Two Hollywood stars who, as down-and-out investigators in the heat of Louisiana, are confronted with a sinister murder that reveals further depths from week to week: that’s all it took to get one of them biggest series hypes of the 2010s to ignite. Even irrefutable giants like Game of Thrones trembled briefly when True Detective premiered on HBO in January 2014.
A decade later, the anthological crime thriller hardly plays a role in the series landscape anymore. Season 2 shattered the gigantic expectations after the strong debut. Season 3 was too much with Dealing with damage control, than to spark new enthusiasm. Disappointed fans, divided reviews and controversy surrounding creator Nic Pizzolatto have ruined the former phenomenon.
A new beginning is needed. And now he starts with a chilling horror nightmare.
Night Country: Jodie Foster and Kali Reis bring True Detective back on track with Season 4
The True Detective brand is too valuable to HBO to simply abandon. And the new beginning is basically very simple: the concept of the series provides for a new case, a new setting and a new cast per season. So far, no team has so well handled like the brilliant duo Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. That’s about to change with Season 4, led by Jodie Foster and Kali Reis.
You can watch the trailer for True Detective Season 4 here:
True Detective: Night Country – S04 Trailer (German) HD
From now on, True Detective unleashes itself in the cold of Alaska under the additional title Night Country an icy nightmare. The difference from the previous rounds has a specific reason: Pizzolatto is no longer on board. Instead, Issa López takes the creative reins of the series. It is her biggest project to date. She gained fame through the 2017 Mexican fantasy horror film Tigers Are Not Afraid.
López’s genre roots are evident from the first few minutes, as Night Country morphs into a cross between The Thing and Alien. The entire staff of the Tsalal Arctic Research Station disappears mysteriously. Only the tongue of a woman who is apparently connected to an unsolved murder case many years ago gives any clue as to what might have happened.
Horror touch in the crime genre: The new True Detective season scores with a strong atmosphere
Liz Danvers (Foster), the police chief in the nearby small town of Ennis, clashes with her colleague Evangeline Navarro (Reis) during the investigation. Stubbornness meets drive. Once again it proves itself Inequality of the investigating parties as the driving force of a True Detective season, not to mention a disturbing crime that becomes more concrete at the end of the opening episode.
HBO
Kali Reis and Jodie Foster in True Detective: Night Country
But Night Country is at its best so far when the horror has no face or even a name. In keeping with her proven role models, López stages the first chapter of the new season as chilling horror storywhere we have to expect a monster – or at least a ghost – to crawl out of the corner at any moment while we lose track of time in eternal darkness.
The long winter night in Alaska forms the narrative framework for the new season of True Detective. It isolates the characters from the rest of the world and disappears with them into the darkness at the end of the world. The lights slowly go out and a feeling of loneliness spreads through the shimmering blue images. Night Country captivates with a cold, uncomfortable atmosphere.
True Detective hasn’t been this good in 10 years: the opening night of Night Country knows exactly what it wants
You would like to wrap yourself up in a thousand layers of textiles to escape the seething horror beneath the ice, but there is already lightning frozen bodies emerge from the snow and herald a great mystery that even suggests the presence of something supernatural. Even Foster’s hardened detective has to admit that this case is no ordinary one.
Night Country succeeds straight away where the previous seasons failed: the pilot immediately finds his grip, even though the characters are moving on an icy surface. The dynamic between Foster and Reis is rough, the case definitely sparks curiosity and most importantly: The atmosphere is right. True Detective hasn’t been this consistent since Cary Fukunaga’s (No Time to Die) direction of the first episodes.
The 4th season of True Detective has been airing since January 15, 2024 published in Germany on Sky and the associated streaming service WOW. A new episode appears every Monday. Night Country consists of six pieces in total.
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