We’ve often finished an episode of television and looked for a discussion thread online, only to be disappointed. Either no such thread exists, or all the oxygen is taken by puns and references that have been posted a thousand times. We wanted to be able to have some good jokes, some good analysis, and some good times.
That’s why we decided to take matters into our own hands (not unlike a hardened detective trying to crack a spooky case) and create the discussion threads we want to see in the world. So we asked writers, comedians, and filmmakers to hang out for a bit after an episode and make our own comment section. Welcome to the Dibs Texts Post-Episode Discussion Thread for True Detective: Night Country EPISODE FIVE!
All the news on this site is “real,” but this stuff is really real. SPOILERS AHEAD.
- so do we think Hank is OK?
- That one scientist woke up after being frozen to death so maybe
- yea he’s probably just sleeping. i predict that next episode he will wake up in the hospital and his russian wife will be there to greet him
- Just a minor headshot, nothing serious
- it would rule if he showed up as a spirit navarro sees. at the climax of the finale it’s just hank’s ghost pointing at her
- he does a big dance
- that would turn the whole show around imo
- Then Brit Marling shows up and it turns out this whole thing was a back door pilot for the long anticipated third season of the OA which HBO has resurrected
- jk david zaslav would never
- he does a big dance
- That one scientist woke up after being frozen to death so maybe
- hate to say it, but zero progress on anything supernatural seems to imply they’re gonna say it’s mass psychosis caused by polluted water. i find this particularly interesting because they’re regularly using the supernatural aspects as teasers for the next episode, but now the episodes themselves are mostly devoid of them except for little flashes of hallucinations that don’t really need to be there
- if you’re gonna have the kid turn and point at navarro in the crosswalk, you have to at least IMPLY she’s going to run the kid down
- i also thought she might run the kid down lol
- it did not feel like that was intentionally implied at all, it felt like i wanted that to be implied and so i inserted shots of, like, her hand gripping the steering wheel tighter, her foot leaning on the pedal, in my head
- i also thought she might run the kid down lol
- I think they are trying to do the classic True Detective thing of “was the supernatural stuff real or not? there’s evidence of both!” but it’s gonna come at the last second and therefore be far less satisfying than if it was a genuine question throughout the show. bc right now its like “the supernatural stuff is just real!”
- it’s not even necessarily that it’s real– it’s more that it doesn’t matter whether it’s real or not in any tangible way, because there’s so little of it and it’s throwaways
- agreed
- i love ambiguity when it comes to supernatural stuff, but yeah i think phil is right — they are leaning on it and engaging with it so much that it starts to feel trite. there’s that moment in season one where the birds fly in a spiral. that was super cool and eerie but they didn’t spend several epsidoes talking about the birds after that
- it’s not really ambiguous atm. it’s just textually real afaik. but I do think at the end they’re gonna be like “was it tho?”
- I believe a lot of those things in season one were explicitly hallucinations tied to Rust’s past drug use
- yeah that’s true, they give us a realistic “out” for all that stuff
- it’s not even necessarily that it’s real– it’s more that it doesn’t matter whether it’s real or not in any tangible way, because there’s so little of it and it’s throwaways
- if you’re gonna have the kid turn and point at navarro in the crosswalk, you have to at least IMPLY she’s going to run the kid down
- “you clean. you clean good”
- me to my spongebob toothbrush
- i did find the confrontation between liz and hank compelling, wish it were earlier in the season since he’s just a pawn. however, why did hank bring up annie k?? am i insane for thinking that would be the last thing on his mind at a time like that? was it that he knew that his son was going to shoot him and he wanted to confess? if so, why did he say blood is blood while he was lifting his gun? i did like that the scene extended the way danvers and hank treat Boy Cop, in that danvers trusts him to “think” and hank is instructing him what to do.
- I agree, it was weird to bring that up. It made him look a lot worse! Not that it matters because it was gonna end that way either way.
- I think the Annie K stuff was pure exposition and it made that confrontation feel very cheesy to me. I just feel like I can see the pieces moving in order to get us to the end of the show rather than making sense. is Hank THAT sad that he will commit suicide by cop-son? would Peter really just shoot his dad in cold blood? the detectivey stuff just feels completely lost at this point. does the main murder even have a suspect 5 episodes into the show?
- Yeah, agreed. I got a little dizzy trying to follow what leads were for the Tsalal and which were for Annie (do I even have that right, that those are the main two threads?)
- yes, the Tsalal case is the current thing and the Annie stuff happened a long time ago but is seemingly connected
- Right. But then we’ve also got the murder suicide that Navarro and Danvers were connected to? Turns out there are a lot of cases when you’re a cop I guess
- the basic idea is the woman who owns the mine likely killed annie for leading the protests, and is now trying to cover up whatever happened at tsalal. she’s been pulling strings for a while now, as hank’s obstructionism in tsalal was bought and paid for, and he’s been on their payroll since before danvers even arrived in the town. likely danvers’ boss is too
- yes and there’s apparently a lot of evidence in the cave where Annie died. also Danvers fucked the husband of the woman who owns the mine
- i think regardless of the details of the murder it’s pretty clear that the broad strokes are “mine hate activist, mine kill activist.” personally i am not captivated by which specific cops helped the mine, who specifically did the killing, etc.
- yes, the Tsalal case is the current thing and the Annie stuff happened a long time ago but is seemingly connected
- Yeah, agreed. I got a little dizzy trying to follow what leads were for the Tsalal and which were for Annie (do I even have that right, that those are the main two threads?)
- while I’m complaining, I think a big issue with this show is the lack of new information for the audience. Danvers and Navarro have done a good job of figuring things out piece by piece, but it’s almost always something we as the viewers already know (either because the information was shown to us or because we know we are watching True Detective). stuff like Danvers figuring out everyone says “she’s awake” is not that compelling because we have seen it happen over and over since the first episode
- oh did i miss the explanation of she’s awake?
- no but last episode (sorry i wasn’t here lol) i think is when she sees it being said in the video and starts to connect that thread a bit. she also hears it from Otis this week and I feel like does a look
- yeah this season spends a ton of time on the police work but ultimately most of the police work feels dispensable, like i had a strong urge to look at my phone whenever they’re talking about the case
- They should have more cork boards with evidence pinned to them
- my point is that even though Danvers has made progress on the “she’s awake” front by realizing it’s a clue, WE as the viewer have gotten zero progress since the literal opening shot of the show. all we know is that people say it before shit goes down
- oh did i miss the explanation of she’s awake?
- one thing that’s undeniable: police sirens look very cool on the ice at night
- really impressed by christopher eccleston’s ability to go from goofy to menacing, really such a fantastic actor
- he is really good! I like pretty much all of the acting tbh
- He was great in the mine office scene!
- yeah jodie foster was really great this episode as well
- every time i see her, i get so mad about Ronald Reagan. someone has to do something….
- saw plenty of people saying this on twitter but i agree, some fantastic actors are carrying some rough dialogue here
- they clearly communicated that navarro and danvers killed wheeler in the first scene it was brought up, so the interrogation scene only played because of the acting imo. wasn’t really a lot to reveal, except that there’s proof now. but the way hank responded initially to danvers made me think he had that proof already– i think i even mentioned that in episode 2 or something when we were like “how is hank getting away with all this stonewalling”
- Yeah I felt the same way. I was much better at asking the right question than boy cop was
- yeah and they just had someone threaten danvers with the information, so it’s not even like there are real stakes to the interrogation. he’s not the first or most important person to find out
- i love that they flipped every single image in the case file rather than just say he used his non-dominant hand to kill himself
- i do feel like the show is pretty much on board with “a few bad apples” and that “good cops do bad things for good reasons” which i’m not in love with
- maybe i just haven’t seen enough, but I’m not sure I have ever seen a cop-based show transcend that. people sometimes say The Wire does but it really doesn’t imo. (The Wire is still very good)
- i’m not necessarily looking for transcendence, and true detective is probably not the show to get it, but i guess i feel like pete shooting his dad and covering it up shouldn’t include the line “you know how to do this” or whatever. he was framed as the “purer” one, and i didn’t get the feeling that we were supposed to feel as though he’s being corrupted so much as he was caught out of necessity in a rough situation. danvers is the one who is trying to do the “right thing” in that scene. is the idea she’s trying to protect him by not doing the shitty thing, but as a cop he can’t overcome his innate corrupt manner? he’s always understood you gotta do the bad thing to get the good result? this is his “growing up” moment? blood is blood?
- i guess my main frustration is that i feel like it’s all just almost at the point where this level of analysis is rewarded, but ever so slightly not quite
- the shootout felt completely out of character for pretty much everyone imo
- i did lol when pete rounded the corner and said in a normal, calm voice after two gunshots “what’s going on?”
- when Peter shot Hank it should have been a slo-mo shot right through one of his eyes. then it should have slowly faded into the image of the polar bear
- he should have dodged the first shot by bending backwards like the matrix
- when Peter shot Hank it should have been a slo-mo shot right through one of his eyes. then it should have slowly faded into the image of the polar bear
- i did lol when pete rounded the corner and said in a normal, calm voice after two gunshots “what’s going on?”
- super troopers does a better job showing real police attitudes than this show. at least in super troopers they don’t really care about doing a good job
- i’m not necessarily looking for transcendence, and true detective is probably not the show to get it, but i guess i feel like pete shooting his dad and covering it up shouldn’t include the line “you know how to do this” or whatever. he was framed as the “purer” one, and i didn’t get the feeling that we were supposed to feel as though he’s being corrupted so much as he was caught out of necessity in a rough situation. danvers is the one who is trying to do the “right thing” in that scene. is the idea she’s trying to protect him by not doing the shitty thing, but as a cop he can’t overcome his innate corrupt manner? he’s always understood you gotta do the bad thing to get the good result? this is his “growing up” moment? blood is blood?
- maybe i just haven’t seen enough, but I’m not sure I have ever seen a cop-based show transcend that. people sometimes say The Wire does but it really doesn’t imo. (The Wire is still very good)
- i really liked the guitar interlude that moved to soundtrack from hank
- Yes! That was great
- Excellent final guitar performance by Hank
- pete (tearfully mopping up blood): we couldve had a family cover band
- Also, the Tragedy of Hank continues; anyone notice that he raises the gun on Danvers cause he knows his son will kill him if he does?
- i think 80% of the scene read that way, including the “deathbed” confession to being complicit in annie k’s murder, but i feel like “blood is blood” is a strange thing to say if you’re confident your son is about to kill you rather than the opposite
- yeah i saw it that way too. he’s making his son choose, but i got the sense he knew what the choice will be. great stuff from john hawkes in that scene, and this episode in general
- I’m very convinced that it’s just gonna be the one eyed polar bear the whole time at this point lol. The new evidence that keeps piling up in other directions is too dizzying to follow
- they go into the cave and he’s just wearing a tuxedo. “welcome. ive been expecting you”
- it really feels like all the mysteries were the obvious answer from like episode one
- you know the saying about bears
if it’s black, fight back
if it’s brown, lie down
if it’s white, good night (country)
- i’m not sure i have much else to say at this point. i just know that if i lived in this town, i would be upset i still can’t play fucking hockey
- oh that reminds me, i was very distracted by the hockey jersey Young Prior is wearing when his wife kicks him out. for some reason he looks like he’s wearing a hockey jersey for the first time
- They can play hockey! They took the bodies to Anchorage!
- OH SHIT I MISSED THAT
- 🏒 🏒 🏒 🏒 🏒
- they gotta air that rink out for a while
- OH SHIT I MISSED THAT
- i can imagine the writers sitting around the table saying “how can we show that leah hasn’t fully given up on danvers yet”
- lmao
- similarly, i can imagine the writers sitting around the table saying “how can we show that Hank loves his son before Peter kills him?” with that random ice-falling monologue
- i don’t know why but i assumed he was making that up
- Yeah if I fell in ice I’d remember
- neither of us can really know for sure because of the total lack of character development leading up to his sudden death
- also the way it shows him hitting the ice with the axe, it seems implausible that he’d be able to break through in the right spot with his son moving with the current
- not to get all CinemaSins on his ass but i was worried he was gonna stab his son with the axe
- Yeah if I fell in ice I’d remember
- i don’t know why but i assumed he was making that up
- i think after I finish this show i’m gonna rewatch the Fargo movie
- its funny that since there’s a show called fargo you have to call it “the fargo movie” like it’s a feature film starring a vaudeville performer named Dan Fargo
- it made me very upset that i had to clarify i meant the movie ngl. i’m sure the show is good (haven’t seen it–been meaning to) but the movie is perfect
- first result
- we’re all in the night country now
- for fuckin real, man
- Every day we stray farther from God’s Google search results
- we’re all in the night country now
- first result
- i am a huge fan of Fargo (1996 film)
- Danvers fucking wishes she was Marge Gunderson
- it made me very upset that i had to clarify i meant the movie ngl. i’m sure the show is good (haven’t seen it–been meaning to) but the movie is perfect
- its funny that since there’s a show called fargo you have to call it “the fargo movie” like it’s a feature film starring a vaudeville performer named Dan Fargo
- before we close, any predictions for the finale?
- dame judi dench will voice the polar bear
- danvers is gonna find the missing scientist and have sex with him (much to the chagrin of his wife)
- The hockey team will play and lose
- this is probably obvious but i think someone will enter the night country
- Weren’t you listening at the end of episode four? We’re all in the night country now
- i predict someone will be even more in the night country than they have ever been
- they’re gonna be like “okay wait, NOW i’m in the night country”
That’s it! Thank you for hanging out with us while we discussed episode fiveof True Detective: Night Country. Check in with us next week to read our discussion on the season finale. Click here for the rest of our True Detective discussion threads. Feel free to drop a comment below to keep the convo going!
Participants:
- Kevin Flynn, he/him, Writer (Hard Drive, The Onion)
- Christine Nyland, she/her, Filmmaker (Summoners, Distress Signals, An Unquiet Grave)
- Andy Holt, he/him, Writer (Hard Drive)
- Phil Jamesson, he/him, Writer (Dibs Next Co-Creator)
- Jeremy Kaplowitz, he/him, Writer (Dibs Next Co-Creator)
