*Spoilers from episode 3.*
I’m really liking this story. It brings such a potent mix of creep factor (both worldly and otherworldly,) thoughtfully explored themes, and complex character work. As I said last week, I haven’t watched any other seasons of True Detective, but I’m all in on “Night Country”!
Danvers and Navarro don’t know precisely how yet, but the deaths of the research scientists are definitely connected to Annie Kowtok’s murder. One of the scientists had been dating her in secret, and when her phone is recovered from an old trailer of his, a disturbing video offers further insight into her death. While Danvers and Navarro try to track down the ice cave where she was killed, Prior investigates a man who mysteriously fell off the grid after suffering injuries eerily similar to those found on the bodies of the scientists.
This show excels at blending real-world horrors with hints of the supernatural. In both the investigation and the characters’ personal lives, the edges of reality feel blurry, and it’s hard to know what to believe. Does mental illness run in Navarro’s family and her sister Julia is experiencing hallucinations? Or is there a “curse” that’s claiming them one by one, tormenting them with visions of the dead? It seems Annie’s murder was caused by the ugly forces within humanity, but why does it feel tied with the scientists’ grisly deaths in a supernatural way? Only two episodes left—we’ll see how everything ties together.
I also like how the show uses the characters to examine its deeper themes. Ongoing protests about the local mine show the real human costs at stake. It’s caused fissures through the town, between the mostly white miners and the mostly indigenous folks who are dealing with contaminated water from the runoff. Part of the disconnect between Danvers and her stepdaughter stems from Danvers’s ignorance of Leah’s Indigenous culture. Her resistance to Leah getting traditional facial tattoos is probably related to concerns about her safety—when a local elder draws sample markings on Leah’s face, I’m sure Danvers can’t help thinking of the brutal crime scene photos from Annie’s murder—but she doesn’t express that. Instead, she just snaps variations of, “Get that shit off your face,” not respecting Leah’s culture and also not voicing her own fears. Julia’s mental health struggles are endangering her, and Navarro doesn’t know how to balance her desire to care for and protect her sister with the knowledge that Julia needs more help than she can provide.
And not for nothing, there’s a sequence in this episode where Danvers is drunk, and Jodie Foster’s acting is just a knockout. Completely obvious, but in a really subtle way—so good!
We get a little more of Christopher Eccleston in this episode, which gives us a chance to learn a bit more about Connolly. Danvers kind of frames him as a villain in the story of her life—he exiled her to Ennis because he felt professionally threatened by her! He’s trying to take her investigation away from her!—but that’s a narrower picture than what’s really going on. Instead, Connolly has the bodies moved to Anchorage where there’s a proper forensics unit to examine them, but he has no intention of taking the case off her hands. And while it’s true that he always knew she was a better cop than he was, he also recognized the places where she was struggling (spoiler alert—it’s all interpersonal stuff) and transferred her to Ennis because he thought it’d be good for her, especially after the events of some still-unnamed tragedy in her past. We’ve brushed up against the edges of Danvers backstory now, but there are still important details waiting to be filled in.
I appreciate that Connolly is more nuanced than Danvers at first suggests he is, or that archetypal tropes would suggest. No, the authority figure doesn’t appear to have it in for the shrewd maverick who doesn’t like to play politics. Even as Danvers rails against what she thinks he’s up to, he says, “I’m fucking helping you here, Liz.”
Thus far, it’s not a super demanding role for Christopher Eccleston, but he’s solid in it. I like that Danvers exasperates Connolly but he’s still not afraid to call her on her shit, and there’s an intriguing history between them. I feel like he might be the key to learning about what happened in Danvers’s past to get her to where she is now.
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