The Night Country, Part 3

Episode 3

(1/29/24)

Any truly successful mystery story requires a few essential components, namely, an intriguing plot if not interesting multi-plot lines, a likable detective, a compelling villain, and reasonable empathy for the victim(s). In mentioning the aforementioned “Michael Jordan of TV detective shows,” Season One of True Detective, we would be remiss to not mention another masterpiece of TV mystery shows. This would be none other than David Lynch and Mark Frost’s classic Twin Peaks which elevated this genre to an incomparable level of suspense and high strangeness. All of the above elements were present there, and then some. Again, probably unfair to compare but so far, personally I’m not digging Jody Foster’s character, among others. Whether this is by design or not, who knows? Fortunately, Kali Reis’s cold-hearted but mystically inclined State Trooper Navarro is starting to grow on me a bit. So for better or for worse we will carry on with our retrospective narrative and analysis.

It is three days before Christmas and Detective Navarro is slowly being drawn deeper into the spirit world. As Hank Prior organizes a search party for that danged still-missing weirdo scientist Clark, apparently Annie K’s secret lover and Suspect Number One at the moment, he enlists the aid of his “hillbilly hunting buddies.” Certainly no good can come of this in the eyes of the so-called authorities. It’s probably just one more thing he’s doing to derail the investigation and/or piss off his sour ex, Danvers, to boot. Alone out on the ice, Navarro hears spirits calling out to her. We witness a flashback of one of her earlier encounters with Annie K, when the indigenous, surly midwife and local activist was still alive. While serving a warrant on Annie K for trespassing on the mines, Navarro is unwittingly drawn into a private birthing session and is unexpectedly gifted the witnessing of the fragility of the miracle of new life.

Meanwhile, transferring 19 boxes of evidence from Clark’s creepy trailer, young Prior inquires of Danvers the backstory regarding the deep-seated animosity between her and Navarro. Danvers, the conspicuously unreliable narrator, reveals another flashback. This being a past case they worked on together of an abusive husband who ended up murdering his young girlfriend. In a predictable homage to or redundant copycat plot device of Season One, Danvers recalls that she and Navarro came upon the grisly murder-suicide just moments too late, while her private recall shows that the murderer was still alive when they entered. The evasive Danvers lamely claims that the two had some ambiguous falling out over the case. Later, while sifting through the evidence together, Danvers and Navarro link a photo of Annie K to her hairdresser friend, apparently one of the few individuals privy to Annie K and Clark’s secret romance. In a subsequent interview, the hairdresser reveals further clues and a new character. She had dated a former engineer from the Tsalal station, an indigenous engineer who has gone voluntarily off the grid somewhere out on the ice. Even more shocking, she reveals her anonymous call to former Chief Hank, which has gone suspiciously unreported by that slippery so-and-so. Needless to say, Navarro is freaking pissed, brah! In yet another gratuitous homage to Season One, in the car Navarro and Danvers share a contentious dialectic over the case, and a moderately engaging philosophical debate, logic and reason vs. intuition and mysticism, etc. Navarro briefly shuts Danvers up, confessing that she does not pray to God. She listens! . . .

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