‘True Detective: Night Country’ Review: HBO’s Tentpole Crime Drama Mixes Magic, Mystery, and ‘Mare of Easttown’ in Twisty Fourth Season

Two tortured detectives. A gnarly murder mystery with a whiff of the occult attached. Spectacular cinematography and even better performances. These are the touchstones that made the original True Detective a radical cultural event for HBO and good news! They are all back for the anthology series’ fourth installment, True Detective: Night Country. Original True Detective showrunner Nic Pizzolatto has been replaced by Mexican auteur Issa López, who has created a tightly-crafted murder mystery that doubles as a photo negative of the original series. Where Pizzolatto’s original True Detective was masculine, sweltering, and gilt with mustard hues for its Yellow King, True Detective Season 4 is maternal, frosty, and set against the blue-toned darkness of polar night. Ultimately, though, what makes True Detective: Night Country so compelling is its similarities to another addictive HBO limited series, Mare of Easttown. True Detective: Night Country is a murder mystery set in an insular community that can only be cracked by a messy middle-aged woman and her younger partner.

True Detective Season 4 — officially known as True Detective: Night Country to differentiate it from Pizzolatto’s version of the franchise — is set in the remote Ennis, Alaska. Polar night has descended upon the town, plunging the area into unsettling darkness until spring. Things seem to be settling into the familiarly bleak motions of Christmas when something bizarre happens: all of the scientists stationed at the mysterious Tsalal Station seemingly disappear into the ether. Things become even more strange when the local police chief Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) discovers a woman’s tongue at Tsalal. This grisly piece of evidence somehow links the scientists to a cold case murder that’s been haunting Alaska State Trooper Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) for years.

All six episodes of True Detective: Night Country are written (or co-written) and directed by Issa López. Even though she’s a super accomplished writer and director in her native Mexico, López’s work might come as a revelation to English-speaking American viewers. López has not only crafted scripts that effortlessly entangle the magical and the mundane, but she’s able to deftly wrap up the show’s big mysteries, leaving only the most intentional of loose ends. As a director, she never seems hampered by setting the story during non-stop night. In fact, she finds endlessly creative ways to use the stark brightness of a lantern or the glow of twinkle lights to frame her actors clearly.

Jodie Foster is stunning as Liz Danvers, a brilliant detective who is terrible with other human beings. She seems to delight in driving a wedge between her eager young protege Peter Prior (Finn Bennet) and his family, while all-but-ignoring her own troubled teenaged stepdaughter Leah (Isabella LeBlanc). But Danvers is very good at her job. So much so, that her former partner — Evangeline Navarro — begrudgingly wants to rope her in to help solve her haunting cold case.

Like Danvers, Navarro is a woman who plunges herself into the grimy work of law enforcement because she’s running away from her own problems. Namely a beloved younger sister struggling with the double whammy of mental illness and visions of the dead. Professional boxer Kali Reis is relatively new to acting, having made her Independent Spirit Award-nominated debut in 2021’s Catch the Fair One, but she more than holds her own against the great Jodie Foster. In fact, Reis is so sublime, Navarro is the true heart and soul of the series, standing as both witness and protector to her fellow wronged Indigenous women.

Anyone with even the slightest awareness of crime rates knows that Indigenous women are far more likely to be the victims of violent crime than any other ethnicity. Furthermore, anyone who has dipped their toes into true crime also knows that the genre often exploits the suffering of female victims for kicks. True Detective: Night Country is aware of both of these sickening trends. The show ultimately demands justice for its Indigenous characters, and uses Navarro its primary champion.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that the Liz Danvers-half True Detective: Night Country will definitely give you flashbacks to HBO’s 2021 hit Mare of Easttown. Sure, we never see Danvers hit up a Wawa, but her tetchy relationship with her neighbors, laser-sharp investigative skills, and Oedipal relationship with a puppy dog-esque partner certainly ticks a lot of Mare boxes. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. (Hey, I loved Mare of Easttown). But don’t be surprised if True Detective Season 4 gets nicknamed “Mare of Coldtown” amongst cynical circles.

True Detective: Night Country doesn’t ever quite hit the smarmy noir notes Pizzolatto’s seasons were known for, but it’s crisp, chilling fun. Foster is fantastic, Reis a revelation, and López an auteur on the rise. It’s a dark and twisty thriller that’s perfect for these cold winter Sunday nights and even better for dissecting Monday morning with friends.

True Detective: Night Country premieres on HBO and Max on Sunday, January 14 at 9 PM ET.