True Detective: Night Country
From a True Alaskan’s Correct Observations
I’ve stayed silent about True Detective: Night Country for long enough. The first three episodes had some inaccuracies about Alaska, but I let them slide. And then episode four came along and made Alaska look like a stupid little bitch. And nobody can call my home state a stupid little bitch but me. Sure, I live in the mean streets of Los Angeles, and before this, I lived in the mean streets of Manhattan, but before that, I was born and raised on a gold mine in the frozen hellscape of Fairbanks, Alaska. And the fact that I grew up in the Night Country makes me overly qualified to defend it. Because honey, I am the Night Country.
I tend to be lenient regarding depictions of Alaska because I understand why, from a personal and production standpoint, you’d never want to film there. But the trade-off is that if you aren’t going to film in Alaska, at least ensure you have the correct details. Spoiler alert: episode four also made me want to undress and walk into the sea.
After a quick and flawless Google search, I learned True Detective; Night Country was filmed in Iceland. Shout out to Bjork. Further Googling made me aware that Iceland has some pretty good deals for TV productions because they have tax incentives, in case you want to shoot your little thing there. Iceland is smart, they want us to bring cold hard American cash to their economy. It’s cheaper for American shows to film in Iceland than it is to film in the forty-ninth state because Alaska shut down its film incentive program in 2015.
So, if you’re an Alaskan screaming at your TV every time a show or movie isn’t filmed there, maybe take it up with someone who gives a fuck. Call your local representatives, or, I don’t know, write Dermott Cole and tell him you’re sick and tired of not having an accurate representation of Alaska on mainstream TV.
Bring back incentives. Alaskans love incentives; look at the Permanent Fund Dividend check. Non-Alaskans: did you know the state of Alaska will pay you and each member of your family roughly two thousand dollars a year to live there? It’s a great deal, especially if you like Stockholm Syndrome. For me, it wasn’t worth it. In fact, there is no dollar amount that would ever lure me back to the great state of Alaska.
As I mentioned before and will probably mention again, I live in Los Angeles. I can see the Hollywood sign from my house (if I stand on a chair on the roof.) True Detective: Night Country is why shows hire people like me as consultants before going into production. For example, I was brought in as a punch-up writer for season three of TBS’s The Detour, which took place in Alaska. It’s because of me the characters didn’t say something embarrassing, like calling snowmachines ‘snowmobiles.’
Let me prove my worth as a consultant and break down the inaccuracies in episode four, starting from the top of the show. Warning: SPOILERS AHEAD; TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT.
If you haven’t seen the episode yet. Go. Now. Hurry! And then come back.
At the top of the episode, I ask the question. Where is their breath?! Why can’t I see their breath!! It’s December in the Arctic, and whenever a character is outside, I expect a comically large cloud of vapor every time they exhale. December is Visible Breath Awareness month in Alaska, and puffs of smoke can be easily added in post.
Let’s check in on our two leads, Chief Liz Danvers, played by America’s favorite sandy-haired lesbian, Jodie Foster; and Detective Evanjaline Navarro, played by Kali Reis, who is a former boxer and could very easily snap a full-grown man in half, which I would pay good money to see.
Let’s first address the elephant in the room, Navarro’s cheek piercings. Cool looking? Yes. Do I love it? Absolutely. Impractical in Alaska? You betcha. I’m sorry, but do you know how quickly the metal would freeze outside? You’d develop immediate frostbite. Your cheeks would have to be amputated. Yikes, not a good look.
The episode starts with Danvers driving to the local ice rink, where a pile of dead scientists has been thawing out. This is one of the only accurate depictions in the entire episode because that pile of bodies is exactly what an Ice Dogs game looks like.
On the way to the rink, Danvers finds Navarro’s sister stripping off her clothes in the middle of the street. This is how you catch hypothermia. Wow, I spelled hypothermia right on the first try. Nice. I didn’t graduate from Lathrop for nothing.
Back at the police station, Detective Connelly shows up to aid the investigation because you know what is missing? An old white man’s perspective. In Alaska, one male detective is equal to or greater than two female detectives. Connelly walks over to Danvers’ dead snake plant and waters it. Sure, plants can survive throughout the Alaskan winter, but they need grow lights. And if you love the lighting in the Nordstrom Rack dressing room, you’ll love grow lights. No, no one’s stupid enough to have plants in the winter. Next.
Meanwhile, the dead bodies at the ice rink are being packed up and transported down to the thriving metropolis of Anchorage. If a pile of frozen bodies were thawing in any other state, this would be national news, and the press would be all over it. This is the kind of story that separates the reporters from the journalists. A stack of dead people would be the hottest story in America, the New York Post headline would read: Frozen on Ice: Not the Elsa and Anna story. I can do better than that, but they’re not paying me.
If you were playing a drinking game where you took a shot every time they whined, “But it’s Christmas Eve!” You’d be dead by now. Oh, how the writers wanted to drive that point home. I’m stealing that line anytime anyone wants me to do something, especially if it’s NOT Christmas Eve.
Navarro’s sister checked into a rehab facility. She’s sitting on her bed when a mysterious orange rolls out from underneath. We’ve seen these oranges throughout the season, and let me tell you a secret about fresh fruit in a rural Alaskan town. If you can afford to buy fruit in the winter, you win. Whoever has the orange has the power.
My older sister Maria made a good point; she noticed the cell phone coverage has been flawless all season, so they definitely don’t have Verizon. There’s an invisible line in Alaska where cell coverage stops violently and suddenly. This is what our ancestors called “living off-the-grid.” And speaking of living off the grid, who is this gray-haired queen Navarro has Christmas Eve dinner with? Navarro asks if Rose Agganoix is her real name, as well as who she was “before” Alaska. Rule number one in Fight Club is that we don’t ask newcomers what they’re running from. It’s rude. Besides, in time, it will all come out. I knew a guy named “Frank” who definitely killed a cop in Florida before fleeing to Alaska in the seventies. Frank wasn’t his real name. He had no last name, no ID, and no bank accounts. At the end of his life, he was catfished by a woman in Thailand, and that’s the circle of life. The grid is real. Respect the grid.
The show takes us over to the Silver Sky Mining Company, where Danvers’s step-daughter was caught spray painting the word “Murderers” on the front door. That’s fine, it works. But off to the side, are two parked Teslas. I’m taking my Alaska cap off for a second and speaking as a Tesla owner: Teslas are notoriously not made for cold weather. The battery drains and the electronics malfunction. Plus, all the way up in Rural Alaska? Show me even one charging station along the Dalton Highway. I’ll wait.
We head to the airport and watch a funny scene where Hank Prior gets stood up by his mail-order bride (are we still calling them that?). There’s a moment when he thinks the gorgeous blonde flight attendant is his fiance, and I laughed. And I laughed. And I laughed some more when she closed the plane door on him and his dumb little stuffed rabbit.
There’s so much drama happening back at Danvers’ house that I can barely keep up. Her stepdaughter packs her things and leaves in an SUV driven by Pete’s wife, who probably has a name. The unrealistic thing here is that the driver’s side window is rolled down for some strange reason, letting all the cold air in. There’s no way a person would have their window down in late December unless they were smoking a cigarette, and even then, it would only be cracked a few centimeters, just enough to tap the ash off. I say this as a former smoker, I knew the addiction controlled me when I found myself stepping outside in forty-below weather nearly every half hour. Not worth it. If you want to smoke, move to the lower forty-eight and do it properly.
After getting snubbed at the airport, Hank returns to the police department and pours himself a warm bottle of Jim Beam. A little later, Danvers goes to Pound Town on some vodka. Welcome to Alaska, what can I get you? Danvers gets her buzz on and calls up Navarro with some breaking news, and Navarro lays into her, “Are you drunk?!”
Baby, it’s winter in Alaska. Everybody’s drunk.
Now that Danvers is on one, she orders Pete and Navarro out to the Nomad Camps to find some dude, but he’s already gone. They’re confronted by a group of native men who are using huskies as guard dogs for some reason. Cute.
Navarro asks where she can find the man, and this is where the writers come up with the most stereotypical Alaskan thing ever: he responds, “We were supposed to go seal hunting,” the same way a Gen-Xer would say, “We were supposed to hike at Runyon and grab a cold-press at Cafe Gratitude on Larchmont.” Let’s do better as writers and as people.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Hank is sad his fiance ghosted him. He went all out for her and draped his bed with hundreds of rose petals. The Alaskan in me screeched to a halt. Rose petals? In December? What are you, a billionaire?! You can’t get fresh roses in rural Alaska unless you DoorDash a pilot to fly them up from a major city, and if that’s the case, I think it’s time we start paying the police department less.
Navarro finds out her sister is dead. Oh well! She’s feeling feisty and needs somewhere to unleash her rage. She starts at the rehab facility, but the front desk guy is too easy, so she drives back to the group of white guys and punches the one who flipped her off in the face. Then, they gang up and beat her senseless. The unfortunate truth is that white men beating up native women happens often, and it’s infuriating and maddening that this is the world we live in. No joke here, just the cold hard fucking truth. Yet, the disappearance of indigenous women somehow remains at the bottom of law enforcement’s list of priorities.
There are also way too many white men in Ennis. But I say that about everywhere I go.
Danvers is back behind the wheel, cruising down the ice road highway, when she veers into the ditch to avoid hitting a one-eyed Polar Bear. This brings me to my next topic: Why don’t Polar Bears walk south? They don’t have to live in the Arctic; there’s plenty of food just a few hundred miles away. If they go extinct because of melting ice caps, global warming, and food shortages, can’t we capture a few and set them free near Fairbanks? It breaks my heart to know that Polar Bears are working harder, not smarter. They deserve to live in Alaska just as much as anybody, and we have to figure out a way to lure them towards big cities, where they can feast like kings.
Navarro finally catches up with Danvers and tells her that A) her sister is dead, and B) she lost the stone with the circle on it. I’m sorry about your sister, but you can’t just leave major pieces of evidence behind at random dude’s houses. That stone was important. Rocks are also important. And, of course, gold is the most important of all.
Now that the team is back together, they head out to an abandoned gold dredge, which is where I come in with my extremely hot takes — pow pow. I grew up in an old mining bunkhouse built in the late 1920s. When I looked out my bedroom window, Gold Dredge #8 was in my backyard. I could’ve hit the Dredge with a softball from the bunkhouse deck, (throwing it as an adult, not as a kid) and God knows I tried.
Most people don’t know what a Gold Dredge is, and that’s obvious in this episode. Because on the way to the Dredge, Navarro says she used to watch the dredges in operation as a kid while they were still running. In reality, the EPA shut down all of the Gold Dredges in Alaska long before she was born due to environmental concerns, such as destroying the earth, among other issues.
So, if Navarro saw the dredges working as a child, she’s either a time traveler, a liar, or aging with the grace of Halle Berri. I can guarantee she’s never seen a gold dredge in operation in her life. And they weren’t amazing, as she claims. Dredges were a public nuisance; you could hear them barrelling through the valley from six miles away. Men went deaf working on them. But people do crazy things for gold. It’s called Gold Fever, and it’s a real condition. Tell your doctor if you experience any side effects.
At this point in the show, I pause and lesbian-splain to my girlfriend how a Gold Dredge operates. You see, a chain of dredge buckets scoops up massive amounts of dirt on a conveyor belt. The dirt goes through a trommel and sluice box, and any gold is caught at the bottom of the sluice box. The nuggets, rocks, sticks, and mammoth tusks, basically everything that’s worthless, shoot out of the back of the dredge, leaving only tailing piles in its wake.
The interior of a dredge is composed of metal ladders leading to different platforms, grates, gears, and rotting wood planks. One wrong step will drop you three flights below, and you’ll be lucky to die without any pain. But the most important thing to know about gold dredges is that they are all haunted. I’m not saying that to scare anyone; it’s a simple fact. I used to see the ghost of an old dredge captain in my dredge when I was growing up. He was murdered by his best friend, who then stole the man’s gold, and then his wife. I wonder how he’s doing now that Trooper McCann discovered his remains.
By the end of the episode, Danvers finds Otis, and I’m shocked she didn’t try to fuck him. Navarro is in a trance, sitting in front of a Dredge Christmas Tree. And Otis leaves us with a warning, that we are all in the night country now.
Especially me. I’m the most in the night country.
Lauren Reeves is a comedy writer, author, and TV producer living in Los Angeles, California. I warned you I’d bring it up again.
Agreed. Good show! But yes being from Alaska it’s annoying that so many shows and movies don’t keep in mind details to show true Alaska.