Entertainment Updates : Welcome back to the spooky world of True Detective. Though the shop is under new ownership, it may look a lot like the old True Detective – stern police in a remote outpost solve a complex, multilayered murder. The program that debuted to such popularity in its first season that its ending went viral on the internet is no longer under Nic Pizzolatto’s direction. The series took a lengthy break as the following few seasons were deemed less successful by both reviewers and viewers. After five years, it has returned — or perhaps relaunched — with Issa López serving as the showrunner, director, and writer.
True Detective: The imaginary town of Ennis, Alaska, where Night Country is set, is a mining outpost that is so near to kissing the North Pole that one December night, the sun sets for the last time, ushering in weeks of unending darkness. Notably different from previous episodes, López has assigned two tough-as-nails female police officers to maintain order: Jodie Foster portrays the feisty police chief Liz Danvers, and boxer Kali Reis plays Liz’s adversary and colleague, Evangeline Navarro, a state trooper troubled by the unsolved murder of a local Iñupiaq woman. Pizzolatto’s submissions were gloomy and muggy, while Night Country is whimsical, frosty, and black. The delicate, terrible murmurs of Billie Eilish’s “Bury a Friend,” which was selected as the theme song, even foreshadows the series’ altered tone.
It takes some time in the first few minutes of the video to explain, but the first thing Night Country wants you to know about Alaska is that it’s a very cold, untamed, and unfriendly area. It is also, because of the age of the ice, a scientific treasure trove for researchers exploring the origins of life on earth. That’s what they’re purportedly doing at Tsalal Station, a covert research facility where eight employees vanish out of nowhere. The researcher whispers, menacingly and hauntingly, “She’s awake,” which is the only early hint provided as to how and why. When we next see Tsalal, the men have disappeared, leaving only a severed human tongue on the ground as proof of guilt.
Liz and her resentful second-in-command, Hank Prior (John Hawkes, an actor I have never seen miscast), are the ones with the perplexing case. Pete Prior, Hank’s son, a young officer, beat them to the scene and shows more respect for the chief than he does for his father. Ennis is experiencing its third day of nonstop darkness, and it has been seven days since Tsalal’s global team last communicated. The men’s cell phones are dispersed, and their TV is still on. You would have assumed that whoever wrote “WE ARE ALL DEAD” on a whiteboard was going to return at any second and demand to know why the police are here without a warrant.
This is what sexist and lazy thinker Hank thinks is likely to happen. Liz makes a helicopter search and rescue call. She surmises that the men have been missing for days because the mayo on an abandoned sandwich has gone runny in addition to the fact that there is a human tongue lying on the floor. As a mother who has emptied stale sandwiches from the rear of her vehicle, she is also aware of how quickly mayo can get runny. Due to his negligence and his tendency to minimize Pete in front of their supervisor, Hank is unaware of this. There is no subtlety to the politics here: Liz is not a woman in a position of authority. Her experiences as a woman put her ahead of Hank. Hank , in the meantime, is adamant that he will marry a woman from Vladivostok that he has never met but who he says he will see for Christmas very soon.
Even though Jodie Foster seems like a familiar person investigating crimes, Night Country wants you to know that she’s not your simple-minded Clarice. She possesses Hannibal Lector’s depth of knowledge and systematic inquiry; she recognizes the tongue of a Native American woman right away, scarred from licking thread to repair fishing nets on the ground.
Thank God, Hank is not really her partner on the case. Neither is Prior Jr, but he’s a good egg and a fast study. Because word of a severed human tongue spreads quickly, Navarro is waiting for Liz in her office when she returns to headquarters. The murder of Annie K, a local activist whose lifeless body was discovered a few years ago without a tongue, is the unsolved cold case that haunts Evangeline. Liz wants Evangeline out of her office, but there’s no way to determine if what she’s saying is true or coincidence. Throughout the first episode, the truth about their shared past is revealed bit by bit: They were coworkers on the force once. until Navarro was forced into the trooper’s office. Liz talks about Navarro’s “spirit animal” in a racist manner, but it’s obvious that she’s not actually giving it any thought. It goes deeper than that—whatever she has against Evangeline is personal.
But once Evangeline departs, Liz naturally asks Hank for Annie’s case file because it’s her tongue. In what kind of tiny town does the average person live in? But Hank has been hoarding records at home, and he hesitates to locate them. It’s unclear if he wants Annie K’s case to remain unresolved for some reason or if he’s just enjoying the chance to get even with his boss. Pete gets into conflict with his wife, Kayla, an Iñupiaq nursing student, after Liz asks him to steal data from his dad’s bachelor apartment after work. Darwin is the son Pete and Kayla have together, and it’s obvious that Pete is making a valiant effort to change the family’s perception of his role as a parent. Ultimately, though, he risks disappointing his son and wife by obeying orders.