True Detective Season 4: The Return to Form and Alaskan Mystery
True Detective season 4's premiere has garnered rave reviews and promises a return to the series' original glory. With a new setting, cast, and head writer, the show's unique elements have captivated both critics and audiences. Here's a closer look at the biggest takeaways from True Detective's reviews and what makes this season a stand-out entry in the series.
The Glowing Reviews and Rotten Tomatoes Scores
Ahead of True Detective season 4's premiere, the show's glowing Rotten Tomatoes scores are inspiring a lot of faith in HBO's latest crime drama outing. A new chapter in the acclaimed anthology series, True Detective: Night Country trades its former Southern Gothic and Los Angeles noir sensibilities for the equally eerie tundra of Alaska. True to its previous installments, True Detective season 4 features a new cast of characters, who are led by Jodie Foster's Detective Liz Danvers and pro-boxer-turned-actor Kali Reis' Detective Evangeline Navarro. The impressive ensemble is rounded out by The Leftovers' Christopher Eccleston, Killing Eve's Fiona Shaw, and John Hawkes of Winter's Bone fame. Ahead of its January 14 premiere on HBO (and the network's streaming platform, Max), the six-part series is receiving rave reviews from critics. In fact, True Detective season 4's Rotten Tomatoes score broke records for the series, which is promising for a mixed-bag series. True Detective season 1, which followed detectives Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson), earned universal acclaim. However, the anthology crime series faltered in its second season, and failed to garner first-season-level excitement in its third outing, despite two-time Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali's best efforts. That said, the fourth True Detective is a return to form for the series.
True Detective Night Country
The best season of True Detective succeeded because of its core pairing: McConaughey and Harrelson. While Rust Cohle was the gifted-yet-troubled cynic with a penchant for nihilism and the details, Marty Hart is the more hard-boiled, though also troubled, cop. The duo were an odd couple of sorts, but they worked well together — the characters balanced each other. According to early reviews, relative newcomer Kali Reis, who was previously a professional boxer, gels well with Oscar-winner Jodie Foster. Both actors give impressive, wholly embodied performances, which makes all the difference.
Kali Reis as Navarro and Jodie Foster as Danvers holding flashlights in True Detective season 4
The New Elements and Alaskan Setting
Notably, True Detective was created by Nic Pizzolatto, who served as the series' showrunner and head writer for the first three outings. While season 4 marks the first occasion without Pizzolatto in those roles, he's still an executive producer on Night Country. Acclaimed Mexican producer Issa López, who's best-known for her Spanish-language projects, is the fourth season's showrunner, writer, and director. López's 2017 horror-meets-magical realism feature, Tigers Are Not Afraid, garnered praise from genre greats like Stephen King and Guillermo Del Toro. According to reviews, the accomplished creative captures True Detective's essence while putting her own spin on it.
True Detective Night Country Easter Eggs
Wisely, True Detective season 2 moved on from the first outing's Southern Gothic feel and Texas setting. Instead, the sophomore season explored Los Angeles and the surrounding Inland Empire, and drenched it in a noir atmosphere. While it would make sense for True Detective to return to its roots and take another stab at Southern Gothic horror-meets-crime drama, season 4 relocates to the unending darkness of Alaska in the winter. True Detective's biggest competition, A Murder at the End of the World, used a Nordic setting to similar effect, but the six-episode Night Country makes brilliant use of its singular atmosphere.
True Detective Night Country
It's already been said that True Detective season 4 will boast Easter eggs that allude to previous installments of the anthology series. 'The spiral is there, the way that there are those dark and ancient gods (perhaps yes, perhaps not) working behind the scenes,' López teased in an interview. While that's exciting for True Detective fans who were pulling for a shared universe reveal, there's another great nugget of related news, too. According to early reviews, True Detective season 4 pays its respects to Indigenous Alaskan cultures, instead of just shoehorning a culture's mythology into a plot with otherwise white leads. That's a big step for the series — and the genre as a whole.
Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Navarro (Kali Reis) walk down a hospital hallway in True Detective season 4
The Stand-Out Performances and Unique Atmosphere
While True Detective season 1 leaned into Rust Cohle's cynical, nihilistic character traits to great effect, other installments of the series failed to pull the same magic out of philosophical pessimism. In particular, True Detective season 2 — which features one too many Vince Vaughn-delivered monologs about water stains and metaphors — felt overbearingly self-important. Some critics attribute that drawback to creator Nic Pizzolatto, who shaped True Detective's writing and sensibilities. With Pizzolatto taking a step back, the show also puts that at-times grating, self-indulging padding in the rearview mirror.
Christopher Eccelston in a police office in True Detective Night Country
Solid pacing is an undeniably crucial aspect of any murder mystery or crime drama series. While previous seasons of True Detective were given eight-episode orders, Night Country is just six episodes long. Reviews claim that isn't a bad thing, as it sheers away any unnecessary padding and keeps the show's momentum at a high. More often than not, fewer episodes translate to higher quality because of that trimming of the fat — even if that means spending less time with Foster and Reis' compelling characters and True Detective season 4's unique setting.
Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Navarro (Kali Reis) train their guns on a suspect in True Detective season 4
Even in the universally well-received True Detective season 1, the show's treatment of women was a weak point. Alexandra Daddario's Lisa, a court stenographer, gets pulled into an affair with Marty, while the show's central mystery revolves around the horrific murder of Dora Lange, a sex worker who is very much treated like a body in life and death. Seen through the male gaze, season 1's women serve to further men's stories. While that could be read as a commentary on the topic, it's also a frustrating trope. By centering on two strong women leads (and having other voices behind the scenes), True Detective season 4 rights that wrong.
Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) smirks in True Detective
