REVIEW: ‘True Detective: Night Country’ Episode 4 — “Part 4”

Last episode added more marks to the “this is supernatural” column than any other episode before it. While this episode still offers some elements, the bulk of it is about character moments and where they intersect. But that intersection spot is a painful one for both Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Navarro (Kali Reis), and for very different reasons. Written by Namsi Khan, Chris Mundy, and Issa López, True Detective: Night Country Episode 4 is directed by Issa López and deepens the limited series’ mystery and pain.

When Julia’s (Aka Niviâna) mental health struggles resurface, Navarro brings her to a local facility, promising that this time will be better.  Navarro leaves her at The Lighthouse after saving her from the elements. But saving Julia from the cold doesn’t mean that she’s saved from what led her to sit on the ice in the ruins of a ship. At the same time, Danvers is watching Annie’s last video on a loop. Disrupted by her daughter Leah (Isabella Star LeBlanc) being caught vandalizing the mining company, the more eyes that are on Leah seem to make Danvers think that she can be the next Annie.

Danvers’ obsessive watching of the video does begin to open some doors to Annie’s death. Navarro and Danvers are able to find the location of Annie’s murder. Only as they explore the location and those connected to it do infinitely more questions arise in true detective story fashion.

Danvers has layers. She’s slept with the men (bachelors and otherwise) and is trying to pick up men in Anchorage. It’s a small nuance to the character that isn’t played to make fun of her sex life. Instead, it rather normalizes it in the same ways that we see happen to male cops in similar investigative situations. It’s a smart play. We see repeatedly how Danvers tries to numb herself by reaching for a bottle and a body. Danvers is starting to become more complex, and Foster’s stoic and distant acting helps hold it all together.

But digging into Danvers isn’t all we get in terms of characters in this episode. In True Detective: Night Country Episode 4, we finally get to see more of Julia with her at the center, not through the eyes of her sister. Julia is seeing things, but not in the manic way Navarro has dismissed it. Julia’s story is tragic. It is a painful look at being forgotten in some ways and being consumed by your mental illness in others. This is one of the most distressing moments of the limited series. A somber song plays, and Julia walks into the snow, naked and alone. At the same time, Leah is pushing back against her mother. Leah is alone in her own way. Not understood by her white mother, and to her, not loved.

Danvers isn’t her walled-off self anymore. The distance between her and Annie’s murder has closed. As she watches the recovered video of Annie’s last moments over and over, you can see sharper cracks forming in her emotionless facade. Danvers sees her daughter Leah in Annie. The reality of how Annie was murdered is a future she wants to keep her daughter from. But to do that, Danvers can’t ignore the violence perpetrated against Native women. She can’t hope it doesn’t come from her daughter. She needs to stop it at its source. But the problem is that Danvers is always in cop mode, not mom mode. Her care comes with teeth, and she never explains it to her daughter.

Where loneliness is a theme in True Detective: Night Country Episode 4, López is careful not to just show her audience Native women in pain. At Prior’s house, Leah, Prior’s wife, and her grandmother knead the dough at the table. The smile. They laugh. It’s a glimpse into the joy of family Christmas Eve that helps balance this episode’s heavy, somber weight. But the joy we see is fleeting. Like the last episode, it’s a look at what can be rather than a prolonged establishment of what is.

True Detective: Night Country Episode 4 ends harshly. Navarro has lost her sister and is now in the middle of being beaten by a man she knows is an abuser and his friends. While in uniform as well. Navarro’s status as an officer doesn’t protect her from being injured. As Navarro, Kali Reis is heartbreaking. Her resiliency has been driven by anger and a need to fight for the Inuit women of Ennis who have been thrown away. But in this episode, she breaks down. She wails and cusses and cries. You can’t tell if it’s because she’s injured or because she’s shattering without her sister.

As a whole, True Detective: Night Country Episode 4 is continuing more set-up with little large events connected to the Tsalal researcher murders and, ultimately, Annie K. The Last episode featured the most detective work and the most plot movement of the limited series so far. But with only two episodes left, I question when the gas pedal will hit the floor. Don’t get me wrong. Night Country remains a cold and eerie story that uses layers of insecurity and loneliness to build up the isolation of its main cast. This continues to pay off. But the answers for the crimes keep getting deeper, and at only a six-episode order, someone has to come up for air soon.

True Detective: Night Country is streaming now on MAX (formerly HBO MAX).