There's a scene in this episode of True Detective that feels more important than the show lets on. About twenty minutes in, state police officer Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) goes to a diner to ask questions about a long-dead woman. While she's talking to the deceased's brother, a fight breaks out—a patron attacks a local miner over how "you mining people are poisoning your own kids, and we're sick and tired of pretending you don't see it!" "We fucking feed your kids!" another miner crows.
True Detective's conflicts like to play out in the background—the first season featured the deterioration of a traveling pastor's business over several years, and it had only slight significance to the plot. The best seasons of True Detective are the ones that give us all the pieces right out the gate and let said pieces melt into its rich settings. As I watched season four's "Part 2," I admired the tone and setting of this season's frozen Alaskan hell scape: the murky color grading, the constantly dim lights and the push-pull, static conflict of miners and townsfolk makes it feel like purgatory.
And if "purgatory" isn't a great way to describe the frozen, agonized expressions of the several missing scientists found last episode, I don't know what is. When chief Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and officer Peter Prior (Finn Bennett) bring the giant human-sicle to a nearby school ice rink to defrost, we see the true horror of the situation. They victims are piled atop each other as if trying to climb upwards, eyes burned, mouths agape and hands bloodstained. It's a creative and very brutal way of showing the horror they went through before they died, and it builds up the mystery of how they died nicely.
But man, would I love that mystery to have a good progression and characters! The first and third seasons of True Detective balance plot and character excellently, with every episode feeling like a puzzle piece that you can slot in with the others. The characters here just kind of...exist? After an episode of buildup, Danvers and Navarro don't go anywhere as characters here. We know that Danvers is prickly and controlling; we know that Navarro wants to find the dead woman's killer. But seeing them repeat these motions for an hour with nothing to add gets stale.
There's an interesting mystery here, and the image of the men frozen together provides an excellent visual of how demented the whole thing is, but the characters aren't developed enough to carry it. Peter is principled and he clearly wants to get better at his job through Danvers's tutelage, but he doesn't have enough of a presence in the story to feel like a character who can do much. All three of these characters feel like they'll be important down the road, but considering they're major characters, they should be important now. (And if I never have to see creepy chief Hank Prior sext a girl much younger than him as we see in this episode, I'll be quite happy, thank you.)
There's some town drama in this episode that also falls flat. Police captain Ted Connelly (Christopher Eccleston) is somehow just as much of an asshole as Hank, and throwing in a conflict where Danvers has frequent hate sex with him doesn't really make him more interesting. (His dynamic with Danvers is largely identical to what she has with Hank.) Navarro is slightly more interesting, including her relationship with the bartender she's sleeping with. But her relationship with sister, whose mental illness mirrors their mother's, has nothing propping it up.
Even the family drama with Danvers and her adopted daughter Leah (Isabella Star LaBlanc) falls flat. There are nuggets of interesting information that drift around them but don't get enough focus—Danvers is furious when Leah gets Indigenous makeup temporarily tattooed on her, and we learn that a happier time in their relationship existed when Danvers was with Leah's father. But that mild character drama combined with the mostly stagnant mystery isn't enough. The tone continues to be eerie, and the cinematography makes everything that much darker and creepier. By far the most effective visual in the episode—one of the scientists somehow survives and starts to shriek when an officer touches him—goes quickly forgotten as no further development comes in the episode.
The screaming scientist feels emblematic of this season's problems so far. As soon as something interesting comes up—the strain with Leah, the mentions of spirits that drift around the episode, the conflict with the miners—the stale character drama gets all the attention. The one revelation at the end—that one scientist isn't with the rest of the dead men and therefore must still be alive somewhere—feels unearned with how long it takes to get there. Building suspense is one thing; running in place is another.
This episode of True Detective is now available to stream on Max.
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