Don't know how many peeps here have seen the latest season of True Detective called "Night Country", but so far I've really enjoyed it. However strolling over to lovely reddit-logo has a lot of blubbering manchildren upset about the new season which just so happens to have two female leads, focuses upon abuses of Native Alaskans and women in general (domestic abuse, murder, etc), and also has native empowerment over exploitation as a theme. Well I just watched the final episode and I fuckin' loved it, so here's kinda a short tldr of it marked as a spoiler as I encourage y'all to see the show first if you haven't (it's an anthology so really only Seasons 1, 3 and this one are worth it).

spoiler

Alright so the season began with a murder/suicide of a bunch of research scientists digging up ice cores to find microbes for eternal life or whatever (they had been found naked dead on the ice), however while checking the crime scene a human tongue is found and connected with the murder of a Alaskan Native woman several years ago by the name of Annie K (a woman that protested the activities of the local mining corp that was poisoning the town leading to stillbirths and other horrible stuff). Annie was a central figure to the town's native population being one of the younger upcoming midwives and spiritualist (don't know the proper term). She had been found stabbed and dumped over by the mine and her murder buried by the police and local politicians in cooperation with the mine to avoid public backlash.

Welp turns out she was murdered by the Tsalal scientists when she found out they were the ones responsible for the pollution in a bid to thaw the permafrost and ice to get to harder to reach ice core samples. This would later be found out by the local circle of Native Women who performed a lot of the menial labor in town (maids and so had access to a lot of areas such as the police station, the mining office and the Tsalal station), so in revenge the women staged a faked suicide on to the ice, forcing the men at gunpoint to strip and wander into a blizzard for the sins they committed (all the men were responsible for stabbing Annie K to death Agustus Ceasar style when she tried sneaking into Tsalal many years ago to find info on the pollution). Anyway the season ends with the current cop duo covering for the Native women and letting the murder go unsolved as well as resolving issues of mother hood and sisterhood (similar to how season 1 was about the lacking of fathers and brothers/comrades as a secondary theme).

So yeah gonna be a lot of wojak-nooo in response to the show being turned into "Woke Detective". Anyway it's a pretty good season and is worth a try even though it does drag sometimes (but is thankfully only 6 episodes something I think was wisely chosen by the show lead).

  • Futterbinger [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    4 months ago

    I thought the themes were fine if a bit wonky especially with the twist of the scientists encouraging the mine to pollute. That seems like an allegory for climate change that just kinda falls flat when they already had a fairly good allegory for climate change going to being with.

    In regards to the writing it really felt like the show was written to be 8 episodes instead of 6 and was originally going to show lengthier portions of different timelines rather than just flashbacks. It ended up giving the characters interpersonal issues a lot of screentime while leaving a lot of the detective work to happen off screen or understood through dialogue and inference. I think having two more episodes could have rounded that imbalance out more. As well as given us more actual context for the characters and their issues.