Does True Detective: Polar Night live up to previous seasons?

Season four of the anthology series True Detectivehad to deal with several things at once. On the one hand, the weight, always constant, of the success of the first season, released in 2014 and becoming a cult classic.. The other extreme is his pronounced inclination towards the horror genre. This last element turns the most recent story into an idiosyncratic story, halfway between a horrifying yet philosophical exploration of its characters. In other words, writer and director Issa Lopez took the best of the production’s previous history and experimented with a darker setting.

The result is a story that, in a precarious balance, crosses the closest dots with the horror genre and at the same time the anthology’s already well-known look at the root of inner evil. True Detective: Polar Night ventured to talk about a brutal crime from a supernatural point of view. Moreover, doing it through two wounded, bitter and ambiguous protagonists.

But in the end, both Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Navarro (Kali Reyes) turned their emotional and even ethnic wounds into a way to confront the darkness. In the town of Ennis, the night lasts three months, and every resident knows that during darkness the worst in a human being comes out. The plot is similar to the first season. True Detective, but Lopez made the decision not to leave it to the imagination whether the insinuations about the paranormal were allegorical.

Thus, he crossed the line of ambiguity and in six chapters showed ghosts and hinted that the main crime was committed by an unexplained entity. This is without forgetting this True Detective This depends on his complex, hardened and even cruel character. The mix worked every time the series’ narrative used the codes of the horror genre. The script has become smoother, more seamless and consistent. What also helped was the sleepy visual section involving landscapes of eternal snow transformed into terrifying settings.

Big flaws in the series, of which there could be many more

But on several occasions—especially scenes in which he had to answer multiple questions—the show seemed to tread on uncertain ground. Police Chief Danvers, hardened and scarred by a painful past, exemplified the way characters were analyzed on the show. From human conflicts, intimate and often emotional, to violence of outright cruelty. The above, in a small town full of corruption and very mundane manipulation of interests.

Thus, the crucial middle ground between conventional investigation and exploring the history of his figures outside the background scenario has failed. The story tried to wrap up the arc of its main characters, and while it succeeded, it felt like it was a rushed move. Especially in the final chapter, where all the revelations, including Navarro’s turbulent past, came to the surface at once. Was it because the story of the multiple murders trumped any existentialist question, or simply because the pain of Davers and Navarro was obvious and needed no further explanation. The truth is True Detective: Polar Night fell into his trap. It is the need to choose what to give more importance to. He wasn’t always able to make decisions that would allow the story to realize its ambitious vision.

This led to an interesting final point, well presented but with gaps for argumentation made more complex by the inclusion of elements. From the various apparently paranormal clues that led to the violent occurrences, to the psychic abilities of the characters.. The series combines fantasy with methodical murder. But ultimately, the explanation for what killed the group of scientists had more to do with the brutality of human violence. So constant visions, apparitions and terrifying events led to nothing.

A good presentation with nothing to add to the anthology.

Without a real explanation of what killed the scientists and what the supernatural is left up in the air, the show makes the mistake of banking on an unexplained mystery. In its last chapter True Detective: Polar Night fails to connect all the dots of a story that points to something more. Even in the final scenes, the amount of data that needed to be solved remains a mystery that didn’t need to be solved. The big question is whether the remaining stories will make up for the lack of information or development. A problem that the plot doesn’t resolve in the emotional final scene, but which, again, is only meant to be mysterious.

For your conclusion, True Detective: Polar Night, proves to be the best season of the first anthology. However, this reinforces the problem of all previous seasons. It’s a bet on mystery that ends up being nothing more than a place for its characters’ trauma and pain. A premise that works as long as they get all the attention such a turn requires. What didn’t always happen about this is perhaps the low point of the series.