True Detective: Night Country messes with us in Episode 3
It seems relatively routine: a pair of hillbillies shuffling into a hospital waiting room and calling Danvers (Jodie Foster) away for an interrogation. Navarro (Kali Reis), left to keep an eye on the bedridden victim, pokes her head around the corner and stretches out to see the commotion. And then, behind her, the man in the hospital bed suddenly sits up.
The scene is creepy enough on its own, a kind of casual scare a bag that rustles Audition. But the sound design makes it even more chilling: first a sigh on the audio track; now the man’s voice is different, hoarse and growling. “Hello, Evangeline. Your mother says hello. She’s waiting for you.’ Then he points, lies back, grabs and codes. Real detective I’m in a bit of trouble with this one.
This seems like an equally strong case for the supernatural hanging over the town of Ennis, in an episode littered with surreal details like this. Heck, even at the beginning of the interview, Navarro was tense, after the victim mumbled the haunting phrase she heard earlier in her car: She’s awake. But Episode 3 also deals with the practical matter, the murder of Annie K., and gives us the best look yet at the woman and what happened to her. A lot of time is spent tracking Annie’s every move — an Ariana Grande sweater that marks the start of a relationship, blue hair dye that leads to someone who knew about Annie and her secret scientist boyfriend, the impact she had as a midwife and the vacuum she left behind.
Ultimately, the best evidence yet comes from last week’s cliffhanger, Annie’s phone showing the chilling final video she recorded somewhere in the ice, the screams of which reenact the episode. It’s stomach-turning (Prior can’t even bring himself to watch it again), and every bit as chilling as the moment between Navarro and the surviving scientist. Something about this mystery is beyond our understanding, and paranormal explanations are increasingly looking like the easiest reason why. But once again, Episode 3 gently reminds us that all is not as it seems: As Danvers talks about the case that drove her and Navarro apart, we get her voiceover superimposed on a memory of the pair robbing a house. last time they worked together. There is a weariness in Foster’s voice from all sides here. She seems tired of the dead man’s excuses, her inability to help a 19 year old girl out of an obviously bad situation, her own limitations. And as she tells the story, everything went to hell there: an abusive bastard killed his 19-year-old girlfriend, “and then he shot himself.”
Photo: Michele K. Kort/HBO
Only that’s not what we do to see; Immediately after Danvers’s line, the man in the flashback turns around, with a creepy look on his face, and starts whistling. It makes sense that Prior doesn’t get Danvers’ full story, and in the same way that the audience doesn’t get all of Danvers’ gory details. Night country (still – hopefully). We can’t yet make sense of Annie K.’s murder, or what that damn orange is doing on the ice (and again in the opening credits, peeled and spiraling as “Bury a Friend” plays over flashes of key scenes setting). You sympathize with Navarro who tries to break Danvers’ Socratic method – fuck your games – and still answer the question: Ask the question.
In this way, True Detective: Nightland makes a case for itself as the best season yet, making the journey along the way feel as important as who killed Annie, and whether Navarro really saw a man become possessed. When the show tells us to look one way, even though it may seem like a distraction from the point at hand—whatever’s going on—it feels worth it.
At the end of each Night country credits sequence, there’s a new image. In episode 3 it is a small fishing hut, isolated and lonely on the ice. What happens there is certainly a breakthrough for the case – Navarro finds the location of a former Tsalal investigator – but it’s more of a personal breakthrough for Navarro, who tells part of her life story to one of the few people she trusts, that breaks a little thing. smile as she huffed back into the cabin to fulfill his request. The conversation she has there goes further than just the case, and Night country smart to linger there. Real detective doesn’t tell us everything, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t tell us anything.