True Detective Season 4: Night Country (Ice Capades!)

another thing from ep 4 that was fun was that a woman got to go on a beat up rampage and then have a man tend to her wounds afterwards, not sure I've seen that reversal before

when the song about everybody dying came on when the sister was dying, i died

Everytime that whorl appears now I'm further creeped out, I admit.

That Christmas tree on the dredge was fuggin creepy

Yeah that whole sequence was kinda great. I retain the right to be disappointed if it's all explained away but hopefully we won't go down that road.

keep going back and forth on whether or not I actually like this or do I just find the setting/look of it so compelling?

So

There’s a theory that Danvers is catfishing Hank

woah

ums otm. Setting doing a LOT of heavy lifting this season

There’s a theory that Danvers is catfishing Hank

That would be hilarious but I don't see it. Someone who's as much of a mean asshole as she is wouldn't have the sense of humor necessary for that.

Hahah yeah that theory I'm not buying at all.

Setting doing a LOT of heavy lifting this season

And brilliantly so! A show (movie, etc.) can't really just be vibes, especially something that's a procedural no matter how you slice it, but I love what it does here.

setting doing 90% of the work is just barely above average for cosmic horror

Danvers, as played by Jodie Foster, is a pretty compelling character. I guess I don’t see it as mostly vibes and setting. Remains to be seen if they can wrap up the central mystery in a satisfying way.

The polar bear looked really funny around the eyes, almost like it had tried to claw them out and given up, so are we supposed to assume it's part of it too?

first watching is purely for the vibes...

second watching (sometimes just from the second /first ad break) is for the compelling characters..looking for plot points I have missed.

very mixed feelings about how far I want it to go into Cosmic Horror, as with only a few episodes left... I need a good resolution, but feel its too much Mare of Innsmouth to give me proper police procedural closure.

I was struck this past ep by how difficult this production must've been to execute, all the snow and night shoots and cold temperatures. Looks like hell to make. It does feel as if this was an 8-episode script, shot as planned, that had to be severely edited down to six episodes... the editing feels strange, each scene plays out at an appropriate pace but this sneaking feeling that there are many, many scripted scenes that've been edited out. (The fact that there were no scenes depicting Anchorage coming for the bodies felt very absentee, and the sewing up of Danvers concerns about this major plot point felt like the product of re-shoots). I'm enjoying it still but more like a six-episode B-movie than vanguard HBO television, I guess

I was enticed by the setting (guilty as charged), but I'm going to wait until this season is over to see if you all like it enough for us to bother watching. Nothing worse than suggesting a show to a friend or SO and having it suck, since it erodes cred better spent recommending stuff you *know* is good.

haven't watched yet but the twitter discourse is infuriating and it's negatively polarizing me to want to watch it more than i otherwise would have. it's opaque and ponderous, you say? the tv show true detective?

Lol there are lots of things worse than erosion of cred smh

I’m enjoying the b movie regardless.

I've also found a lot of the online discourse to be soiled by toxic misogyny. I mean this season ain't perfect, but it's very telling that the show was turned over to a female showrunner and features two female leads and I'm coming across so many over the top pans of it saying it's "the worst show ever", that Foster and Reis are both "terrible actors", that López "ruined the franchise". All real quotes I've read multiple times.

Why are y’all reading this shit? I never look at “””the discourse””” tbh

I was about to say, following that garbage sounds pointless.

how can you not enjoy watching Jodie Foster ripping on everyone she engages with, friend family or foe

I mean, I don't actively seek it out, but I usually run across it when I'm trying to see if there are any easter eggs I've missed.

ok i never do that either. i guess i don't care about the little stuff, i just want to watch a show and be entertained. which i am.

i think the only time recently i have gone looking for what other people are saying was after watching 1) The Queer Ultimatum reality show and 2) Rap Sh!t, which totally rules and no one else I know has watched it.

xps I did see one "True Detective's latest episode scores a new low on Rotten Tomatoes" writeup in my feeds, hopefully the algorithm heard me rolling my eyes

rap sh!t is great, hopefully some other network picks it up for a third season

yeah it's my own fault for still being on twitter, which will feed me the odd dumb criticism of this season despite the fact that i've never interacted with any (one said something along the lines of, "take a shot whenever oscar winner jodie foster says one of the worst lines of dialogue you've ever heard in your life")

Yeah, I mean, you don't have to like the show! It's fine! But the criticism I've seen is so noxious and over-the-top, and it's always Foster, Reis and López that are specifically targeted as the "problems" with it.

Just bc someone brings a platter of poo to the potluck doesn’t mean you or I or anyone has to eat it.

Lol there are lots of things worse than erosion of cred smh

To be clear, I was talking about erosion of *my* cred, at home! Back when we were all here, it was very rare that we would all four of us watch a show or movie together, but I suggested we see "Knives Out" as a family, and everyone loved it. A couple of months later, during covid, when we had no choice but to spend a lot of time together, my kids requested something like "Knives Out,' so I suggested the 1974 Sidney Lumet "Murder On the Orient Express," which I'd never seen but had always meant to see. And everyone *hated* it, so much that they rejected any other suggestions from me for months.

In this case, I've never seen any "True Detective." We're close to being between shows, so I suggested to my wife that we start with the current season, which I'd heard (at the time) was good. She wasn't particularly interested, so I didn't want to push it unless I *knew* it was good, and not, well, a hit or miss b-movie vibe, which I don't think she would enjoy. If I recommended S4 and it sucked, or she thought it sucked, then that erodes my cred for when I suggest something else later.

I do sorta have the reflex now once I've watched a show or a movie (especially if I strongly liked or hated it) to go online and see what people are saying about it... ILX, Twitter, Reddit, etc

I'm pretty sure this could be categorized as a bad habit I need to break

Does Jodie Foster really have haters? Instablock if I run into that idiocy.

The soap in this last episode got me, in a good way. All prior soap sins this season forgiven. re: online discussion, I was seeing complaints that the story hasn't been pushed forward these past two episodes and genuinely what show are people watching because it ain't what I just watched. I thought pacing this episode was fantastic, very ready for the nice ribbon that ties this all together in the final two.

We’re all in the Night Country, now

Just a quick reminder the next episode is tomorrow:

https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/true-detective-night-country-episode-5-debut-early-max-tv-news-roundup-1235898376/

Let’s go

Well.

Great episode!

Indeed! Feels like both a ‘real’ explanation and something more are still in play too.

:(

The mid-episode reveal, when we learn that certain characters have contradictory goals than other characters, it felt like the meal had finally arrived. Hooray! Looking forward to the finale and saying a prayer they stick the landing, which I think (after tonight) is likely

omg what a crazy good everything-bagel episode

however
that slowed down Eagle Eye Cherry cover over the end credits HAS GOT TO GO.

mr veg was v amused by how loud i shouted at him to turn it off

Lol. All this negative attention being given to non-bad parts of the show when the internet should really be getting furious about the musical selection, for real

Wooooooooweeeeee
Amazing ep, shame about the final song tho.
I turned it off immediately

Fantastic episode, and one that hopefully puts to rest those “this show isn’t going building to anything” whiners.

My wife actually did have something complimentary to say about that ending song - “hey, it’s better than the original”.

my prediction: ice caves finale episode is going to be hella scary

Well how about better musical news, namely that John Hawkes aka Hank wrote the song he did earlier in the episode:

Q. John, when I re-watched the episode, and you’re singing that song, I was frantically googling to figure out what it was — and couldn’t find it. I emailed HBO to ask whether it was original to the show, and the publicist wrote back, “John Hawkes wrote it!”

Bennett: It’s a John Hawkes original!

Q. I know it’s not the first time you’ve contributed a song to a project that you’re in, but how did that come about here?

Hawkes: Again, when Issa broached it early on, Hank playing music, for the reason stated, I wasn’t comfortable. And then I thought, “Well, it’ll just be a guy sitting in his living room playing an instrumental,” which I wrote and played for her over the phone, and sent her a version or two. And she said, “That’s great.” So I thought, yeah, it’s not going to be performative. It’s just a guy sitting around playing the guitar, and it will end up, as the script described, scoring some work between Danvers and Navarro and the mine riot.

It became a wonderfully good-natured argument between Issa and I, because I played a show while I was there with my friend Nikki Lorenzo, a talented musician. Issa came, and then it became, “Well, now you should write words, and you should sing to it!” I dug in so hard. I mean, I love Issa! We never had any argument at all, ever. It was always spirited discussion, with laughter afterwards. But I thought suddenly it was just too performative. What words would I even begin to write? I came up with the words pretty last minute, actually.

i loved that scene & his song!
kinda low-level Lanegan vibes imo
and it gave a nice extra dimension to his character in a way, you get a bit of soulfulness against awkward/antagonist/etc