Has True Detective gone full horror?

HBO's "True Detective" was one of the network's greatest crime shows. Now Mexican director Issa López has taken the fourth series in a very different direction, appearing to shift the tone much more towards horror.

Long gone are the murky bayous of Louisiana and the bro energy of Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. Season four of "True Detective: Night Country" is a distinctly more sinister beast.

The action has moved to the town of Ennis in Alaska and the Tsalal Arctic Research Station 150 miles from the Arctic Circle, during a winter when the sun never rises and the scientists who run the polar lab go missing. Chief of police Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and rookie cop Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) are the all-female duo who try to solve what soon becomes a series of gruesome murders.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

'Ghosts of the past are a bit more literal'

While the first season had supernatural undertones, it never fully embraced them like the latest series. López sets out her approach early, when a herd of reindeer hurtle off a cliff in the opening scene. And when the investigative duo find corpses, they are not just your run-of-the-mill cop show bodies, said Phillip Maciak in New Republic. "Six men, in the nude, frozen together like a giant novelty ice cube for a Hieronymus Bosch-themed cocktail."

This week's episode four "ramped up" the supernatural, said Time. The "ghosts of the past are a bit more literal", with dead people appearing to come to life with messages for the living. "That doesn't mean they're beyond a reasonable explanation," said Time. 

At least one of the characters was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and it is clear that the water in the town has been tainted, offering some answers to why the people of Ennis keep seeing the dead. Or perhaps the series will be left open-ended.

An 'uncertain ending'?

López is an unashamed horror fan. "The Thing", a tale of Antarctic researchers being stalked and taken over by an invisible extraterrestrial force, "blew her mind", said Alan Siegel at The Ringer. "It's such a perfect movie, with that uncertain ending," she told Siegel.

When researching "Night Country", she also watched "The Silence of the Lambs". "Let's not pretend for a second that people are not going to watch this and think of Clarice," she said, referring to Foster's famous role in the 1991 psychological thriller

"Just as López intended, 'Night Country' is an ice-encrusted, sci-fi-tinged horror story," said Siegel. "As the season progresses, the dread never thaws. It builds and closes in on Ennis." And this "inescapably ominous, pitch-black tundra is an ideal setting for a show trying to curdle blood".

It remains to be seen if Foster's Danvers can find the light.