True Detective
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Welcome back to the eerie world ofTrue Detective.
Five years later, its now back rebooted?
with Issa Lopez as writer, director, and showrunner.
Whereas Pizzolattos entries were sinister and humid,Night Countryis icy, dark, and playful.
Their TV is still blaring, the mens cell phones are scattered.
Hank a lazy thinker who is also a misogynist believes this is whats likely to happen.
Liz calls in search-and-rescue choppers.
Hank doesnt know this because hes a negligent dad who puts Pete down in front of their boss.
The politics here isnt subtle: Liz doesnt happen to be a woman in a position of authority.
Its her experiences as a woman that qualify her above Hank.
And Hank is not her real partner on the case, thank God.
Neither is Prior Jr, though hes a good egg and a fast student.
Whatever she has against Evangeline is more personal than that.
How many tongues go missing in your average small town?
Hank has been keeping some records at home, though, and he drags his feet about finding it.
In the end, though, he risks his wife and sons disappointment to follow orders.
Parenthood is a recurring theme across the episode.
Lizs parenting style is tough love with a side of disinterest.
Everyones history with each other is long in Ennis.
Thats what makes the men missing from Tsalal such outliers.
The driver of the crashed car is the town drunk who sometimes sleeps with Hank.
Hanks son used to babysit Leah, and now hes her moms colleague.
But that doesnt mean the town doesnt keep secrets too.
No town, really.
When Evangeline asked Liz to take the case up in her stead, Liz balked.
Ennis killed Annie, Liz tells Pete, who seems to understand this cryptic idea as self-evident.
Thats the kind of town that raised him, where hes raising his own kid.
How did Liz become the hard woman we meet in episode one?
But something has undeniably been shaken open in Liz.
She refuses to engage with Leah on the subject, but asleep at night, she loses her grip.
She dreams about a small boy whispering, Mommy, his hand on her shoulder.
She hears that same menacing incantation from Tsalal: Shes awake.
Evangeline shares Lizs hardness, though its origins are less mysterious.
In some ways, it seems like Annies case is what keeps Evangeline going.
Hes been through all of this before.
He doesnt need more painful reminders of her.
Yes, everyone is alone in Ennis, the end of the world.
But the world seems to circle back on itself here with spectral connections.
Just as Liz wakes from her bad dream, Evangeline hears the same ominous whisper: Shes awake.
Unable to sleep, Liz arranges the photos from Annies case alongside the photos of Tsalal into aHomeland-style collage.
For all their animosity, its the ways in which these women are alike that already feel most prescient.
Because if Ennis killed Annie, then Annies murder is Enniss story too.
The Inupiaq who have always been here and the white people who moved here.
The land and the mines.
The mines and the town.
The town and the police.
Theres no sense of dark magic afoot in Ennis, not really.
No occult, or at least not yet.
Just the shared understanding of the people who live there that its not like other places.
Where everyone is alone together.
Its attributed to Hildred Castaigne, a name that meant nothing to me until I Googled it.
