HBO Max True Detective: Night Country (1 Viewer)

[Winston T. Boogie]

Yeah, I agree, it really wasn't necessary to tie it to season 1. And Clark's "Time is a flat circle!" shout in the finale was particularly awkward.

I get that is a very quotable line from season one but yes, it really seemed a bad idea to have him blurt that out.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

She is definitely someone I'd want around to help dispose of a body.

Ha, yes. I thought she was interesting so if the show had spent more time with her, I would have been fine with that. She was the best of the side characters.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Am I the only one who likes it? Sure, S1 was great, but IMHO, so was S2. S3 was a little less awesome, and as for S4, not done yet, but so far, totally unimpressed. Just watching to see how it ends, basically. Too lazy to read spoilers.

I have not seen season 2 or 3 so can't comment on them. On season 4, yes, I started out very engaged, the second episode had me expecting the thing was going to pick-up steam but then it nosedived from there. I guess what I am trying to sort out now is, had it just been a new series called Night Country not at all tied to True Detective, would I have liked it more?

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

While there are a few (intentionally) dangling threads, it all came together for me. I can't really think of anything that didn't make sense in retrospect given the revelations of the finale.

Navarro is led to some crucial pieces of evidence over the course of the season by the voices in her head and the hallucinations she sees, that she probably wouldn't have found otherwise. But nothing (except maybe the tongue) requires the supernatural to be explained.

I don't think the show was confusing. I guess my biggest issue was I began watching the show for a mystery, and it kicked off with a bang, then it became a show about the problems in the lives of the characters. I did not expect that and did not expect that to become the show's primary focus and reason to exist.

Later I read Foster and Lopez saying that the show is really Navarro's journey...which I guess it is, but as I was watching the show, I was not thinking it was Navarro's journey. She was a good character but kind of a blank. She came across as a blunt force object to offset Danver's more cerebral cop. So, I thought, or imagined, Danvers would sleuth out what was going on and Navarro would be there to kick some ass when the need for that arose. They were a nice combo of brains and brawn.

That was how I was connecting with Navarro. I liked her but basically saw her as Bud White from LA Confidential. Outside of her obvious assets as an ass kicker, I did not have an emotional attachment. That part was just not landing with me. She also seemed to do no detective work during the series. She got sent on a couple of errands for Danvers but her main thing seemed to be to find a dead end and get angry or to slip off into what may or may not have been some sort of fugue state and see things other people were not seeing.

I was always focused on how they would solve the mystery. How they would work that out, who they may need to interact with using their different skill sets to find the information they needed. Danvers would reason, Navarro would beat it out of them or intimidate them. Except in the show, Peter was sorting things out in the background, finding info and clues and then feeding them to Danvers. So, things never worked up into the situation or search I was expecting. So the two "detectives" did no real detective work and seemed to be just bungling around. Stumbling into things rather than figuring anything out.

In the end it was a different kind of show than what I was expecting. So, I have to take that into consideration. I was thinking thriller, they were delivering an emotional drama.

 

[jayembee]

She is definitely someone I'd want around to help dispose of a body.

Good friends help you move. Really good friends help you move a body.

 

[jayembee]

Agreed. There are so many ways to read that final beat with Navarro at the end on Danvers's porch. It might be literally her, having fallen off the grid, or it might be her ghost.

Or it might be neither, but just a representation of Danvers thinking of Navarro.

 

[jayembee]

I have not seen season 2 or 3 so can't comment on them. On season 4, yes, I started out very engaged, the second episode had me expecting the thing was going to pick-up steam but then it nosedived from there. I guess what I am trying to sort out now is, had it just been a new series called Night Country not at all tied to True Detective, would I have liked it more?

I can't imagine it would. 99% of it had nothing to do with the previous seasons of True Detective, so 99% of it would've been the same if it had been presented as it's own thing. You either liked the story, and the way it played out, or you didn't.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Personally, I found the 'story' of how the researchers met their death on the ice to be laughably bad. Bunch of crazed vigilantes with rifles. Really? Oh, please.

This is a good way to explain how story is important and how to improve a story, particularly a thriller or mystery. I will spoiler this:

Spoiler: Spoiler

OK, so the show kicks off with a mystery, it is based on a real incident about a group of people that met an unusual end in a place in the Ural Mountains called Dyatlov's Pass. In fact I think the explanation that Danvers' boss gives about what happened to the researchers on the show was the explanation the Soviet government gave for what happened in Dyatlov's Pass. Many people felt it smelled like a cover-up.

OK, so here is your primary mystery, a group of seemingly sane and normal researchers all vanish at the same time and turn up naked and frozen in the ice miles away from the research station. So, now as a writer, you have to come up with how that happened. The first and most obvious answer is, a group of people forced them at gunpoint to strip and run out onto the ice until they froze to death. This is your most simple answer and likely the one you come up with first.

So, if you are trying to create a thrilling mystery, the first thing you should do is discard that first most obvious explanation. In fact, an easy way to discard it is to have your "detectives" think of this explanation and then have them find clues or info that points to this not being how this happened. Your goal now as a writer is to come up with something more interesting.

What happens in the show is to throw us off, just before these people disappear we see Clark have a bizarre incident where he starts shaking (having a seizure?) and then he says "She's awake." plus the lights flicker and it seems like something supernatural may be happening. We are pushed further toward thinking something weird is happening when we see the caribou run off of the cliff in the opening. So, we now, as an audience are set to ponder what is taking place.

I think if you want to really impress your audience, you should not come back around to the simplest explanation...a bunch of people with guns burst in and force the researchers to strip and run naked out onto the ice. Honestly, this explanation occurred to me right away, but when the supernatural weirdness was presented with the disappearance I hoped that there was something more to this.

People have been coming up with theories for years as to what happened in Dyatlov's Pass, so really as a writer inspired by this, you already had any number of head starts to come up with a more interesting way the researchers ended up naked and frozen in the ice.

So, yes, when I saw that the explanation for that opening mystery was just that a group of angry women from the town forced the researchers out onto the ice at gunpoint...well...it fell pretty flat. The only really odd/interesting aspect of that was that Clark when he goes into his seizure in episode one, was actually seeing Navarro in the future standing there looking at him. OK, fine, but really end result here is, the writer did not discard the simplest explanation and instead used it, basically because that mystery, like all the ties to season one, was basically a throwaway to explore how tough the lives of the people living in Ennis were.

 

[Joe Wong]

I can't imagine it would. 99% of it had nothing to do with the previous seasons of True Detective, so 99% of it would've been the same if it had been presented as it's own thing. You either liked the story, and the way it played out, or you didn't.

@jayembee what did you think of the season as a whole?

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I can't imagine it would. 99% of it had nothing to do with the previous seasons of True Detective, so 99% of it would've been the same if it had been presented as it's own thing. You either liked the story, and the way it played out, or you didn't.

I have not decided yet if it would have changed how I felt about it. Had the show just been called Night Country and not been tied at all to True Detective, and not dropped all kinds of callbacks to season one into the series, I think I may have thought of it in a different way. I would not have been trying to piece how the spiral, Tuttles, and Rust's dad all were going to impact the outcome of this show. I think I may not have expected more odd detective work and maybe would have just watched this as something new, that led me down whatever roads it led me. Calling it True Detective and throwing in all sorts of ties to season one, including the father of one of the main characters in season one, and that spiral that they used a lot, built up expectations for me...and then the worst outcome for that was, none of that meant anything to what was actually going on in the series.

 

[jayembee]

@jayembee what did you think of the season as a whole?

I agree with Pike that the mystery part of it was underwhelming (though perhaps not to the degree that he does) but loved the presentation of mood and character, with both of those accentuated by the setting of Alaska during its "long night". Enough so that I want to track down some of Issa López's other work. And loved the performances pretty much across the board, especially Foster and Reis.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Probably should have posted this with my last entry in this thread, so someone may throw a 15 yard flag for piling on -

We're supposed to believe that virtually all of the researchers, men with presumably P.H.D.s (at least some of them) are murderous A-holes that in the heat of the moment kill a defenseless woman. Sheesh.

(Education isn't always a reliable indicator of morality, I'll admit; but I tend to think that folks with scientific training are going to be less likely to commit violence at least partly due to the experiences that permitted them to acquire their expertise. University training and exposure to various cultures and persons outside their formative years.)

- Walter.

 

[Joe Wong]

Probably should have posted this with my last entry in this thread, so someone may throw a 15 yard flag for piling on -

We're supposed to believe that virtually all of the researchers, men with presumably P.H.D.s (at least some of them) are murderous A-holes that in the heat of the moment kill a defenseless woman. Sheesh.

(Education isn't always a reliable indicator of morality, I'll admit; but I tend to think that folks with scientific training are going to be less likely to commit violence at least partly due to the experiences that permitted them to acquire their expertise. University training and exposure to various cultures and persons outside their formative years.)

- Walter.

Interesting point!

It does seem like a stretch, but

Spoiler

the one thing that allows some plausibility for the scientists' actions is that it was not premeditated? Certainly not a justification for the murder, but given what the scientists were doing was already quite shady, and they realize they're about to be exposed by Annie, someone who is known for protests against the mine, and is not going to be quiet, so how do you silence her? Again, not justifying the killing, just trying to understand what the scientists could have been thinking when they found Annie with their secrets.

Taking it further... even Clark was taken over by a loss of rationality when he strangles the love of his life, after being horrified at what his colleagues had done. What was going on in his mind?

(Actually, the one puzzling element for me, is that when (1) Annie and (2), the ladies discover the subterfuge at Tsalal, they understood straight away the scientists had (1) falsified reports and (2) had killed Annie? Maybe I missed something!)

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Probably should have posted this with my last entry in this thread, so someone may throw a 15 yard flag for piling on -

We're supposed to believe that virtually all of the researchers, men with presumably P.H.D.s (at least some of them) are murderous A-holes that in the heat of the moment kill a defenseless woman. Sheesh.

(Education isn't always a reliable indicator of morality, I'll admit; but I tend to think that folks with scientific training are going to be less likely to commit violence at least partly due to the experiences that permitted them to acquire their expertise. University training and exposure to various cultures and persons outside their formative years.)

- Walter.

I did not like this either. For a number of reasons. I mean, I've known and know a lot of scientists, and truth is they sort of have a range of personalities like anybody else. I don't find it impossible that one would be open to killing someone or many someones, but in the case of the scientists in this show, it seemed also to just be a quick out to get to where they really wanted to go...meaning the murders in this show were not the thing, the thing was the "journey" of Navarro and how she copes with life. Basically, the way they handled the murders was, not to address them for the majority of the series, and then in the final episode, just throw a couple quick convenient explanations at us...which honestly I was afraid of happening.

I don't buy the idea that the scientists gang kill her and that one guy that wanted to just keep stabbing her again and again...yeah, tough sell on that. Plus then someone supposedly continues to brutalize her body after she is dead, I mean that just does not fit with the why and how of Annie's death. I guess she is meant to be a "message" to the other women and protesters but really that just points things right at the mine owners and would be like saying "Hey, here we are, we killed her!"

 

[Greg.K]

We're supposed to believe that virtually all of the researchers, men with presumably P.H.D.s (at least some of them) are murderous A-holes that in the heat of the moment kill a defenseless woman. Sheesh.

Agree, that was a hell of a stretch. The revenge of the cleaning women made up for it somewhat, though, I thoroughly enjoyed that.

 

[Mikael Soderholm]

I have not seen season 2 or 3 so can't comment on them. On season 4, yes, I started out very engaged, the second episode had me expecting the thing was going to pick-up steam but then it nosedived from there. I guess what I am trying to sort out now is, had it just been a new series called Night Country not at all tied to True Detective, would I have liked it more?

If it hadn't been called True Detective, noboy would have watched it, despite Jodie Foster (who is not at her best, but still outshines everyone else)
If you liked S1, see S2

 

[Timothy E]

I enjoyed this season least of all 4 seasons.

On the plus side, the cast was great with the material they were given, and direction and production values were excellent.

The writing was not up to the standard of everything else, unfortunately. This season really did not match up qualitatively with other seasons from the story perspective.

In a series called True Detective, you expect to see some good detective work. There was questionable detective work throughout.

[Spoiler alert!] The big twist at the end of episode 2 that Raymond Clark’s body was not found with the other corpses led to someone stating the conclusion that “Raymond Clark is still alive!”

The absence of his body did not prove that Raymond Clark was still alive; it is equally possible that he was dead but that his corpse was left in a different location by the vengeful cleaning crew. A “true detective” would never make such a leap in logic.

Of course, the writers wanted the audience to know that Clark was still alive, so this was the device to plant that idea, but it came off as badly written detective fiction, with the detectives making illogical assumptions that then turn out to be correct.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

We're supposed to believe that virtually all of the researchers, men with presumably P.H.D.s (at least some of them) are murderous A-holes that in the heat of the moment kill a defenseless woman. Sheesh.

Annie had just destroyed years of their work, work that they thought would save countless lives and improve the world for the better. I can see one guy snapping under those circumstances.

The rest did what they did because if their colleague's actions had been exposed, then their project would have been shut down. It was a cold-blooded calculation, one they could justify to themselves as being in the greater good.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Agree to disagree. There were other ways to handle the situation.

One person snapping was believable. The rest joining in, not so much. Given the way the scene was presented, I didn't see a lot of calculation or justification, just a mob mentality. The scene stretched credibility for me.

- Walter.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

The thing with the research scientists...


They are presented here as the real bad guys. I found this kind of ridiculous. Hilariously, they supposedly told the people that run the mine to up the level of the toxins they were releasing into the environment because it "softened the permafrost" which made it easier to extract samples or something. So, in the most Spinal Tap manner possible, the mine ups their level of pollution to 11 times what they normally would be releasing into the environment. This just on its face is...well...kind of stupid. I honestly do not believe that scientists trying to get pure samples for a project would want massive levels of toxins dumped into the area they are trying to extract samples from. This just seems the type of gobbledygook someone throws into a story to explain away something they wrote themselves into a corner with.

Plus if you had a company and someone asked you to find a way to pollute the living crap out of the town you were in, literally asked you to release 11 times the amount of toxins into the community which you knew would harm and kill people, including babies, when you do not have any reason to do this, and you will end up getting blamed for it if it comes out, why the hell would you do that?

So, sure, the scientists kill Annie but they are basically mass murderers anyway because they have asked the Silver Sky Mine to poison the living hell out of the people of Ennis, killing babies, women, men so they can supposedly find some miracle cure buried in all the toxins.

The funny thing about the show is everybody is a murderer covering up various murders. It's really just asinine writing. Ennis just seems to breed murderers. Everybody has this dark secret about someone they killed and then covered up killing them...particularly the cops but even the cleaning ladies union. Basically, the message here is don't move to Alaska.