True Detective: Night Country stuck the landing
The season finale of True Detective: Night Country has proven rather divisive, judging by the wide variety of reactions on social media. I’m baffled by the negative takes because I thought this season ended brilliantly.
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
Admittedly, I didn’t love the show the whole time and I found it hard to get into at first. At times, I struggled to follow what was going on and who was who and found the pacing rather slow. But I always liked Jodie Foster and Kali Reis as police Chief Liz Danvers and Trooper Evangeline Navarro, how their frosty professional relationship slowly turned into friendship, and the supernatural and eerie vibes.
The show really found its footing with episode five and stepped up another notch in six. I have no complaints about the finale whatsoever – it was written well, the plot revelations made sense and it answered all of my questions. The action inside the Tsalal station was nail-biting and gripping and I genuinely cared about what might happen to these women.
But the reveal about who killed the Tsalal workers was showrunner Issa López‘s masterstroke. She gave power to the indigenous women who mostly blended into the background in the show. Their invisibility worked in their favour because they were able to commit a crime and get away with it. Because they often went unnoticed in their cleaning jobs, they were able to take matters into their own hands and exact justice for Annie’s death. I was very relieved that Danvers and Navarro decided to leave them be – nobody else knew so it was easy to keep a secret, especially as the scientists’ deaths had already been blamed on the weather by forensics.
I also loved how the show wrapped things up, with the big polluting company being shut down and Navarro off exploring life outside of Ennis. While her fate wasn’t fully confirmed, I truly believe she is alive and still pals with Danvers.
After the previous male-dominant seasons, I was thrilled to see such a display of female empowerment in the True Detective franchise. I highly recommend checking this out.
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