True Detective: Night Country recap: The ice men cometh
“Part 2” chips away at the blood-chilling Corpsicle mystery, both literally and figuratively
TV Reviews True Detective
Frostbitten corneas, ruptured eardrums, chewed-off limbs—it’s clear that the frozen scientists at the center of True Detective: Night Country’s main mystery were already going through it well before they coagulated together into the glacial gorefest that we now know as the Corpsicle.
And things get even bleaker for the ice men during this Sunday’s episode: As Chief Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and her officers do their best Ellie Sattler impersonation, trying to excavate those frosty fellas from that giant ice cube, one cop gets a bit handsy and rips a victim’s arm clean off. (Danvers’ exasperated “Wilson, what the fuck?!” delightfully adds to the slapstick morbidity.) That accidental amputation unleashes a roar from said victim that horrifyingly signals, no, not all of the Corpsicle compadres are dead.
That man is alive, albeit in need of yet another amputation and quickly placed into a medically-induced coma, which means he won’t be available to answer any of Danvers’ questions anytime soon, including what the hell those men have been doing out at Tsalal research station in the first place. (Really, outside of, you know, the whole being frozen alive thing, it did seem like those scientists were having a helluva time in their reclusivity, if those drunken karaoke iPhone videos are anything to go by.)
For that, Liz heads to the high school where one of her old paramours, a geologist, teaches, and he explains that the men were trying to sequence the DNA of an extinct microorganism that could potentially stop cellular decay, i.e. the kind of thing that would help cure cancers, autoimmune diseases, genetic disorders, you name it. Who, or what, would possibly want to stop that kind of progress?
Danvers gets called back to the precinct where she encounters yet another one of her booty-call buddies, Captain Ted Connelly (Christopher Eccleston), the very man who shipped her off to Ennis, Alaska in the first place. He informs her that Anchorage will be taking jurisdiction over the “shit bowl” Corpsicle case, but she cites a police handbook that says frozen bodies cannot be moved or manipulated until they’re “properly thawed” (gross), which means she has 48 hours until her authority melts away.
The only problem: Where to thaw ’em? An ice-skating rink, of course, after Liz begrudgingly gets permission from its owner…whose husband she may or may not have slept with. (Listen, a girl’s gotta stay warm up in the arctic, alright?) Cue that giant block of frozen flesh being trucked through town to the Beach Boys’ jolly “Little Saint Nick” and installed right there on center ice.
Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis), for her part, has been spending time over at Rose Aguineau’s (Fiona Shaw) groovy abode, talking about Rose’s haunting late partner Travis (he disappeared into the ice because “he didn’t want the leukemia to take him”), Navarro’s sister Julia (who she brought to Ennis a year ago to try and ease her mental-health issues, which include having her own Haley Joel Osmont-esque visions of their dead mother), and the mysterious spiral symbol that Navarro spotted drawn on one of the scientists’ heads, which just so happens to perfectly match a tattoo found on Annie Masu Kowtok’s body. “It’s old, older than Ennis,” Rose says of the spiral. “It’s older than the ice, probably.”
It’s not a shock, then, when Navarro shows up rinkside to tell Danvers they need to collaborate on the Annie-meets-Corpsicle case. Ever-stubborn, Liz refuses but still has Peter Prior (Finn Bennett) look into the symbol. (It’s in trying to teach Peter to ask the “right questions” about what happened to the Tsalal staff—who left their clothes neatly folded by their bodies? Was someone out on the ice with them that day?—that we get our first overt invocation of Foster’s Clarice Starling, a connection that showrunner Issa López deliberately didn’t shy away from, as she revealed to The A.V. Club.)
However, asking those “right questions” leads Liz to discover that, yes, Evangeline was correct in thinking there’s a connection between Annie’s case and the Corpsicle. Digging into the scientist’s credit-card statements leads her to a tattoo parlor that reveals that Annie and the marked researcher were, in fact, in a relationship during the time of her death and the scientist had gotten the spiral tattoo in her honor.
And Navarro gets her own lead at Qavvik’s tavern, after one-half of a man-on-man bar fight—an escalation of the tensions between natives and miners over the town water supply—clearly recognizes a photo of the tattooed researcher. She manages to track the man down, and he points her in the direction of an RV that the scientist had purchased from his cousin. Evangeline calls Liz down to the abandoned trailer, which is covered in animal bones (seal and caribou, Navarro surmises), rough drawings, bound dolls, and a shrine to Annie above the bed.
And just as they’re contending with that creepiness, they get a call in about another: The ice men have thawed, and one of them—yes, the tattooed scientist—is missing. “He’s alive,” Navarro declares, just before the credits roll. “He’s out there.” The second episode had already unsettlingly plunged viewers even deeper into the mysterious world of Ennis—though the seemingly common knowledge that the town will make you “see dead people” does not seem like a tourism selling point—and the lives and regrets of its troubled inhabitants. But it’s a whole other thing to have one of said inhabitants roaming around the tundra nude and newly thawed from a human iceberg. Let the creepiness continue!
Stray observations
- Danvers’ stepdaughter being a hockey player and her girlfriend being a figure skater? We are very here for The Cutting Edge vibes.
- Speaking of offspring, we get nice insights into Leah (Isabella Star LaBlanc) and Peter this week as they both battle against their parents: she, over wanting to wear indigenous facial markings and connect more deeply with her heritage, and he, over swiping Annie’s file from his dad Hank’s (John Hawkes) house. (Hank, sweetie, maybe you should be more worried that your “long-distance fiancée” is 100-percent catfishing you for cash.)
- There were several great needle drops this week, including the aforementioned Wilson bros’ tune, but our favorite was Evangeline nearly zig-a-zig-ah-ing off a snow bank to Spice Girls’ “Wannabe.”
- “Arctic prices” is right—20 bucks for Oreos?!
- We’re gonna need an extended husky cameo every episode from now on, thanks bye.
153 Comments
Missed the fact Travis’s last name was Cohle… And the research facility is funded by the same family from season 1.
The Tuttles. Yeah, I am surprised that so many people missed thaat.
Season 1 was from 9 years ago. Obama. Colin Kaepernick. Gone Girl. The Fappening. The ice bucket challenge. Two of the best Marvel movies. Adele Dazeem. Ancient history at this point.
I haven’t watched series 1 in I don’t know how long, didn’t make the connection at all. Still don’t remember, I’d have to go back and rewatch.
So, the moaning frozen guy – doing a nice impersonation of a scene from The Thing – was alive and in the hospital now? So, how did they extract him from the Ice Bundle then? When it took 48 hours to it to thaw?
Quick chopping and chainsawing would do that. And also not sure about taking 48 hours, it’s just from the police guidebook on frozen corpses. Might takes longer in this case, especially now that the case is definitely connected to Annie, which means Danvers might have jurisdiction to keep it in Ennis instead of letting it being taken out.
Ha—I’ve gotten “Thing” vibes from the corpsicle every second it’s on screen. I feel like it has to be deliberate on the part of the creators.
There is literally no possible way someone would still be alive in that situation. If your extremities have frozen so solid your arm can be snapped in two as easily as a piece of celery, you are dead, end of story.
If I understood the teacher correctly, I think it’s related to the research they were doing there and a clue to the direction this story is going. Seems like they were looking for the fountain of youth in the ice and landed on some nasty side effects.
Yep, ridiculous.
But what if you have ancient unfrozen magic microorganisms in your blood, HMM? :p
I suppose it depends on where you are in the Corpsicle. Think of a McDonalds apple pie. Frozen on the outside, thermonuclear in the middle.
I actually ended up reading an article by a doctor who specializes in treating hypothermia – apparently people go into a hibernation mode and can be revived with the right equipment, but the arm breaking thing was completely impossible. So I was partially right!
There’s a lot of The Thing in this series so far, deliberately so I read.
The reviewer seems to have overlooked the very old corpse on the bed in the trailer….
Was that actually a corpse? I thought it was a dummy made with stuffed clothes. I don’t think the officers would have rushed over to the rink and left a body/crime scene unattended.
I read another review later which stated that it was a dummy. But as weird as this show is, I thought it was yet another victim.
That wasn’t a corpse, genius. It was a dummy/life-sized doll that was part of the shrine. Great job being snarky because you apparently cant follow the show, though…
I think that was a giant version of the dolls that were strung up all over that trailer, not a real body
I 100% thought it was a body and didn’t realize it actually might not be until these comments (and I’m still not entirely convinced it’s not a body under all that). As far as rushing away goes, that wouldn’t be too shocking considering if it is a body it’s been there a really long time undiscovered. Seems like it would be safe enough to leave it for a while longer.
Seemed like it was a dummy of some sort to me, and thinking about it, I would guess the stink would be evident (though maybe not in that climate).
The hands did look like wool mittens stuffed with straw or something. I wonder if the whole trailer, and the dummy, was some sort of decoy for…whatever’s killing people.
Travis’ last name-Cohle. Maybe Rustin Cohles father? Money behind the research station- Tuttle.
We also know Rust was from, or spent several years in Alaska, I can’t remember exactly, even though I watched that season again recently for the 4th time, because holy shit does it hold up.
My gf and I did a rewatch of season 1 just this passed week. So Rustin went back to Alaska shorting after quitting the force after he and Marty fought. He returned around 2010 to continue the investigation in Louisiana.
I’m half expecting an 11 year older Rust Cohle show up at some point. Not holding my breath but would be a great “coming-full-circle” moment. If only to fill in the blanks of the investigation, before it gets taken away by Connelly.
Wouldn’t that place this story somewhere in the 80s then, if not earlier.. I wondered that as well but some of the elements in this show (texting on smart phones, for one, plus maybe the vehicles) seems to indicate pretty much present time (ie. some years after Rust returned to Alaska).
I think they specifically place this season, referencing last night’s episode as taking place on 12/21/2023. I could be wrong though. My guess is that they’re fumbling a bit with the timelines. Rustin might not be AS old as he appeared last time we saw him, or his father Travis was much younger when we saw him in the flashback and perhaps he passed shortly after Rust left Alaska the first time?I just feel like Rust, current day would be around as old as Rose. And Rose didn’t appear that much younger in her flashback in bed with Travis.
Read that comment at least three times before I realized you didn’t say “11 year old Rust Cohle” and I was wondering how the hell the timeline could accommodate that. I’ll be back after I get another coffee.
Haha, well time is a flat circle!
I binge it once a year and always find another creepy detail. Season 1 is just incredible television.
Rust mentions in S1 that his dad (a survivalist type in Alaska) had leukaemia. Seems like far too big a coincidence for it not to be the same guy.So yeah, with that and other things (the Tuttles, the spiral diagram), it looks like this has significant connections to the S1 cosmology.
I’m guessing the assumption is father, but when I saw him I was thinking brother. Rust looked about his age in the 2012 finale of the first season. So not exactly sure when the last time he was alive was.
Rust does strike me as coming from a family where there could be like 10 years between siblings.
What are yall talking about? This show takes place in 2023, Rust Cohle would be like 65.
S1 laid the groundwork for this much bigger, sprawling empire of Tuttles. Thank go someone actually had the mindfulness to finally put that into action. It was such a missed opportunity for S2-3.
Just rewatched Season 1 and man does it ever make season 2 and 3 even more disappointing. I remembered liking Season 1 a lot, but it’s better than I remember, and watching it in ‘binge-like’ fashion (spread out over three nights), the end is better than it seemed the first time around. I can’t bring myself to watch 2 or 3 again.
S2-3 are just slogs. Like doing homework. There’s nothing wrong for the most part with the casts, writers, directors, but they just don’t seem to understand why S1 was a success and thus cannot recapture the magic. I like having the dread and sense of borderline spirituality fully back in this latest season.
We know that was the same symbol from Season 1, right?
I didn’t! Now I want to go back and rewatch season 1.
I just did this past week, and there are a LOT of connections, including shared dialogue. I really hope they tie together in a meaningful way…and it really feels like they might. Also, holy shit does it hold up–it was better than I remembered and I liked it a lot the first time around. It benefits from not having to wait a week between episodes on a rewatch.
Same symbol. Also the research station is funded by Tuttles, like the Yellow King/Governor of Louisiana.
Seasons 2 and 3 didn’t have quite so many overt references to season 1 right? I’m really hoping they don’t lean on that too much or in a ham-fisted way.
3 directly talked about Rust and Marty solving the yellow king case (the second time) as I recall but it was red herring type of thing
From Season 1:
I’m all for seeing more huskies, but please no more wolves or dogs getting disemboweled like in the first episode. That was more upsetting than the corpsicle.
Seriously! I’m not too keen on seeing them tied up outside either. I know they’re cold weather dogs, but damn, it looks REALLY cold there. They should be inside snuggling hoomans.
Huskies like to spend time in the snow and complain incessently if forced back inside prematurely. They can go to sleep on the bare ground, let the snow pile up on them and get up right as rain in the morning.
I didn’t know that; thank you!
I feel exactly the same, I get totally off track when animals are hurt onscreen.
Literally me. I can watch a man chainsaw twenty teenagers to death, no problem.
But one animal is injured or killed, and I’m like “Humans were a mistake, there is no hope for this world.”
There was that Idris Elba movie about protecting his daughters from a tiger or something and I was like “I can’t watch that, I’m going to actively root for Elba’s family to die.”
I would root for the tiger too.
We need a tiger these days more than we need any 3-4 humans. I know it sounds insane to say that but I believe it down to my bones.
I believe that too.
Couldn’t be any harder to watch than when the huskies are trapped in the cage with The Thing. I will never get over one of them trying to bite their way out of the metal in desperation.
Liz instructing Pete to ask the right question very much reminded me of SOTHL and how now Jodie Foster is, in this scene, playing the Hannibel Lecter role. Circle of pop culture life. I loved it. So if Pete is the male Clarice, let’s hope he doesn’t get dead.This show is making me think of Mare of Easttown. I like the slice of life of the characters living their lives in this town more than I do the main plot (which is great) like I did with the other show.I hadn’t seen the legendary Foster in a sex scene before. I don’t remember if Contact had one, but certainly not a R rated version. Seeing her in a black bra, sweating profusely, being serviced by Christopher Eccleston—it was unexpected, but not unattractive. She looks great generally and for her age.Also I like the hunky bartender Navarro is messing around with. Takes care of a dog and makes what appear to be delicious pancakes. I’d go gay for that.
So far a good job of making this story and its characters feel “lived in”.
Little slices of stir crazy and loneliness and hormones and grudges and secrets.
Life in a northern town.
Seeing Jodie Foster having sex with a man was weird for me. I know she’s an actor…but still…
Seeing her have sex, and sex like that, at all, was weird to me at first. But you know—she’s a fantastic actor and should play as wide range of characters and experiences as possible. Having said that, I have no desire to watch The Accused for the first time, where I assume that rape scene will be pretty graphic.
yeah, great movie but that scene…tough to watch.
It definitely IS graphic, but it’s also a fantastic film and one of Foster’s best performances.
It’s one of those see it once and never have to watch it again films
Definitely on the list, under the all time champion “Schindler’s List”
And Requiem for a Dream. And Synecdoche, NY.
Don’t forget Manchester By the Sea. …I just remembered that movie and I’m fucking depressed.
The rape scene in The Accused is horrendous and will stay with you for a long time. Saying it’s hard to watch is an understatement.
The rape scene is not a sex scene.
I didn’t say it was. My previous sentence was about how she can play all types of human experience because she’s a fantastic actor. That includes the rape scene in The Accused, which I wouldn’t want to see because she can bring home how vicious it is, and the scene itself.
yea, why? I suppose they should have hired a non-gay actor for that role?
Fortunately the middle aged man grunting and thrusting was a distraction. . .
I had no idea that the actor played the Major in 28 Days Later!
Having watched “The Leftovers” I’ve seen more than enough of Eccleston, thank you very much. Not his acting, mind you, as he was terrific in that show.
You know it’s not actual sex right?
Good call with Mare of Easton comparison, fucking LOVED that show as well as 1st season of True Detective. I am totally getting these vibes and I am all in. Hopefully Night Country delivers all the way through that 2nd and 3rd seasons didn’t.
3rd season delivered
it was unattractive.
I am digging how they are really leaning into the ‘detective’ part of the title this season. Creepy vibes all the way around in this setting, of course, but hey—at least they don’t have to deal with vampires like the poor bastards over in Barrow…I mean, probably, but the supernatural elements so far in this season suggest they can’t be ruled out, I guess.
Silence of the Holy Lambs? Hot? Happy? Horny?OMG I’m sorry #momjokes
Uh…”That man is alive, albeit in need of yet another amputation and quickly placed into a medically-induced coma, which means he won’t be available to answer any of Danvers’ questions anytime soon, including what the hell those men have been doing out at Tsalal research station in the first place.” wasn’t actually in the episode that I saw. The man screams, and that’s it. Never addressed again in the episode. No medically-induced coma, none of that.
That’s from the phone call as she’s walking into the high school and juggling the conversation with the nurse with the police radio.
There are so many details packed into this show so quickly that I discovered pretty early in I can’t ‘divide my time’ looking at my phone or whatever without missing things. I think the only reason I even knew what the reviewer was talking about is that I’m actively making myself focus on the show (which, hey, is a cool change really–only other show recently that had my undivided attention at all times was ‘Fargo’).
A friend who is a network series writer has told me that for traditional TV writing – as opposed to movies – the general rule is that you make sure every major plot point is mentioned twice at different times precisely because of what you’re mentioning: you expect your viewer more than likely to be distracted during one of the mentions.I like the show overall, and it’s certainly the best since Season 1, but one reason I’m critical of a lot of the suspension of disbelief stuff (and things that I haven’t mentioned like the “…in English?” trope) is that if Lopez expects the viewer to focus fully on the show at all times then the other side of the equation is that you had best be very, very crisp in your writing to deserve that attention.But yeah. It is very easy to miss things in this show.
Yep, that “Tell me that again in English” when a someone (expert) explains something technical or scientific in a scene, is eye roll inducing! I expected better, a different approach. (I understood the gist of what was being said by the science teacher, and I am not a scientist.) Even if it’s a bit flawed here and there, my husband and I are hooked, and eagerly await the next installment of TD.
Yeah but that cliche is exactly the kind of thing she would say. She’s anti-elitist with a chip on her shoulder.
I think ( they didn’t make it super explicit) she was at least partly trolling him. The first couple of episodes establish, first of all, that she’s smart (in a ‘normal’ strong deductive skills, rather than ‘hollywood savant’ way) and relegated through a junk promotion to a post beneath her abilities for reasons relating in part to interpersonal problems as well as potentially office politics; secondly, and linked to the last part, they establish she’s abrasive and kind of an ass, or as JF put it, an ‘Alaskan cop Karen’, who enjoys needling people beyond the call of any ‘case cracking, get a witness/suspect to blurt something out’ stratagem…basically a second cousin to Rusty Cohle in intellect and manner alike, but without the Nietzsche/ligotti allusions
A friend who is a network series writer has told me that for traditional TV writing – as opposed to movies – the general rule is that you make sure every major plot point is mentioned twice at different times precisely because of what you’re mentioning: you expect your viewer more than likely to be distracted during one of the mentions.Catering to the lowest denominator makes everyone dumber. No dis on your friend for being honest, just disheartening for those of us that love getting hooked on smart smart smarter TV shows.
Ys, it was. She gets told that over the phone. Jfc, what’s with the multiple people in the comments criticizing the article because they are apparently incapable of following the show, even though it’s streaming and you can pause and/or rewind whenever necessary?
In fairness to the other commenter, there aren’t many shows with details like this made anymore (that I can think of, at least). Most shows anymore I can watch with one eye and follow with no problem–this isn’t one of those shows. I certainly understand how anyone is used to a show spelling everything out or having characters announce something loudly and more than once. I appreciate that you will definitely miss something, and possibly an important something, if you aren’t actively paying attention to damn near every second of this show.
My wife and I just watched the episode, although she tends to read or play an iPad game while watching, yet she can still pay attention better than me. After it was over, she was asking about one of the scientists who was in surgery, and I was like “what? I don’t remember a scene in a hospital or any surgery?”, so.. this explains it! She got more just by listening than I did by watching and humming ‘Bury a Friend’ in my head.
That song has been stuck in my head since the first episode. Honestly I’ve been pretty impressed with the musical cues in this show so far. Most songs seem to be chosen with lyrics that fit the moment, but don’t beat you over the head with them (at least to my thinking).
Haha well I have moments like that when I thought I was paying attention then realized I was thinking about other stuff through the last 20 minutes and have no idea what’s going on…sigh…rewind to the point I can remember and go “Okay what the fuck are we talking about here?” Sadly it’s much more common as the years go on
I’ve found that a lot of people are obviously not giving their full attention to the shows/movies they watch, whether it’s looking at their phone or doing other tasks. Then they’re surprised to hear details that were right there onscreen even in shows that are much simpler than this one.
He is specifically mentioned again as being in a coma
Pay attention better then?
The right question scene was the best of the show so far; among other things, it shows why Danvers is not just a small town police chief but was exiled for whatever reason. The rest of the internal logic for keeping the investigation local was a bit contrived right up until they linked the two cases, which while I understand why it was delayed for narrative purposes made it difficult to really establish why Danvers was being a hardass in keeping the murders under her control. This was also an episode where there was a decent amount of suspension of disbelief, ranging from the Bryce scene to the Connelly boinking to the fact that a trailer could be miraculously hidden in a small town. Some of that I suppose came from it doubling as a Danvers character development episode.The show remains very dense, and I still haven’t quite figured out the family relationships yet.
I think the family relationships are: Liz is Leah’s stepmom. Leah’s cousin is Kayla (“she’s in the kitchen with our grandma”), who is married to young Prior. For now it’s unclear if the kid who’s in Liz’s flashback is her biological child or her husband’s kid from a previous relationship.Side note, damn, what an asshole power move to tell your employee he can’t go home to tuck his kid in, and then go to his house and act all friendly with the kid and say “you’re welcome” to his wife.
I was worried that they were just gonna make Danvers a cookie-cutter Boss Bitch – where everyone else gets pissed off at her but only because everyone else is an idiot and exists just to showcase her genius.But they made the great call to make her a piece of shit and give her more depth. She’s racist, arrogant, self-centred, and narcissistic. Fucking love Navarro for calling her out on it – “Everyone hates you, except that Prior kid, and you’ll break his heart too.”
And then get furious at your indigenous surrogate daughter because she dared wanting to see what traditional tattoos might look on her.
I thought it was a trailer park. It made the phrasing weird (why would you say “where do you hide a trailer?” if there’s a trailer park in town), but that’s what it looked like to me.
It sure appeared to be a ‘hiding in plain sight’ thing with the trailer. Being from a small town that would be very easy to do I think. You might ask someone why is such-and-such trailer there and they’d say oh they heard it was a friend of so-and-so’s and that’s perfectly reasonable and you don’t notice the trailer ever again, or you might, but you don’t give it a second thought and it becomes a part of the landscape…or something like that. I might be a little stoned.
Am I crazy- how come none of these detectives (or anyone else) brought up the right, and only question to ask? “Who melted a 6′ x 6′ hole in 4ft of frozen ice in the middle of nowhere to put in the bodies, and left no clues on how they did it. The enormity of that task- the number of people, the co-ordination, the amount of energy needed to make that hole and get those bodies in it. Jodie Foster is there wondering about ear drums, am I like what about the elephant that’s surfing behind you l. Kind of kills the whole show when an entire police dept (who try to be clever) – ‘ask the right question’ misses that one.
probably buried in an avalanche like in the Dyatlov Pass incident
From Season 1
Unless I missed something (always a possibility), I do not think that Clark was thawed from a human iceberg. I think he was never among the frozen bodies. There was one frozen body with the spiral symbol drawn on his forehead, but Clark had it on his chest.
Correct – he was absent. The reviewer messed that up.
Yeah, I think that’s the only detail they actually got wrong in this review. Given that we don’t have all the clothes (though that was discussed as ‘people were in various states of dress when they left’) I figured it must mean he was never part of the corpsicle.
“it’s a whole other thing to have one of said inhabitants roaming around the tundra nude and newly thawed from a human iceberg.”What? No. That’s not how I read the revelation. It’s not that he thawed out and walked off, it’s that he was never part of the iceberg.
Oh great, they’re Prometheusing Season 1
This show reminds me so much of the British show Fortitude. Definitely wonder if a mammoth carcass comes into play here at some point….
Both filmed in Iceland.
Yo, the biggest reveal of the episode is that Travis’ last name is Cohle!, As in Rust Cohle’s father!!! You think we might get to see Rust again?
Rust Cohle would be the same age as Fiona Shaw, so I doubt Travis could be his father
Brother, uncle, whatever, time is a flat circle. The connection has been made. The spiral is also in both seasons. Plus, the Tuttle Corp behind the lab is the same as the baddies from season 1. Bring it! I’m in!
We know from season 1 that Rust’s father was named Travis, lives in Alaska and had leukemia. It is 100% him.
“But it’s a whole other thing to have one of said inhabitants roaming around the tundra nude and newly thawed from a human iceberg. Let the creepiness continue!”That’s not what’s happening right? Parka guy was never in the corpsicle to begin with.
really forced, lame connections to season one. Jodie Foster can’t play a grizzled old cop, sorry. Her performance is distractingly bad.
We going to talk about the stuffed polar bear missing an eye like the one Navarro saw?
Interesting catch, but it’s hard to tell if that’s the case.I went back and looked closely. The camera angle is such that you can’t really see if the left eye is missing or not – it’s blocked by the nose and in the flashback you can’t see it at all – although it’s notable that the kid is first covering up his right eye when they’re playing with it.
The plush polar bear actually shows up in the first episode, right before Navarro sees the real one and the plush is definitely missing its eye.
Had forgotten about that. As I’ve said, the show is dense.Guess it’s being built up to something with the ‘She’s awake’ whisper when real (?) bear meanders across the street, but since the vast majority of supernatural mythology has not particularly paid off in so many shows over the years, I tend not to get invested in it nowadays.
Also the woman who got punched at the plant was hit in her left eye.
I believe the dead woman from the cold case was missing the same eye.
“it’s a whole other thing to have one of said inhabitants roaming around the tundra nude and newly thawed from a human iceberg.”I think the implication is that he was never in the corpsicle.
“But it’s a whole other thing to have one of said inhabitants roaming around the tundra nude and newly thawed from a human iceberg. Let the creepiness continue!”
My take on this was that the missing researcher was never in the frozen mass of corpses, and this was only discovered after they thawed and the snow and ice were removed.
Where in the world did you see a scene with a frozen corpse alive and then going to the hospital? The fuck?
Lazy show, same old same old. The SEX SCENES look so forced, the HORROR of what poosibly couldv happened to these frozen humans..its like a cheap horror flick from the 80s imo.
I’ve enjoyed it overall, but I’d prefer no more sex scenes.
I think the sex scenes for this show aren’t supposed to be sexy. They’re supposed to be workmanlike, angry pounding just to release punt up frustrations at not being able to solve the case.Reminds me of season 1, too (didn’t watch s2 or s3).
honestly “cheap horror flick from the 80s” has hyped me to watch this more than anything else so far
Where’s the callout for Liz asking Evangeline “where are the canned stuff now”? Hard to believe that E is yet another of Liz’s partners to keep warm, but it would explain the level of pain/conflict between the 2 of them.
There is a difference between awkward and not grammatical. I meant to say “where IS the canned stuff now…?”
I read that as familiarity from when they worked together, assuming she had Navarro working late (like with her new mentee) and showed up unexpectedly at her home with case information before.
“If you follow the taxes you can trace it back to a shell company called ‘NC Global Strategies’, which, in turn, belongs to ‘Tuttle United.’”
Pretty sure Chelsea beat Tuttle United last week.
so many funny icelandic production bits:—a hockey game, figure skating, and free skate on the same rink at the same time. with spectators. okay—”Metal US Tour” poster in the guy’s room. Even if it’s not AI it’s hilarious—five globes stacked next to each other behind the geology guy. he loves earth stuff!—the cop apprentice, the young guy. I’m sorry but the instant I saw him I was like “there is no way that guy is american.” I assumed icelandic but he’s from London. This show is supposed to be about a small town in alaska. It’s following in the footsteps of a show that had incredible local color in it’s casting and locations. This show is not shot in the place it’s set and has few if any actors from the location/culture. huge fail here
Hey now—Metal US Tour was one of the best tours of it’s time! It was VERY Metal! And took place in the U.S.!
I went to the show on the 2st, not sure if it was better than the 2rd?
So are you also peeved that Kate Winslet played Mare of Eastham?
Filmed in Iceland – huge tax breaks.
Any savings would have been blown the first night the cast and crew went out for a few drinks.
Or bought some Oreo’s, evidently, given the price quoted.
If you are upset about Brits (or sub in Aussies or Kiwis) playing Americans, then I have bad news for you…
Should we read anything into Tiktok dancers the young cop was watching on his phone allegedly being in a cult?:
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/7m-films-tiktok-dance-cult-allegations-miranda-wilking-james-derrick-1323200/
What meaning do you take from Danvers’ name knowing Danvers, MA was originally Salem Village (of the witch trials fame) – is she a false accuser? Or (pun intended) the accused?
That sex scene was 10/10. Like, I’ve never seen sex depicted in a way that resembled two people trying to haul an awkward piece of furniture. And I love the idea of two people basically carrying on an intermittent 20-year affair. This season has done a good job investing relationships and places with history.
The main theme I’m picking up on is resurrection/conquering death. I get the sense that the Tsalal scientists found some extremophile organism that survived being frozen and started experimenting with it on themselves and animals (one-eyed polar bears?) Perhaps the mining operations brought it closer to the surface? Anyway, the organism-thing turned out to be pathogenic, like a The Last of Us-style zombie fungus. Maybe Annie K. was infected, wound up dying, and her death was made to look like a murder to cover it up.
My random distraction question is – I’m pretty sure I heard the tattoo parlor was paid $600. For that one spiral? In one colour? And it’s not even original artwork? I know they mentioned $20 oreos but that’s a veeeeeeery expensive tattoo. OR more people were tattooed at the same time, possibly?
I don’t understand the discrepancy between the official critics and the people watching. Is it the benefit of the doubt because of HBO? Because of the name True Detective? Because of the all female team? I mean I want to give it the benefit of the doubt because of True Detective, but I can’t help agreeing with some of the feedback some posters last week gave – this shouldn’t really be called True Detective, but it’s own thing. Because now all the spiritual and horror-like elements are law sand paper against the gritty cop show that it’s also trying to be.A list of things I didn’t like, and I only watched the first half (because of sleep that need be got as well):
– tropey discussion between Navarro and the Old Spiritual Lady
– dead bodies stuck together that need be thawed like a goddamn public display in the ice hockey place
– the not so subtle ‘checking out of the other hot babe’ of the teenage kid
– can’t female roles be ‘tough’ and gritty without adding exactly what we expect masculine toughness? Durr I ain’t showin’ no emotions, durr, I don’t take no shit, durr, fuck you, no fuck you, etc
– one of the frozen bodies makes a sound and then we cut away and… nothing?
– dialoguesI’m invested enough in the mystery and I have more benefits of doubts to give, and I love the setting, but my biggest question was: how did this show get such a good score on Rotten Tomatoes?
Also please take me out of the greys.
Agree with all the points. This is not True Detective, more like fan fiction from someone frustrated that the “supernatural” elements of the first season were never explained.
I’m kind of disgusted that there could be Millennials that are nostalgic for the fucking Spice Girls. Shirley Manson was mockingly reciting “tell me what you want, what you really really want” while performing Stupid Girl in the mid-90s.
Stop cellular degeneration? Maybe Clarke had the body of Annie (“she’s awake” Ep 1) and wished to stop/reverse he decay. Of course the dead coming back theme, but they were just spirits.
It’s really weird how this review doesn’t bother to mention the several clear references to season one of the series. The spiral. Travis’s last name being Kohle. ‘Tuttle Industries’. C’mon y’all.
Meh. The show sort of still isn’t doing it for me. There’s only 6 episodes, so not much time to fix the character problems I’m seeing and solve the mystery. Jodie Foster’s character is a true piece of shit to everyone. I know there’ll be a “well here’s my backstory monologue so you can see why I’m such a shitbird” coming, or else there’s no reason for her to be pissed at her adoptive daughter for seeing how traditional tattoos would look on her, or for pushing back against Navarro’s help for “reasons”, or for being too stubborn to relinquish the case to Anchorage and getting pissed at Eccleson’s character for merely suggesting it. Navarro seems to be the only functioning law enforcement officer at the time being, actually doing detective work and following up with leads without pushing away everyone around her. Iunno, I just finished Fargo S5 and am rewatching 2013’s Hannibal, and both those drama/killer shows are much MUCH more rewarding to watch than this show so far. The supernatural elements are basically the only thing keeping me interested at this point.
could not finish this episode. felt the writing and acting was unbearable. I can’t be the only one…