Sky to increase its output of pollutants, in order to aid this search for miracles hidden in the permafrost. She destroyed their preexisting samples, and was a danger to expose the entire operation. So Lund and the others attacked her, and poor, pitiful Raymond Clark finished the job, suffocating her to death with his undershirt. And it turns out that the scientists — other than Clark, who hid in the same underground ice cave where he murdered Annie — were marched out onto the ice at gunpoint by Beatrice, Blair, and the other Ennis women who were fed up by the story being told by Tsalal and Silver Sky. Beatrice argues that the women themselves didn’t kill the scientists, but simply sent the naked men out there for Annie K herself to decide their fate. But when you strand a bunch of people in such a climate without any protective clothing, without any light to guide them by, and with the threat of armed, righteously furious women waiting back from the way they came, a ghost isn’t necessarily required to offer a verdict, you know?

Yet even within this, López and company leave a lot of wiggle room for grander explanations. Beatrice not only denies leaving Annie’s severed tongue at Tsalal, but seems mystified by the question. Even if you buy the suggestion that Hank — who, working on behalf of Silver Sky, spirited the body away from the ice cave — cut out Annie K’s tongue, the delivery truck driver found it at the lab long before any cops arrived on the scene. More likely, the entity responsible for the tongue is the same responsible for Navarro constantly being taunted by oranges (a beloved snack of her mother and sister, and something where, if you peel it all in one go, resembles the spiral symbol); for the visions that put both Navarro and Danvers into peril out on the ice; and for all the other weirdness lurking on the periphery.

So he seems indifferent about how utterly nonsensical the explanations are (deliberately polluting the area to "weaken the permafrost"? Seriously? Killing the scientists by taking them out naked and letting them freeze to death, when it had been observed earlier that it didn't look like they had naturally frozen to death? The cleaning lady conspiracy murder? Etc.).

He seemed more interested that something big happened at the finale, however absurd. The first season ended on a subdued note, that focused on the characters. The murder mystery was - as it always had been - merely background to the characters of Rust and Marty. Sepinwall seems unable to grasp that and so was left disappointed. What he prefers is a big exclamation point at the end. He doesn't care (or doesn't realize?) it has the baggage of completely insane science, or that character logic or motivation is non-existent, and that the answer to the murder mystery is beyond absurd.

He's all about the big emotions, and doesn't care about whether the details make any sense.

Here's Benji Wilson of the Telegraph:

Quote

Looking back, didn’t you just know that those women in the fish factory in episode one were going to have a larger role to play in True Detective: Night Country (Sky Atlantic/HBO).

Actually I didn’t either. This may well have been writer and director Issa López’s point: that in both the fictional town of Ennis, Alaska, as well as in the True Detective franchise to date, women have been too long overlooked.

Well, not now. For the climax of the story we knew we were heading to the Night Country, deep into the ice caves that everyone had been told always to avoid. But the opening 20 minutes – an orgy of jump-scares, collapsing floors and things going bump in the ice – were still as scary as hell

The True Detective franchise is misogynistic and this is a course correction with good scares.

Quote

And then, as a stranded Danvers and Navarro looked likely to freeze to death themselves, Danvers twigged. Clark had said he’d been “holding down the hatch” at Tsalal when he’d hidden from what he thought was the ghost of Annie K (“She’s awake!”). But if he’d been holding down the escape hatch, who was trying to get in? They examined the hatch with UV and found handprints, one of which had two short fingers. Like the fish woman in that opening scene.

She and her friends – the overlooked women of Ennis, the tea drinkers and cardigan wearers and Native Alaskan community who have filled all of the supporting artist roles in this series – had found out that the Tsalal scientists had killed Annie K and had used their jobs as cleaners up at the station to take revenge. They had gone there, cut the power and rounded up the men. Then they took them way out on the ice, made them strip and left them to fend for themselves.

When the women told Danvers and Navarro their stories, the response was that the case was officially closed anyway – in a neat, final twist, if Silver Sky wanted to believe that the Tsalal eight had been killed by the cold and the weather, well, best let them think that. Revenge has never been served colder than this.

The revenge by the native women on the evil men is very satisfying, especially since they get away with it.

Note that this reviewer, like Sepinwall, seems indifferent to details. He doesn't seem to care that instead of nearly freezing to death, the characters could have hopped into a nearby warm car like they do immediately afterwards. He doesn't care about the absurdity of the conspiracy or the dozens of other details that are poorly thought out.

He likes that the misogynistic True Detective franchise got a feminist perspective in the form of a revenge tale.

---

There are more reviews, of course, but they follow that trend. Details are unimportant, big emotional events and feminism are important.

And this is why I find professional critics unreliable. This show is a microcosm of an overall social movement in that circle. We are looking for different things.

I'm looking for a good story that has good internal logic. That is all I care about. I don't care about the message, so long as it is intelligently presented. I only care about the story.

Critics see everything through the filter of their ideology. So many reviews make a big deal about the misogyny of True Detective, and how it was overly focused on white men, and how it is given a diverse spin with this new season. And as we see in the reviews, things I prioritize (good attention to detail, logic, and character behavior) are clearly secondary to this prime directive.

This in itself is fine. This is a work of entertainment, entirely subjective, and people are free to emphasize or de-emphasize whatever they wish to seek in a work of art.

But that is insufficient. There has been a campaign this entire season about how audience members who don't enjoy this show are sexist and racist. The "toxic fandom", if you will.

This is the showrunner denouncing the detractors of the show:

https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/true-detective-season-4-boss-fights-toxic-fans-rotten-tomatoes-1235872376/#!

And this is something you witness regularly in political media. Journalists look at twitter for some insane comment, make an article about it to generate outrage and clicks, and treat that comment as though it represents the views of an entire political movement (rightwing or leftwing). Those who read that article and likewise view antagonistically the political affiliation of the random twitter person quoted embrace the idea that those who disagree with them politically really are that stupid and wrongheaded, and generalize this random insane person as representative of millions of people.

Such is what happens with professional critics. They'll observe a minority of insane dissenters to some favored show or movie, and generalize that as the view of all who object to the show or movie.

And it creates an extremely hostile environment. Too many critics are cynical parasites who render reasonable discussion impossible.

Edited February 19 by IFR