True Detective: Night Country showrunner Issa Lopez and star Jodie Foster reveal the icy inspirations behind season 4.
Through its first three seasons,HBOcrime anthologyTrue Detectiveliked to flirt with the occult.
Time is a flat circle, after all.
Its only fitting then thatTrue Detectiveseason 4, subtitledTrue Detective: Night Country, has similarly cosmic origins.
It was the idea of a murder mystery with a couple of characters.
That preceded the call from HBO asking what would you do withTrue Detective?'
I dont think that happened by chance, you know.
I think there was a reason I was already thinking in these terms.
Enter Lopez: a visionary Mexican filmmaker best known for her 2017 featureTigers Are Not Afraid.
It was amazing how the elements ofTrue Detectivecame together.
You remember that scene inMinority Reportwhere Tom Cruise starts putting the case together [on the futuristic screen]?
It was like that: Oh thisTrue Detectiverule, tradition, or DNA mixes with this idea.
It just came together beautifully.
Despite being the only edition of the show with a subtitle so far,Night Countryindeed feels distinctlyTrue Detective.
What makes aTrue Detectivestory aTrue Detectivestory?
Navarros fate is tangled up with the idea of justice.
Danvers, on the other hand ,has embraced the role of moral relativity.
Both of those destinies really help each other in the end.
I did watch endless hours ofAlaska Trooperswhich is a fabulous reality show, she says.
In remote areas [of Alaska], a single trooper is supposed to police a really vast territory.
It can become a complicated endeavor.
There are a lot of delicate issues that happen in these communities.
They have to do with addiction, isolation, and certain depression that younger generations are facing.
Few other shows excel at finding the spooky geographic corners of North America quite like this one.
Setting the series in Alaska also meant being able to find fresh perspectives forTrue Detectiveto explore.
In those towns, the ethnic makeup is at least 70% native.
Mostly Inupiaq, Lopez says.
Its not about background.
Its not about interesting things to look at.
You have to embrace it, understand it, and accept it.
We both had this vision of, instead of fighting the dark, letting the dark come in.
Even in interior shots, we have these really profound blacks.
The whole ethos of the show is that we can only see part of reality.
As its name suggests,True Detective: Night Countrydoes let the dark come in.
It also presents a modest update to a reliable formula.
How does that update compare to the first three, un-subtitled, editions of the show?
Youll have to watch to find out!
True Detective: Night Countrypremieres Sunday at 9 p.m. New episodes air Sundays, culminating with the finale on Feb. 24, 2024.
