Summary
- True Detective‘s first season was a lightning bolt that set new standards for the detective genre, thanks to its horror-like aesthetic and references to the occult and supernatural.
- Subsequent seasons of True Detective failed to live up to the first, with the second season being a mess and the third feeling like a rehash. They lacked the unique and horror-driven elements that made the show notable.
- The fourth season, Night Country, under new showrunner Issa Lopez, is a promising return to the supernatural elements that made the show successful. The premiere sets a thrilling and spooky tone, incorporating indigenous beliefs and leaving it open to question whether the supernatural is at play or if it’s just the characters’ mental instability.
Ten years ago, True Detective debuted on HBO like a bolt of lightning. No one expected much from it, but it quickly garnered acclaim from critics and became a sensation through the power of the Internet. Aided by a career-best performance from Matthew McConaughey at the height of his renaissance, it seemed that True Detective could be the Twin Peaks of its time, which truly changed television.
However, subsequent seasons didn’t come close to living up to these standards. The second season, in particular, was a mess, and while the third was an improvement and was bolstered by a fantastic performance from Mahershala Ali, it still felt like a rehash. Now, True Detective has finally returned for its fourth season, Night Country, and it’s already clearly the best season since the first. Obviously, the writing is much stronger than in previous years, but new showrunner Issa Lopez (taking over from creator Nic Pizzolatto) wisely plays into the debut year’s most intriguing angle – the supernatural.
A New Southern Gothic Classic
True Detective
- Release Date
- January 12, 2014
- Cast
- Mahershala Ali , Stephen Dorff , Carmen Ejogo , Scoot McNairy , Jodie Foster , Kali Reis , Matthew McConaughey , Woody Harrelson , Alexandra Daddario , John Hawkes , Colin Farrell , Vince Vaughn
- Seasons
- 4
At first, True Detective sounded like another generic detective story, likely to benefit from strong actors but not much more. Instead, Pizzolatto instantly made his show feel unique within its genre thanks to a horror-like aesthetic, with references to the occult and the supernatural abound. It felt more like David Fincher’s Se7en than any of its countless imitators following a dark psychological thriller route.
The antagonists of the season were the Tuttle family, a mysterious cult in the area that regularly performed human sacrifices. Their work was said to be in service of Carcosa, the “Yellow King,” a reference to a horror novel by Robert W. Chambers, “The King in Yellow.” The literary allusions, including the likes of HP Lovecraft, eventually became so omnipresent that viewers began to speculate online that supernatural elements were at play in the story.
Every Season of True Detective, Ranked
With True Detective: Night Country around the corner, these are our rankings for the best seasons of HBO’s True Detective.
While the final episode ultimately revealed that the proceedings were mostly grounded in reality, the show was nonetheless distinctly horror in tone. The disturbing imagery throughout the season evoked Southern Gothic stories, and the constant philosophical musings of protagonist Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) elevated the proceedings into something distinctly its own. It felt like an exciting new direction to take maybe the most omnipresent TV genre out there.
Although the problems of the second season are myriad, chief among them was Pizzolatto’s decision to retreat from this direction and go more grounded in tone. Clearly, he wanted to emulate Los Angeles-based crime stories and perfect noir films like LA Confidential, but it instead felt like a predictable story done before with nothing to set it apart. While the third season returned to the more rustic setting of the first year, it was nonetheless disappointing to see Pizzolatto try and shy away from the horror elements that made the show so notable to begin with.
True Detective: Night Country Brings Back the Supernatural
Maybe the single most promising aspect of True Detective‘s fourth season is that, based on the premiere, new showrunner Issa Lopez seems to be fully leaning into the horror elements. This year, the story is set in the remote town of Ennis, Alaska, where the sun sets for almost an entire month, and the second it sets in the episode’s opening minutes, strange things start happening. A group of caribou leaps off a cliff. A figure who seems to be a ghost manifests just outside of town.
The plot is mainly setup for the rest of the season, but Lopez nonetheless gives us the frightening tone and bizarre death imagery fans of the show have come to expect. At a scientific research station, eight men mysteriously disappear, and only a severed tongue is found at the crime scene. The cast of True Detective: Night Country is great, with Chief Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) taking on the case, and a fellow officer, Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis), believes the tongue came from an indigenous woman she failed to save six years before.
Incorporating a setting so heavily occupied by the Iñupiat tribe gives Lopez an easy means to incorporate the spiritual elements into the story, many of which will likely be rooted in the tribe’s belief systems. Additionally, the endless night faced by the town already clearly has an impact on Danvers, who’s unable to sleep, and on local woman Rose (Fiona Shaw), who discovers three dead bodies after hallucinating her long-dead companion Travis. It’s clear that the characters’ mental instability is setting the stage for a thrilling psychological horror story.
Lopez’s efforts to incorporate more supernatural elements into the story are already proving fruitful; the season premiere alone is the biggest breath of fresh air from the series since the first season, setting a franchise record with a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score when it was released. It doesn’t just feel like another investigative thriller, and its firm grasp on its indigenous setting seems to warrant thoughtful consideration of a tribe’s belief system regarding the supernatural. Lopez is already doing maybe the most inherently terrifying thing a writer can do – leaving it open to the viewer whether the supernatural really is at play or if the tensions brought by the setting are driving the characters to insanity.
True Detective’s Most Compelling Supporting Characters
One of True Detective’s biggest strengths thus far has been its deep cast of rich supporting characters.
A Return to Horror?
It’s clear from the overwhelming acclaim of the first season of True Detective that it became a sensation for breathing new life into a well-worn genre, specifically horror-driven elements that hinted at something supernatural on display. This became even clearer with the subsequent seasons, which were completely grounded in reality and were much less interesting. Luckily, Night Country seems to remember that the franchise functions best as a detective story driven by bizarre, frightening subtextual concepts. The rest of the season remains to be seen, but if the premiere is any indication, True Detective has, at long last, returned to its spooky form.
