True Detective Season 4: Night Country Episode 1 Review And Recap- Spirals And The Dead Will Be Heard In The Strong Season 4 Opener

True Detective Season 1 was an incredible mix of crime thriller and supernatural chiller. It wove elements of cosmic horror in with the horrors of the real world while showcasing the immense talent of its leading men, Woody Harrelson and Mathew McConaughey. The following two seasons saw varying degrees of success, but neither reached the levels of the original season. Now, True Detective Season 4: Night Country is poised not only to recapture the magic of the first season but also to forge new ground in the anthology series. True Detective Season 4 Episode 1 laid the groundwork for a six-season arc full of indigenous folklore and old-fashioned human frailty.

Sometime between December 17th and December 20th, at the TSALAL Research base, eight men disappeared, leaving behind only a random tongue. Just before they vanish, one of them appears to have a seizure and then says, “She’s awake.” We don’t know who she is and what that means, but it is a phrase repeated multiple times to several people before the end of True Detective Season 4 Episode 1. That’s not the only odd thing to happen in and around Ennis, Alaska. A herd of reindeer stampede right off a cliff in a panic. What scared them, and why was suicide a better option?

When the station’s supplies arrive and no one is found, Chief Danvers(Jodie Foster) is called to investigate their disappearance. They find no bodies and no clues about what happened there beyond a dry-erase board with the words; WE ARE ALL DEAD, written on it. These were researchers looking for signs of climate change and investigating new life forms. This could be anything from a warning to a gruesome joke. At the same time, Trooper Evangaline Navarro(Kali Reis), who has her own history with Danvers and missing people, hears of the disappearances when handling a domestic violence case.

Like in True Detective Season 1, the protagonists are complex characters with problems and stressors. Danvers has a complicated relationship with her stepdaughter. Her husband and her stepdaughter’s father may have died in a drunk-driving accident. We don’t know if he was the driver or an innocent victim, but Danvers is now raising his daughter alone. Teenage girls are tough to handle when they are growing up, but this is especially true when they lose their father and are queer in Alaska. As Danvers and Leah(Isabella LaBlanc) argue about the dangers of sex tapes, they witness Jody, the town drunk, crashing her car. The incident is triggering for Danvers, and she holds Jody in jail until she sobers up. Is it possible she is the drunk driver or just a reminder of something terrible that happened?

Trooper Navarro has a sister who has a mental illness that she is desperately trying to care for without admitting her to a hospital. She has a romantic interest that she treats like a sex doll and is a war veteran. Her relationship with Eddie Qavvik(Joel Montgrand) is interesting as she is dominant, and it works for both of them. Showrunner Issa Lopez, whose previous work in the emotional Tigers Are Not Afraid, isn’t afraid to show women’s sexuality aggressively and honestly.

Navarro and Danvers worked together years ago until a falling out saw Navarro forcibly encouraged to transfer to the Troopers. We know very little about her time in the military beyond the specter of death, which literally presented itself to her in the form of a fellow soldier. This female soldier was missing half of her head. The concept of the dead returning to share their secrets is recurrent. Navarro is a strong, confident woman who feels connected to her people and feels a profound responsibility to all of them, particularly women.

Danvers surmises that the tongue found at the TSALAL station probably belongs to an indigenous person, as there are repetitive marks from fishing lure creation. Reis and Foster crackle with unspoken tension. Chief Danvers and Trooper Navarro clearly have a past that colors every interaction now. Navarro is haunted by the case she couldn’t solve. She was the one who found an indigenous woman who was brutally attacked and killed.

The midwife and climate activist wasn’t popular because she was so vocal. She was stabbed 32 times with a star-shaped weapon that was never found, had her tongue cut out, and was beaten, kicked, and left for dead. The rage and hatred was palpable. Navarro couldn’t solve the case, and the tongue was never found. The case consumed her and seemed to be the catalyst for her leaving to be a trooper. A later conversation makes it clear it was not her choice, however.

Chief Danvers’s mentor is a young man named Peter Prior(Finn Bennett), who oozes earnest responsibility. He has a son with his partner and a father still on the force he can’t trust. His partner is also an indigenous person, and that is an area of concern as some of the stories his son hears from his maternal grandmother can be frightening. His son has had nightmares. Additionally, he and his partner argue about his work-life balance. His father, Hank Prior(John Hawkes), is secretive and is holding old case files, which he denies having. It is also worth noting in a series that will definitely open dialogues around violence toward women and women in power that, he has a mail-order bride who is joining him soon. Hank obviously knows more than he wants to admit about the unsolved case and maybe much more.

Rose(Fiona Shaw), an isolated survivalist, is at the center of everything. A man she refers to as Travis comes to her, and after an eerie set of body movements, he points her to the missing men who are buried up to their necks in the snow with their faces frozen in expressions of terror. What caused them to walk out into the snow to die, we don’t know. What, if anything, these men had to do with the unsolved case we can’t imagine yet, but everything is connected in this perpetually dark place.

Lopez’s Tigers Are Not Afraid is a brilliant example of magical realism. True Detective Season 4 borrows heavily from her bag of tricks. True Detectives Season 4 Episode 1 gave us a rich world filled with unexplainable events that the inhabitants of this isolated spot take in stride. We were dropped into this strange place, but it feels like we have lived there all our lives. It instantly feels like a place I intimately know and might be afraid of.

So much mysticism is embedded into the fabric of this dark world at the end of the Earth. Ghosts of the past are everywhere. Are they friends or foes? Interestingly, everyone is connected in the tiny town of Ennis. Chief Danvers and Trooper Navarro share more than they think and probably want to. Why does Danvers find a polar bear stuffed animal on the floor of her bedroom at the same time that Navarro finds a living polar bear in the middle of town with the same characteristic injured eye? We don’t know. They also hear a woman tell them, “She is awake.” Who is she?

Like a fantastic hybrid of The Thing, the underrated Syfy series helix, and The OA, True Detective Season 4 opens with an ominous and wonderous hum. Something is coming, and I’m not sure we will be prepared for it. The future of prestige television is being defined.

The dead speak in True Detective Season 4 Episode 1. Some murmur in the dead of night, while others lead those who will listen where they need to go. Ennis, Alaska, is a special place that may harbor something or someone very dangerous. So many questions are left unanswered, and this opening episode leaves us breathless with possibility. We can say that now that “she is awake,” there will be no peace. Something wants justice and will go to any lengths to get it. Even returning from the grave. Find all our True Detective coverage here.

Stray Thoughts and Theories:

• The photos that Chief Danvers arranges from TSALAL station and Annie K’s case form a spiral. Spirals were very important in True Detective Season 1. Are these seasons somehow linked? Spirals symbolize creation, enlightenment, and evolution and are often attributed to feminity specifically.
• There was a polar bear in one of the station photos. Is this the same polar bear that appeared to Navarro?
• Why is Officer Hank Prior hiding files from everyone else? His son and Danvers’ protege Peter have to steal the files by throwing them out of the window. Does he have something to hide, or does he not want to open old wounds?
• Is the coat with the torn sleeve seen in the picture of one of the researchers the same one worn by their victim, or is this a coincidence? Was she involved with one of the researchers?
• What did they discover, if anything, at the research station, and is it connected to the unsolved murder or their deaths?
• Is it possible Travis is Leah’s father and Danvers’s dead husband?