The showrunner callsTrue Detective: Night Countrys ambiguous ending my gift and my curse to the viewer.
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Spoilers follow forTrue Detective: Night Countryfinale Part Six.
There are three ways to read the ending ofTrue Detective: Night Country, says showrunner Issa Lopez.
My favorite option is a little bit of both.
How do you write ambiguity?
But I do believe both walk with me.
No one ever really leaves is my way of seeing things.
Is this really happening, or is this Navarros perception?
Danvers is an absolute skeptic butisshe?
When shes thinking, she plays white noise to cut out other sounds.
She has dreams where her dead son visits her.
But are they dreams?
Season one did it.
Is this because he fried his brain with drugs when he was undercover?
Or is it because he has learned to see beyond?
Thats up to us to define.
Or, there was something in the dark.
Its for you to decide.
In this season, Rose says its older than the ice.
It all connects to the idea of repetition and the circles, a theme the first season has.
Its not necessarily that everything is connected, its just the same universe.
The other seasons are day and this is night, so this season naturally became female.
And the night is female we just know this.
If the older gods are being awakened, what if we make her female?
Lets call her that, and I was like, If you give me your blessing, thats fantastic.
I decided out of respect, that it was better to go back to my simpler suggestion.
As happens with mythologies, there are many different versions of the story.
Those little differences are massive.
I stood back and said, Were going to leave it in the realm of suggestion.
I dont want to be disrespectful to something that is tremendously central to the identity of the Inuit.
These actresses make such an impact.
Some of them are also musicians, some of them are also activists.
How did this group of women come together?It was such a specific task.
We read the hell out of them because they have to work individually and together.
And then theres cases like Tanya Tagaq, who is an international rock star.
We couldnt walk them on the red carpet, which broke my heart.
We couldnt bring attention to them.
Kali Reistold me what a blast they were to be around.
I had to go and be like, Ladies, like a school teacher.
They were so passionate.
You hold it like this.
They wereterrifyingwhen they came into the station in the best possible way.
Before, I was like, Ladies, we know why were doing this.
This is a time of justice.
Were sick of this happening to and in our communities.
They were just laughing out loud.
They came into the station and I was electrified.
The scientists, who are trained actors and knew exactly what would happen, didnt have to pretend.
The women were a force.
It was like a wave of power coming through the hallways in the station.
Youve said, You write the impossible.
You write what you want to see.
What felt impossible aboutNight Country?
It seemed kind of a crazy idea, to tell you the truth.
You have to separate the filmmaker from the writer, and they will fight sometimes.
But you cannot let practicality or rationality get in the way of a fantastic story.
you better create the space as if no one had to shoot it later certainly not you.
Youve said ofTrue Detective, the place is a character in itself.
Nothing compares with the high Arctic and frozen ocean of northwest Alaska.
Secrets last longer and go deeper.
But the second season has a really big and important set piece in the desert outside Los Angeles.
Theres anX-Filesepisode set in this area, theresThe Thing, theres30 Days of Night.
If you go underwater, immediately, genre starts whispering: Captain Nemo, the James Cameron movieThe Abyss.
If you go into the depths of the Amazon jungle, the same thing will happen.
Its still perfumed with adventure and possibilities and the unknown.
The ice holds secrets, and its ancestral; its been there for millions of years in the permafrost.
If you dig, youre going to find things that probably should stay asleep.
Youre trying to convey the ancient feeling of this place.
I took it to a festival in Edmonton and at least half the audience was Native, mostly Inuit.
The moment the movie ended, they started to tell their stories about the women disappearing in their communities.
That stayed with me.
I thought,If theres an occasion to talk about this in my work in English, I would.
Navarro and Danvers often talk about those two central tensions in Ennis.
It happens in politics, the news, climate change, gender politics.
And the series is a very respectful reminder that you actually cant just go for coffee.
Danvers loves telling people theyre not asking the right question.
You have to create their own thing.
But Danvers was hard.
I didnt want to do a wall with red string.
That does a lot for the visual technique in the series.
Ask the right question was tough.
It was cute, but it didnt speak to her deductive method.
Sometimes the gods of writing talk to you and I think I was simply asking the right question.
And I got my answer.
The thing about influences is even when you dont know theyre there, they exist somewhere in your skull.
It has happened several times in my work.
Now theyre part of how you think.
Guillermo was never mad at me for the chalk.
I hope Fincher doesnt take it poorly.
Jonathan Demme is no longer with us, sadly, but definitely that scene is Hannibal-Clarice moment.
All of this comes from love.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
