True Detective: Night Country (Season 4)

[Fud 9552]

1 hour ago, Eskimohorn said:

S4 is Citizen Kane compared to S2, which made me have to look up apoplectic.

I’ll take a whole Navarro episode over any Kelly Reilly scene.

Disagree. S2 had some issues (as noted above), but the quality across the board in every department was better than S4

S4 feels like an HBO Max show rather than a Sunday night HBO headliner in terms of quality 

[Texzilla58 4733]

S4 doesn’t feel like a Max show. It’s more like a freshman film school project with a bigger budget.

[Eskimohorn 5633]

Disagree. S2 had some issues (as noted above), but the quality across the board in every department was better than S4
S4 feels like an HBO Max show rather than a Sunday night HBO headliner in terms of quality 

There was some quality setup and atmosphere in early episodes of S4, with Jodie Foster bringing the heat with a masterclass in expletive ranting.

Then her character turned dumb, unzipped her fly with info about the mining corp, got bitch-slapped by them, changed her mind, then another character abruptly changes directions by murdering everyone.

Think they ran out of episodes to tell this story after realizing they put too much atmosphere and back story in the first couple. Now I dont care but I was watching intently before everything unraveled and dead ended.

Now the duo is hiding another homicide then they think they’re gonna find the killer and bring them to justice? And who’s gonna do this when the mining company controls Alaska and gets away with murder? So what if you find something down there?

s2 started slow, suffered greatly from every VV and Kelly Reilly scene (unwatchable), and was a dud outside of a few set pieces.

[Texzilla58 4733]

Word is HBO wanted 8-10 episodes and Lopez could only give them 6. Apparently this was originally a 21 minute episode of Twilight Zone that she had the inflate and conflate into this mess. Hence all these elaborate scenes, elk suicide. Long shots of darkness, plot dead ends. Etc. just a fucking mess.

[DDD Dad 14332]

20 hours ago, Eskimohorn said:

S4 is Citizen Kane compared to S2, which made me have to look up apoplectic.

I’ll take a whole Navarro episode over any Kelly Reilly scene.

Obligatory 

[MissingInAction 25037]

Season2 is what killed any chance VV had for serious work. 

[Duane Moore 5237]

2 hours ago, MissingInAction said:

Season2 is what killed any chance VV had for serious work. 

Brawl in Cell Block 99 begs to differ, sir. 

[Incredulity 11665]

On 2/15/2024 at 3:52 PM, Texzilla58 said:

S4 doesn’t feel like a Max show. It’s more like a freshman film school project with a bigger budget.

Only if the screenwriter dropped out after the 5th grade

[mchookem 16327]

On 2/11/2024 at 7:16 AM, Jiggy-Z said:

Went and watched season 2 since I skipped over it on account of bad reviews.  I actually liked it. Good character insight and back story, cinematography actually made sense and advanced the industrial theme, complicated enough plot to warrant the number of episodes etc.

Some ridiculous and far fetched twists aside it was not a bad watch.  It was no season 1, but on par or better than 3, and certainly better than whatever is going on in season 4.

same. i never thought S2 was as bad as folks here trashed it. of course...Taylor Kitsch, sooo...

 

[mdmost 43001]

Does he give you blue balls in your heart?

[billfromlaketravis 11456]

22 hours ago, Duane Moore said:

Brawl in Cell Block 99 begs to differ, sir. 

Vaughn is great in Dragged Across Concrete too. The guy can do whatever he wants, but he needs a good script. 
 

Gritty indies and creeping out Larry David seem to be his new lane. 

[DeepEastTexas 640]

Couldn't help but think of one thing in the first 15 minutes:
 

"Blair's been busy!"

[Duane Moore 5237]

Hoo-boy

[GabrielsHorn 2183]

Normally, I agree with Sepinwall, but after this, I really want to know what the fuck the critics were thinking. This was a shitty Netflix show level of quality. 

[TexasMan 10891]

I'm 2 episodes behind, and going by word of mouth, it's going to stay that way forever. 

[GabrielsHorn 2183]

[DanTheHorn 4922]

Still watching but it looks like the funyuns were laced with LSD

[DeepEastTexas 640]

The shot of Navarro in the blizzard outside the research station with her hood up and headlamp on was eerily resemblant of the Thing movie poster. 

[Macklemore 2876]

Fucking awful season that did irreparable harm to the franchise. Fuck the professional critics like Sepinwall lauding this garbage.

 

[Buzzrock 14918]

Tedious. That was tedious. 

[Buzzrock 14918]

You’re locked in a room with a big glass window. You have a gun. What do you do?

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4976]

Try not to give yourself tinitis?

[Mez2 4023]

Fuck, that was bad. 

[seven 1367]

Oof

[RPM 26318]

not good

[billfromlaketravis 11456]

2 hours ago, GabrielsHorn said:

Sepinwall realizes he wrote last meaningful recap after Mad Men ended. So instead  of working for a living and writing his own show, he’s pay for play. 
 

Give me Season 3 as the best finale. The Season 1 finale was the worst episode of the whole season. 

[LonghornSean 3994]

I liked episode 1, but it was all downhill from there.

Finale was garbage. They just slapped the TD branding on this and added a couple irrelevant Easter eggs to drum up some buzz. Hard to believe these scripts made it to production.

So the ice caves were a few hundred yards from Tsalal? And somehow the hatch and underground lair were discovered only by the cleaning lady!! 

Foster’s performance wasn’t bad. Fiona Shaw was good but had nothing to work with.

[C-Man 27214]

Just finished it. Not sure what to think but first impression was that it was shit. The janitorial staff came and wrecked Tsalal’s shit?

[Buzzrock 14918]

3 hours ago, C-Man said:

Just finished it. Not sure what to think but first impression was that it was shit. The janitorial staff came and wrecked Tsalal’s shit?

Tsalal Team Six

 

(Stolen from Reddit)

[Duckman 82]

I watched all of this crappy season just to find out in the end the butler (maid) did it, WTF?

Edited February 19 by Duckman

[Pam Cummings 9640]

I watched 2 episodes, looks like I should bail on it?

[mdmost 43001]

I just wanted it to end. 

[speed817 19256]

[Texzilla58 4733]

The tongue? Did they answer who cut her tongue out? Was it Hank? Why? Stupid.

WTF was the discovery that would save humanity? That required “more pollution from the mine”. Wouldn’t the govt have run that under DARPA and turned it into an Area 51 type compound and moved the town? That whole scenario was stupid. So they shut it all down and the town will die as the only other job is indigenous seal hunting.

A hatch to the ice cave lab? Huh? 15 years down there and it’s run with extension cords and patio lights? They’d have an elevator. Wouldn’t they?

Rose. WTF was she doing there actually? . She’s like Winston Wolf. The cleaner for the town?

And did Navarro go on the ice or did she live with Danvers? We laughed thru most of it. A revolt of the cleaning ladies. And WTF was that tiny house the head janitor killer live in but it was like 40 women lived in there.

Fucking shame.

[Red Five 40852]

That was not enjoyable and I'm glad it's over.

I'd rank the seasons 1, 3, 2, 4. 

[lateshow 1304]

2 minutes ago, Red Five said:

That was not enjoyable and I'm glad it's over.

I'd rank the seasons 1, 3, 2, 4. 

Same. 

[yoladu 4093]

i love how lay people can go into a scientific lab & discover a nefarious plot amongst the highly technical and voluminous documents present in just a matter of minutes.

 

or did i miss where they had "The mine and our research facility is polluting Ennis" written on a whiteboard in the bunker?

[C-Man 27214]

3 hours ago, Duckman said:

I watched all of this crappy season just to find out in the end the butler (maid) did it, WTF?

 

 

2 hours ago, Texzilla58 said:

WTF was the discovery that would save humanity? That required “more pollution from the mine”. Wouldn’t the govt have run that under DARPA and turned it into an Area 51 type compound and moved the town? That whole scenario was stupid. So they shut it all down and the town will die as the only other job is indigenous seal hunting.

I seem tor recall way back in E1 or E2 a discussion about what Tsalal was researching was going to have a profound effect on the human race -- we'd be able to cure cancer and ageing in general. 

[strangulation! 1716]

a scene during the blackout, looking past navarro and the parking lot was behind her. a flash and it's just vehicles, then a flash again a few seconds later and clearly a person near the vehicles. no rhyme or reason, just a cheap scare?

[Duane Moore 5237]

My impression of this show was that it got sold based on a great, atmospheric setting with an emotionally and politically satisfying solution to the central underlying crime. Also possibly they had Jodie Foster attached to it. 
 

Working backwards from there, nothing else really mattered to the creators. They just threw a bunch of shit up against the wall and didn’t care whether it made sense or not.  The Forbes article posted above has a lot of specific criticisms and I agree with all of them but there are even more than just those of built up, unresolved threads left hanging out there from the first 5 episodes. I wish I had the time to put them all down but it’s just too much, ranging from minor ridiculous points (they break into the ice caves in the middle of nowhere, then walk about 100 yards and they’re in Tsalal) to basic epistemological concepts about the show’s universe (are there actual ghosts or not? - seems like yes even if they didn’t play a role in the crimes).  All the “connections” to Season 1 were just Easter egg internet fanboy fodder that never paid off.  Clark yelling “time is a flat circle” made me want to throw my hat at the screen. 
 

6 minutes ago, strangulation! said:

a scene during the blackout, looking past navarro and the parking lot was behind her. a flash and it's just vehicles, then a flash again a few seconds later and clearly a person near the vehicles. no rhyme or reason, just a cheap scare?

I caught that too. This is a key point on the ghost or not question. If all these apparitions can just be attributed to every major female character having a mental illness that causes hallucinations (and think about that alternative explanation for a second), why is one appearing where the character doesn’t even know it’s there and only the viewer can see it? 
 

Very frustrating season because I really wanted to like it and it held my attention through 6 episodes but it ended up being very insulting to my intelligence as a viewer.  

 

[Red Five 40852]

6 minutes ago, Duane Moore said:

Clark yelling “time is a flat circle” made me want to throw my hat at the screen. 

I laughed out loud. Either connect the two seasons or don't. 

[UncleSonny 6572]

The moody “Twist and Shout” needle drop was one of the more embarrassing tv moments I can remember 

[The Dude 1244]

I’m a sucker for anything set in a snowy, cold, dark location, but what a fucking waste of a season of TV

[wildcat09 29349]

I actually didn't hate the cleaning ladies finding the hatch and figuring it out angle (outside of the True Detective universe, "evil corporation foiled by cleaning ladies" is fucking hilarious), but that sure felt like a deus ex machina they came up with pretty late and couldn't even figure out how to tie in Annie's tongue being left there, so just said fuck it on that.

 

[mdmost 43001]

Yeah lots of dangling stuff left there or maybe I was just so beaten down at the end that I no longer cared. Why was Clark having a seizure before the power was cut? Why was Annie's tongue there? What was the white shit on the floor where the tongue used to be? Do I even care anymore?

[DeepEastTexas 640]

2 hours ago, Red Five said:

I laughed out loud. Either connect the two seasons or don't. 

That statement, Rust's father, the Tuttle relationship, and the symbology were all connections to S1 that went unaddressed. Felt insulting to the viewership to bring those items up and not follow through. 
 

Maybe I missed it while watching female janitor after female janitor walk into the room like it was a clown car during the ending exposition, but how did the janitors know Anna K was murdered by the researchers? 

[Duane Moore 5237]

3 minutes ago, mdmost said:

Yeah lots of dangling stuff left there or maybe I was just so beaten down at the end that I no longer cared. Why was Clark having a seizure before the power was cut? Why was Annie's tongue there? What was the white shit on the floor where the tongue used to be? Do I even care anymore?

. . . the suicidal caribou herd, the one-eyed polar bear, Twist and Shout, the oranges . . . 

[seven 1367]

47 minutes ago, DeepEastTexas said:

That statement, Rust's father, the Tuttle relationship, and the symbology were all connections to S1 that went unaddressed. Felt insulting to the viewership to bring those items up and not follow through. 
 

Maybe I missed it while watching female janitor after female janitor walk into the room like it was a clown car during the ending exposition, but how did the janitors know Anna K was murdered by the researchers? 

Because the only star shaped screwdriver in the state was found in the hidden lab. 

[yoladu 4093]

39 minutes ago, seven said:

Because the only star shaped screwdriver in the state was found in the hidden lab. 

haha.. yep..... and then they concluded somehow every researcher in the complex had a turn stabbing Annie, so they left them all to die in the cold.

 

Which is probably the most insulting part.... Danvers and Navarro were obsessed with getting justice for Annie, but justice for 6 dead researchers? You know, whateves.

[Jive Turkey 12594]

so that Oliver Tagaq dude who worked at Tsalal setting up the power, and then disappeared before Danvers/Navarro went to see him again, was a total non-factor?  i thought he was gonna be involved somehow.

sad to see that Sepinwall has pretty much lost all credibility now.

Edited February 19 by Jive Turkey