Night Country: Part 5

I've enjoyed the series so far for the central mystery. Having fast-forwarded through most of Leah's antics, I did not mind the subplots surrounding Navarro's curse, or the Priors' strained relationship.

However, throughout this whole show I've been quite bothered by Pete's behavior. His loyalty to Liz Danvers is totally unexplained and irrational. It's certainly not a personal loyalty because she treats him like dirt. It's certainly not out of professional loyalty because his commitment to truth somehow only applies to his own personal knowledge of Wheeler's true death. God forbid someone else finds out the truth behind a significant criminal misconduct, let alone your own father and fellow detective.

The event towards the end of this episode makes no sense. It tries to be a Better Call Saul Howie headshot moment, but totally falls flat. What the hell is Pete Prior doing? And how does he shrug the entire situation off? How does he, without coercion, come to the conclusion that he should help Liz and Navarro? What is wrong with this guy? I was so confused I didn't even feel like watching the finale. Why this was written in to the show is a bigger mystery to me than what happened to Anne Kowtok in the night country.

We finally get some answers, albeit from sloppy detective work. The pacing of this season has been horrendous. Nothing interesting to show and now all of the sudden, in an attempt to wrap things up, the writers just hash everything out. It's kind of like the opposite of Season 2, where everything was happening at the same time and it got too messy in the end. But at least S02 had somewhat more interesting characters, more action going on, freedom of locations etc.

I'm not sure how all this will conclude, and to be honest, part of me doesn't even care. At this point, it's too late to give up on this show completely, so I will probably watch the finale also.

Round of applause to Jodie Foster and Finn Bennett, as their acting has been nothing short of stellar.

What made the first season perfect, amongst many things, were:

1- the cult element of the crimes 2- the atmosphere of the location 3- the philosophy inderpining the detective's relationship

Season 4 has absolutely none of this.

1- The murder case was initially interesting, but it became generic once it was tied with the mining company. The detectives themselves have no reason to care it, or for the case pf the lady with the missing tongue. We get little exposure to the frozen scientists beyong the initial episode. Its worth noting that the "supernatural" aspects of S1 are not hinted, but rather linked to the cult's beliefs. Us, as the audience, are never lead to believe they are the devil, but rather very evil people. S4 is showing us ghosts and frozen men talking, it just takes you out of the mystery and into another genre entirely.

2- there is no atmosphere whatsoever. A small city in the Alaskan winter should feel frozen and lonely, and we do not feel either. Matter of fact, I feel rather warm seeing how much company they all have. They should have taken inspiration from "Certain Women" on how to make the audience feel alone in a small town. We should feel cold just watching it, like "Society of the Snow".

3- the relationship between the detectives in nonexistant. Its hard to believe Jodie and the Boxer were ever partners - there's no depth to it. Jodie and the young detective would have been a much better pairing, with her having struggles with her daughter, and him with his dad, wife and kid. The phylosophycal underpining of the season should have been loneliness, isolation, and ultimately camaradery through obsession with a case. Most of the scenes between the detectives should have evolved around the defrosting bodies in the rink, and we should sense the unhinging of the detective's sanity through the investigation, aided by the endless night. What a waste of the only chemistry seen on screen, between Jodie and the Kid.

Unfortunately, the only way I am enjoying this season is watching it with "what would I have done instead?" in mind. Lets be honest, we all want another Season 1 and there would have been no shame in producing a somewhat copied, but at least high quality, Season 4.

Where to start. This season has no idea what it wants to be, but it's not True Detective. BUT the best episode this season.

Jodie Foster is always solid, and let's admit she's the one pulling any audience at all since Nic left the series as a showrunner. Quite disappointing she is NOT the main character, as anyone would expect with a two time Academy Award winner.

Like somebody else wrote, all the subplots are just a waste of time and result in absolutely nothing. We wanna now if the murders are from paranormal activities or not. We wanna have a conclusion, world building and character development. All the revelations just doesn't hit you in the feels since the writers haven't made them worthwhile to be emotionally invested in.

Nah. True Detective really was one season only, maybe two with season 3 included. This season isn't worthy of the fancy title.

This was their best episode so far this season. The story moved along and we got some answers. Characters that they are revealing to be involved have not been developed well enough for the reveals to be satisfying. Also it it becomes Harder and harder to root for Liz and company because they are proving to be just as dirty and dupicities as the villains they are passionately trying to capture. Also the daughter's character is annoying and a waste of viewer time. Sames goes for Pete's wife. She is kicking him out because he works hard and cares about his job. It's unrealistic that in a town where professional jobs are hard to come back, you give your husband grief for applying himself to his job.