‘True Detective: Night Country’: Jodie Foster and Kali Reis Chase After Killers and Terrors in an Icy Alaska

Alci Rengifo

HBO’s “True Detective: Night Country” has an almost masterful understanding of the marriage between environment and plot. The atmosphere is heavy and rich while making the plot wholly absorbing. It’s a strong return to form for the studio’s popular anthology procedural, which first premiered to wide acclaim in 2014 before delivering a subpar second season, then making a comeback with a strong third. “Night Country” is even better as a mystery set in a frozen corner of Alaska where the sun disappears all winter and haunted souls fester. This series can now literally be called dark though exhilarating to watch. New showrunner Issa Lopez now puts female characters at the center, brushing aside the previous seasons’ macho strut. What remains intact is the feel of danger waiting to pounce on anyone.

Ennis, Alaska is the secluded town where the mystery begins. At a remote facility, a group of scientists doing a mysterious, geological study go missing. All that’s found is a severed tongue. On the scene is local police chief Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster), who oversees a department and town where everyone knows each other and have histories. Her right hand is young deputy Pete Prior (Finn Bennett), whose father Hank (John Hawkes), is also on the force but with a rougher edge. Eager to get involved in the case is Detective Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis), who was demoted after rattling too many big names while investigating the brutal murder of an Indigenous activist. The local big industry is the mining sector, which provides jobs but also pollution. Navarro is convinced there must be some connection between what happened to the scientists and the murder that continues to obsess her. Then mysterious voices and visions come into play, elevating the mystery to darker, potentially supernatural levels.

The first season of “True Detective” was always a hard act to follow because of its originality. It was the creation of author Nic Pizzolatto, who crafted a noir where hard-edged cops spoke in semi-mystical language, as if William Blake had decided to be a detective. Subsequent seasons lacked its flare. Issa Lopez, who writes and directs the season, strips down the poetic lingo but keeps a gothic air combined with murder mystery grit. The location is perfect. Shooting took place in Iceland and the glacial landscapes give the story an ambiance to rank with icy thrillers like “Insomnia.” This is a land where it’s nighttime for months, which only adds to the gloom of the case Danvers and Navarro are attempting to decipher. Dreamlike images mix with nightmarish surprises. Vehicles traverse vast landscapes with only the dimmest idea of what’s beyond the glow of headlights. Frozen bodies are found in haunting formation out in the snow. The woman who discovers them seems to have followed a spirit to the site. As with the previous seasons, the soundtrack is a collection of evocative music by artists like Agnes Obel and Billie Eilish. 

Lopez has not lost the layered, literary spirit of the show. All of the questions and visions form a whole with characters which we follow beyond the plot. They feel like real lives shaped by this environment, often stuck in the past with no idea of a future. Danvers lives with an Indigenous step daughter who she refuses to allow to take on traditional markings. On the surface some of her complaints and quips feel like classic racism, but the more we learn, the more we realize Danvers’ hardened attitude comes from painful memories involving her deceased partner. Navarro deals with being Indigenous but having that identity also denied by her childhood experience of fleeing an abusive father with her mother. She hooks up with a local bartender, Qavvik (Joel D. Montgrand), who genuinely wants to get to know her but has to fight to get any insights. Everyone is flawed and there are no pristine heroes. Danvers is almost cruel in dismissing how her demands on Pete cause problems in his young marriage. She’s that committed superior who wants everyone to live 24/7 at work. 

A mythological feel also runs through “Night Country” that tonally links it to the first season. The aim is not to create a supernatural mystery in the order of “The X-Files.” Hallucinatory images and urban legends simply enhance the feelings. Navarro seeing a vision of a scarred polar bear is an evocative flourish. It could be real or could merely be her imagination. We have to keep watching to find out. We sense there is something monstrous afoot, but it is more of a backdrop for how the women at the center might find some peace in their lives, if that’s possible. And, that is the other great strength of this season. Lopez writes Danvers and Navarro as two of the year’s first great TV female leads. They are not “strong women” in a cliché sense. These are two officers who have seen personal loss and conflict in a place that feels confined in a vast landscape. Like many small towns and places, the smallest feelings or acts can lead to big tensions because everyone is boxed in. When Danvers needs an ice rink to store some corpses, the manager begrudgingly obliges and calls her a “bitch.” Danvers can only shrug and say, “I might have dated her husband once.” 

The whole cast is superb but Foster and Reis deserve particular attention. For Foster, it’s a good return to form for a screen veteran. This is a nice companion to her recent turn on Netflix’s “Nyad.” She’s an actor capable of playing very nice, yet here is almost cynical, like someone made jaded by too much living. She’s Clarice Starling from “The Silence of the Lambs” at middle age. Kali Reis, who began as a professional boxer, delivers her breakthrough in this series. Navarro is the kind of character who can easily be reduced to just being “tough.” Reis understands how to use her look and build to evoke someone who hides genuine vulnerability beneath a rough shield. In this terrain being Indigenous means having to be cautious and on guard, with a historical legacy always lingering. Navarro has no qualms in telling Danvers that everyone is scrambling to find missing white scientists, but doing nothing for a dead Indigenous activist. “Night Country” is a mystery with real richness in its darkest depths. It opens a gripping case but compels best with the players it brings together.

“True Detective: Night Country” premieres Jan. 14 with new episodes airing Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.