BY VALERIE KALFRIN FROM THE ARCHIVES
A veteran detective mulls over a gruesome discovery. A younger police officer has some theories. She’s willing to listen. “Start asking questions,” she says.
HBO’s Emmy-winning mystery series True Detective returns this month after a five-year hiatus, ditching the Southern Gothic for the Arctic—an environment that’s as much a character as the miners, environmentalists, and Indigenous people who clash throughout bitter cold and round-the-clock darkness.
Set in December around the fictional town of Ennis, Alaska, True Detective: Night Country features two women as the leads: Oscar-winner Jodie Foster as Liz Danvers, the town’s White police chief, and pro boxer Kali Reis (Catch the Fair One) as Evangeline Navarro, a state trooper with Iñupiaq roots.
It also introduces a mantra writers can apply to their work: Ask the right questions, as Danvers notes when thinking aloud with Navarro or another cop, Peter Prior (Finn Bennett).
“It’s just the most essential tool for reasoning, really,” agreed Issa López, this season’s creator, writer, and director. “It applies to detective work, no doubt, but it applies to interaction with other people. It applies definitely to writing—and it definitely applies to filmmaking. So, yeah, you can use it for anything. Just know that you’re asking the right questions.”
The filmmaker, whose 2017 horror/fantasy film Tigers Are Not Afraid drew raves from director Guillermo del Toro and authors Stephen King and Neil Gaiman, shared how she interrogates any story—and how she cracked the core of True Detective’s icy new chapter.
What Lies Beneath
True Detective: Night Country begins with the disappearance of eight men from the Tsalal Arctic Research Station in Ennis. They leave behind a once-fresh sandwich and fixings on the counter, wet laundry in the washing machine, and the TV blaring the “Twist & Shout” scene from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in a garbled loop.
When further details connect the men’s disappearance to the slaying of an Indigenous activist who had spoken against a local mining company, Danvers and Navarro probe not just what happened but how and why. As is typical with the True Detective franchise, they also balance tumultuous personal lives. Danvers has a rebellious teenage stepdaughter (Isabella Star LaBlanc) and memories of her son, who died at a tender age. Navarro sees reminders of her late mother while her sister (Aka Niviâna) deals with a mental health condition.
A native of Mexico, López started writing what became Night Country a few years ago, intrigued to tackle a new genre. Tigers Are Not Afraid blends horror with magical realism, focusing on children navigating the drug war in a deserted Mexican town. Her earlier films, “Effectos secundarios” and “Casi divas,” combine comedy and social commentary.
