Detective Goes North

I caught the first episode of the new season of True Detective last night--or is it truly True Detective? I'll come back to that. For the quality of the episode itself, I'd say any time Jodie Foster was onscreen it was good, other times it kind of sucked.

It's set in Alaska at the beginning of one of the long nights they get up there. A group of scientists at a research station mysteriously disappears while they're watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Somehow the DVD gets stuck in a loop during the big scene where Matthew Broderick lipsyncs to The Beatles. None of the detectives asks why the video was stuck in a loop so I guess writer Issa Lopez didn't want us to ask.

It seems clear HBO wanted to recapture the spark from season one and they booted creator Nic Pizzolatto to do it. The supernatural element is back and, despite the new setting, the episode hews closer to the model of the first season, except without any kind of non-linear storytelling or narration. It's also much more feminist, featuring two female detectives, both of whom have non-traditional, dominant roles in their personal and professional lives. Foster is always good and Kali Reis isn't bad but it doesn't feel organic as much as it feels like a corporate decision based on Twitter/X trends.

As if to add insult to injury, the opening credits say the show is "Based on True Detective Created by Nic Pizzolatto" followed by a credit that simply says, "Created by Issa Lopez". Well, is it True Detective or isn't it? An episode of The Twilight Zone written by Robert Bloch didn't make the series "created by" Robert Bloch. Nic Pizzolatto is still credited as executive producer, so is Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey and about a million other people. The line of people stuffing their fingers into the pie was kind of sickening. The theme song is Billie Eilish's "Bury a Friend", which is a song I like but still feels like an unimaginative choice. It's a song everyone watching already knows whereas it feels like previous seasons all introduced something obscure and striking, adding real character to the season.

Procedural scenes with Jodie Foster are good and Fiona Shaw has a nice creepy scene. But it really feels like the magic's not here this season.

True Detective is available on Max.