Official ‘True Detective: Night Country’ Thread | HBO

[Sonic Boom of the South]

I like this so far. No complaints.

 

[HARLEM AL]

Wait, there's a new season?

 

[Torrential]

new episode drops tonight fellas

 

[Lootpack]

Boardwalk Empire's ending was a disaster because it was forced so Vinyl could be made and that flopped. It was the first sign of HBO's recent run of decisions that have lead to some low quality shows by their standards. HBO has gone from a brand touting it's quality through it's original programming to relying heavily on known IPs and it will only get worse as time goes on.

They’re about to trot out another one in ‘Big Little Lies’ for a third season, as if it needed more life. That second season was disastrous and if you read up on the behind-the-scenes deets, it makes a shyt ton of sense.

I’m, too, noticing a reliance on the IPs. That being said, they must be doing something right if established film directors like Guadagnino and Cianfrance want to get in on the action and dip their feet in the TV realm. They hit more with their programming than they miss and those misses tend to stick out more since HBO is highly regarded as the go-to for prestige television.

 

[tuckgod]

They lifetime’d the shyt outta true detective

It was a no-go soon as I saw they casted the dyke

 

[Lootpack]

(Duplicate).

 

[Lootpack]

They wanted to do a Mare 2 but with Jean Smart getting sick and it costing too much to bring everybody back, they went a diff direction.

They made the right decision. Mare came out at the perfect time.

Funnily enough, that’s the one show I see the Max app suggesting at the end of every ‘Night Country’ episode. Except Mare was way tighter in writing, had better chemistry within the cast, and more heart put into it.

 

[re'up]

They need more one season high quality shows. Mare of Easttown should be a one and done. Tokyo Vice should only be the two seasons.

The Night Of is a great example too. True Detective Season 1. But, obviously for execs and for the people employed the desire is always there to kept it going, but almost invariably, it gets bloated and reduced quality. Just like a lot of things. Fashion, food. Whenever the local hot spot opens up 3 new locations, the quality always suffers.

Industry should probably on be 3 or maybe 4 seasons. Succession was one of the only shows in the more modern era that did it. Just 4 perfect seasons. Every episode was clean and clear. No bloat, no weird shyt. obviously, Breaking Bad, Sopranos, Mad Men, held onto quality, but that was a different era, and even BB decided to end early.

 

[Trav]

‘True Detective: Night Country’ Is One Of The Most Disappointing Mystery Shows Ever Made​

Post updated 2.5.2024 — see updates below.


True Detective: Night Country is one of the worst mystery shows I’ve ever seen. I’m struggling to think of another detective series that I despised as much as I despised this one in the end. Season 2 was a disappointing follow-up to the first season of True Detective, but this doesn’t even feel like the same show, despite its many attempts to convince us otherwise.



Note: The following review is based on all six episodes of HBO’s new crime drama. It is spoiler-free other than some remarks about its setting and characters. I write recap/reviews of each episode as they air. You can find links to each of my reviews below.

The Long Night​

When Night Country first aired, I wanted to watch one episode at a time alongside viewers despite having access to all six episodes ahead of time. I’ve done this with a number of shows because it keeps me on the same page as audiences. I can guess along with everyone else, make predictions along with everyone else and so forth. It’s fun a lot of the time, especially with mysteries, and it allows me to write about each episode from that perspective, still uncertain of what’s coming.


I gave up after episode 3 of Night Country and watched the next three episodes for for one simple reason: I wasn’t enjoying the show enough to care about what happened that much, and I wanted to know if it got better. Was there a satisfying payoff at the end that made the slog I’d endured so far worthwhile? Would the various mysterious clues and character threads come together in the end for a satisfying conclusion?

Unfortunately, I can safely answer these questions with a resounding “No.” If anything, Night Country gets worse in its second half. The show has an identity crisis, straddling the line between its origins as its own mystery and HBO’s decision to shoehorn it into the True Detective franchise. The mystery itself hardly feels like a mystery at all, with no sense of organic urgency or even a coherent investigation. The messy plot is bogged down in dreary, tedious exposition and repetitive dialogue. Pacing is all over the place. Every time something exciting or interesting happens, the show slams on its brakes, devolving into yet another tedious conversation or leaping to a new scene in the most jarring way possible. The fantastic setting cannot save this dismal story from itself.
Occasionally, in various desperate acts of fan-service, a line from Season 1 is jammed in where it doesn’t belong. One Season 1 callback in particular during the season finale made me laugh out loud in dismay. I may or may not have shouted at my TV.

None of the characters are particularly likable. That’s a big problem, though it could have been a tolerable one if the story they inhabited was compelling enough to make such miserable people watchable. Shows like White Lotus manage this delicate balancing act with style. Not so in Night Country. Jodie Foster’s Liz Danvers has barely a single redeeming quality and her partner, Detective Navarro (Kali Reis) is just as hard to stomach. You can get away with having a detective be this awful of a human being only if they make up for it with a Hercule Poirot-like intellect. Neither Danvers or Navarro possess much in the way of little grey cells, however. In the end, I felt nothing but disdain and disgust for both characters, whose actions in the season finale are beyond the pale.

The creators of the show don’t seem to think so. They want us to connect with these detectives and the choices they make. Unfortunately, it’s never earned. Neither is the show’s utterly predictable, wholly unsatisfying ending or laundry list of cliches—though if you like a good dose of cloying preachiness this might be just the show for you.

‘True Detective: Night Country’ Is One Of The Most Disappointing Mystery Shows Ever Made

Or at least one of the worst mysteries I've ever had the displeasure of seeing.

www.forbes.com

 

[Trav]

‘True Detective: Night Country’ Is One Of The Most Disappointing Mystery Shows Ever Made

Or at least one of the worst mysteries I've ever had the displeasure of seeing.

www.forbes.com

Last Part of the article:

A Recipe For Disaster​

The ingredients of Night Country make for a sad list: Predictable, boring, unpleasant, preachy, and derivative. Toss in a dash of bad CGI and some atrociously mediocre cinematography—not to mention all the lame needle drops—and you’re left with something that barely resembles True Detective. The final episode feels less like the franchise it ostensibly is a part of and more like a cheap knockoff of the film it cribs from so brazenly (which I suspected it might from my very first episodic review).

I finished watching Deadloch on Amazon Prime Video earlier this week. The parallels between the two shows are astonishing. Both are loosely rooted in the Nordic noir tradition. Both take place in exotic small towns far from the big city: Ennis, Alaska and Deadloch, Tasmania respectively. Both have a pair of female detectives investigating the murders of men, and both have overbearing male police bosses who threaten to interfere. Each mystery involves missing tongues, believe it or not.

But Deadloch is a story with characters you care about, a crude but charming sense of humor, and a coherent mystery with actual suspects that keeps you guessing right up to the end. Night Country can barely keep track of its messy, sprawling cast let alone whatever case it is the detectives are trying to solve. I predicted the ending (or at least most of the ending) in the season premiere. The only surprising thing about this show is how obvious it is.

But please, by all means keep watching! I’ll be reviewing each episode as we go and I’d love to chat with you about it week to week. I suspect even the show’s staunchest defenders may be disappointed in the end; no matter what your theory may be—and there are many—I can’t see how this show’s conclusion pays off in any kind of satisfying way. Then again, maybe I’m just asking the wrong bleeping questions.

Anybody heard of this show called "Deadloch" on AMZ? Writer mentioned it in comparison in the full article and said it was much better detective show even though it's not apples to apples in tone, etc. But has female detectives and is set in unique setting, etc.

Can't wait to see what the callback in the finale is too lol. Doesn't look like this ride is going to get any smoother with the last 2 episodes but I will hold out a small modicum of hope lol

 

[Trav]

We're in the Night Country now

 

[Lootpack]

Forget about it Jake, it’s Night Country.

 

[Lootpack]

 

[Trav]

Get to the point, mannn

 

[Trav]

Is this foo' talkin' to a cop/chief about a criminal conspiracy......asking for heroin?