The opening scene, where the deer runs away, jumps off the cliff (here they were, and then they were gone) is a powerful statement. On such an optimistic note We broke up a month ago when the fourth season of True Detective had just started. After six episodes, the euphoria finally dissipated: things in the Night Country became extremely bleak indeed.
This isn’t because I agree with Nic Pizzolatto, the self-important writer of True Detective; He rushed to reject the project during the height of the season (he is still listed in the credits as an executive producer, but did not accept the project). do not take any part in the work on the new episodes), but the cult called the references to the first episode “silly”. You can’t argue with him here though.
The real mystery remained unanswered: For six episodes, “Nightland” did not explain why it was aired under the “True Detective” tag. In principle, the series has a strange relationship with the original: it makes you want it and it needles you.
On the one hand, the fourth season claims to be independent, has its own subtitle, and the introduction directly states that this is a series by Issa Lopez. (Mexican director who made his debut a few years ago with “Tigers Are Not Afraid,” a horror film about drug wars and orphan revenge.)based solely on Nic Pizzolatto’s True Detective.
On the other hand, Lopez, who wrote and directed all the episodes himself, openly spoke of his intention to film a dark mirror version of the first issue (which, a decade later, continues to hang like the sword of Damocles over all subsequent issues). ). “Dark mirror” meant snow instead of swamps and women instead of men (not bad in itself), as well as many small nods to the first season (questionable).
While these nods aren’t “silly” (we’ll leave the swearing to Pizzolatto) they are at least strange. If only because they didn’t really lead to anything (and there was plenty of room for maneuver: After all, Matthew McConaughey’s hero, Rust Cohle, grew up in Alaska and then spent eight years in the break between the worlds of the first season’s two timelines).
At one point, behind the mask of expressive nodding, an unfortunate situation emerges: Lopez doesn’t seem to fully understand what exactly is fascinating about “True Detective” and what exactly is frightening about the Lovecraftian chthony that cloaks the series. first season. Unspeakable fear cannot be explained because when you try to express it, to make it concrete, it melts before your eyes.
Wikipedia resolutely calls Nightland a “supernatural crime drama”: the horror notes turn out to be quite expressive chords, apparently inherited from Tigers Are Not Afraid, but at the same time John Carpenter’s The Thing is just on the shelf It remains as a tape. And in a sense we are left with nothing.
The trick that worked well in the “Fargo” anthology doesn’t work here, because the “supernatural” dot space doesn’t fit the “crime drama” of “True Detective,” just like the song by the great artist Billie. Eilish doesn’t fit the intro (clearly nefarious; because it’s a rejection of the corporate image of “Person and Place”). And this does not mean that they are diligently trying to pull off this trick: the mysticism here obviously belongs to the type of mysticism that goes far beyond the natural, but does not consider it necessary to explain its nature. Overall there’s little concern with answering questions here (despite protagonist Jodie Foster constantly talking about the importance of asking the right questions), which of course seems like an interesting approach for both True Detective and True Detective. especially and for the (real) detective in general.
Nightland doesn’t know what to do with True Detective’s legacy. Pizzolatto’s show, firstly, did its best to be stylish (local Oscar-winning cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister never changed), and secondly, it always veered towards noir and frivolity, so good people were never its heroes. However, even if previous seasons were criticized for their monstrous female characters, they were consistently great and intriguing.
After Lopez’s intervention, there are no more well-written women left in the True Detective universe: the case of the disappearance of scientists at a research station (which quickly becomes a case of the death of scientists at a research station) somehow leads to only two stories related to the murder of a Native American woman six years ago. The distasteful and inconspicuous police officer is being investigated. At the same time, the most important contribution to the investigation was made (by a funny coincidence) by one man, namely the character Finn Bennett. (“Unbelievable”) was treacherously rewarded with the most monotonous and annoying line about how a zoomer – contrary to zoomer customs – constantly allows his bosses to sit on his neck.
However, it turns out that the series cannot manage its own advantages correctly. The chemistry between Foster’s protagonists and former boxer Kali Reyes never develops over the course of six episodes; instead, he is offered to watch the Silence of the Lambs star’s rather painful-looking attempts to portray heterosexuality (the Doctor being the second participant in the process). Who is Christopher Eccleston, he seems to be searching with his TARDIS eyes in these moments (Time machine and spaceship from the British television series Doctor Who)retreating into the snow of the “Fortitude” series and calmly throwing off the skates there).
The unfamiliarity of the True Detective context is particularly emphasized by the fact that HBO has another series much closer in spirit to Nightland: Mare of Easttown, which is also paradoxically popular (Lopez’s project reportedly broke the viewing record of all seasons of True Detective). – and then there’s a shocking twist in the fifth episode. What’s even more surprising is that HBO has ended up with an HBO series that somehow resembles an Apple TV+ series and, like all Apple TV+ series, dreams of being an HBO series. Overall, its second and third seasons Even if you take it in the harshest way and cross it out (which you don’t need to do – they have their own charm), the score still comes out depressing: 1:0 in favor of Pizzolatto.