True Detective: Night Country keeps its research base and Annie’s unsolved murder at the heart of its storytelling, but it’s far from the only mystery. The reason behind Liz (Jodie Foster) and Navarro’s (Kali Reis) fractured relationship remains a big question the series chooses to answer with sprinkles of information rather than big info dumps. True Detective 4×03 reveals trouble started when they arrived on the scene of a murder-suicide. While Liz tells a curious Pete (Finn Bennett) they were “both dead when we got there,” the flashback proves otherwise, suggesting Navarro may have played a role in the perpetrator’s death… and Liz helped cover it up.
Of course, this is just speculation at this point. However, it would go a long way toward explaining Liz and Navarro’s reluctant bond. True Detective 4×03 has the two laughing together for the first time. They know who each other is sleeping with, and quieter moments show tender looks of appreciation for each other’s investigation style. We rarely see female characters written this way. Frequently, jealousy contributes to tension between women, usually over a man. In Liz and Navarro’s case, the Bechdel test wins. It’s not jealousy that drives their feud but something darker, deeper, and much more messy.
True Detective 4×03 Delivers Women-centric Storytelling
As mentioned in the review of True Detective: Night Country‘s first episode, this season is women-centric, not only with its leads but with its storytelling. Director, writer, and showrunner Issa López weaves in commentary on the violence committed against indigenous women. Liz and Peter’s conversation in True Detective 4×03’s early moments highlights the horrors of the domestic abuse cycle. “She wouldn’t report him,” Liz says with a sad matter-of-factness when recalling the murder-suicide case. “His story was always the same. ‘Oh, she was drunk, officer.’ ‘Fell down the stairs, officer.’ You knew how that was going to end.” Even with the corpsicle and ghostly apparitions, moments like this remain the most chilling.
At this point, it’s no secret that Liz and Navarro are both capable, no-nonsense women. You wouldn’t want to look at either of them too hard for fear of repercussions. Yet, True Detective 4×03 spotlights their softer sides. Liz’s maternal interactions with a young indigenous girl do wonders in reminding audiences that she’s not just a hardened police officer; she’s somebody’s mother. Navarro shares a similar tender moment with her sister. Just like how the episode opens with a communal birth, explorations of women’s strengths, struggles, and complexities lurk in almost all of Night Country‘s narratives.
Bad Guys and Horror Nods Abound
Dismissiveness is another major talking point. It’s something Navarro accused Liz and pretty much the whole town of Ennis of in Episode 1. Here, that theme appears again. Hank (John Hawkes) slut shaming Annie quickly turns him into a villain, and hitting his son in the face does little to clean up his image. It seems a good chunk of people are willing to look the other way when it comes to the unsolved murder of an indigenous woman. Right now, it’s easy to point the finger at Hank. After all, there is no doubt something fishy going on there. Whether that’s a possible connection to Season 1 remains to be seen.
True Detective 4×03 has moments of lightness and comedy (Navarro smiling at the birth; Pete asking who Mrs. Robinson is), but it thrives in darkness. Issa López isn’t afraid to tackle morbid, disturbing subjects, and she wears her influences on her sleeve while doing so. Yes, Navarro and Qavvik’s (Joel D. Montgrand) “quid pro quo” interaction is a way of getting her to open up, BUT it also feels too much like a Silence of the Lambs reference to ignore. Qavvik’s “You tell me something; I tell you something” sounds an awful lot like a less sinister version of Hannibal Lecter’s, “I tell you things; you tell me things.” With Jodie Foster in the lead, it’s a fun nod without being too on the nose.
True Detective: Night Country airs Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.