The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘True Detective: Night Country’ Theories

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

Two episodes into ‘True Detective: Night Country,’ Charles and Van dive into their theories about who could be the killer, how the polar bear figures into the mystery, and more. Hosts: Charles Holmes and Van Lathan Producers: Steve Ahlman and Sasha Ashall Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Discover the euphoria elixir collection by Calvin Klein. Guys, welcome back to the prestige TV podcast. I'm Charles Holmes. He's Van Lathen. Together we're known as the Midnight Boys. Be-boo! And we're here to talk about true detective night country. Our man Bill Simmons hit us up.

He's like, guys, do you have some theories? And I do. I have a lot of theories on what is probably one of the bigger shows of the first, what, first quarter of the year. True Detective Night Country, directed by, created by Issa Lopez. And before we get into some of our theories, you know, I had a nice, you know,

smoke session came up with a lot of these. I want to ask you, Van, the people are divided on this new season and we are divided. I think I like it a little bit more than you do. You seem to be in the divisive category. Before we, I ask you about Night Country to you.

Like, what is true detective? Like, what is a true, like, true detective season to you? Great question. It's a mixture of your standard procedural, which detective procedurals are always compelling, particularly when they involve more biting criticism on morality when your detective, your cop, your whatever,

when there's always a chance that this entity, this person becomes swept up into what it is that they're doing, becomes like a part of it or starts to lose themselves. I always love that. True detective does that really well. But there's also like a lovecraftian sort of superstitious, supernatural element to the show, which grounds it even more because it becomes man versus nature.

It becomes man versus the supernatural. It becomes man against the universe. And they've always been able to do that with the show using this sort of this sort of dyed in the wool really understood cop crime narrative. So how did you feel that when I went to Night Country, I thought that they were just doing something completely new. I did not read up on it. I was very, very surprised that they are connecting this. I wouldn't say very closely, but closely to the first season where. It's revealed that we see Russ's father, who was played by Matthew McConaughey in this.

The spiral is back. The Tuddles and that cult conspiracy. And I think that if I'm being 100% honest, I'm really enjoying the show. It feels weird. It feels like it's trying to be what we know as true detective. But there is a completely different show that they're also trying to make, which does add to this level of tension when you're watching it, being like, Like, is this true detective? Was this something that was other, that they're kind of like trying to shoehorn it in?

Do you find that tension when you're watching it? Kind of. I think I know what you're saying. What I find is that there is maybe a little conflict about what you say, what the show wants to be, and then a little bit more conflict about how big the show and how big the true detective lore could be or should be. Yeah.

Take Cloverfield, for example. I talk about the fact that I love the little hidden messages in Cloverfield and Slushow and all that other stuff that they built around it. I normally like when shows do stuff like this. The bigger lore can get, the deeper it can get me. And Steve talk about this all the time. The deeper it can get the more I am into it. Like Matrix, Star Wars. Matrix, Star Wars, like Cloverfield.

Just take it down a little bit deeper. Like there are other things that I thought had the opportunity to be that. Like we could talk about like things like Chronicle where I thought, oh, there's a chance here for some really, really expansive lore. Here in True Detective,

it's a small show with big ideas. So it almost navigates that scene by scene. So sometimes I am trying to both, I'm negotiating in my mind when I'm watching the show, what this actual case is about, right? Like what they're actually talking about? Because they're talking about a lot of heavy duty to stuff.

There's a pushpool between native people and white people. There's a cultural question that the show is asking. The natural world versus the pollution that we put on it. There is that even I think the thing that true detective has always had, too, to your point is, it never really tells us as the audience how real the supernatural world is. It plays in this middle zone of the depths of evil, of humanity's evil, is something so vast that we can't comprehend that sometimes it can blur the line,

which is like it does feel supernatural. Where it's like Russ in that first season is trying to figure out like how much of this is a metaphysical thing and how much of this is actually a case that we can solve and is something that has been ingrained in this society that I'm trying to pull out. And if you look at the settings of these individual places, my home state of Louisiana,

where we're asking those questions all the time, If you go and you sit down and you're on Bayou Ramey or you're looking at the Bayou, you're thinking, am I in a real place? I mean, seriously, you're looking around and you're seeing snakes and nutrient rats and all of that stuff. And you're thinking, am I, is this, am I here? Like, where has my soul been here before? So you're asking, and then up there, they're in Alaska now. And it's a very, very ethereal, spiritual place where you have to be in tool. with the land and with the way things change

or it's difficult to survive. And so I think when I'm watching the show, sometimes I'm asking myself, is the show answering small questions or big questions? Is this about this group of researchers? Or is this something that's about this much, much, much larger thing? And I'm having trouble with the way that they're going back and forth because I think I'm trying too hard with the show a little bit.

I'm not just letting things come to me because I'm asking myself so many questions. about everything that I'm seeing. And I'm not falling into the narrative as much as I should be. So my last question before we get into the theories is I love the first season of true detective, but I feel like we, as a society, tend to, like, overrate it.

And that is part of the true detective curse, where if we want to be real, like, it was beautifully written, beautifully shot. But the reason true detective is lightning in a bottle is because it's like, that is the peak of the maconissance. You have an actor who has tapped in, to just another level of themselves

and is delivering probably one of, I would say if we're doing the prestige TV era, Russ would probably have to be in the top ten. Oh, interesting. In terms of like characters, in terms of what they do to carry a narrative. And I think every single true detective season actor has had to be like,

hey, if that actor isn't giving us that level of performance, we're like, well, it's not really true detective. And I think that is something that Knight Country is having to face a little bit. where it's like Jody Foster is like a legend in the game. But if this isn't one of Jody Foster's, like if she's not bringing the house down in every scene making us feel like when we saw McConaughey as Russ,

people are gonna, I think people are playing like a very unfair, well, it's not really true detectives. It's not giving me that same feeling. And I'm like, the equivalent I would use is like, imagine if they did Breaking Bad like they did fucking true detective. where it was like it was a new teacher every single season and it was just like, name me like, who would you say is on Brian Cranston's level as an actor?

Like when Breaking Bad starts. That who was in the same place as him? Yeah, like a character actor that we love but really never got the like... Because Steve Buscemi went a long time, a long way, because he was... You're talking about somebody that didn't get the shine.

That didn't get the shine and then they get the show. Like imagine if they tried to do that with Breaking Bad where they were just like, oh, this beloved sitcom actor selling ketamine in like our Breaking Bad, like fucking, I don't know, set in Washington. You're saying that if they did that, the show would be

more centralized. We would judge the new Breaking Bad because we're like, well, it's not Brian Cranston. It's not... What you're saying is, it's too... It would be too central on whoever was the lead. Yes, and I think that is the true detective problem, where McConaughey is so much a presence

that you're just like, it's not McConaughey. And I'm like, well, it's... Do you think that's why... Because, you know, you've seen some really talented actors, right? Yeah. Marshall Ali, it's really talented actors going there and do True Detective since Matthew McCona did. Do you feel like that's why they came back to a story that connects to the first season in hopes of maybe bringing that presence back to the show?

I think that a lot of... So I didn't watch the Marshall's season. The second season was so bad that I was done with True Detective. Okay. And I just jumped back on. So I only saw the first two seasons. but I do think that if I'm Casey Blois, I'm like, True Detective has the name recognition.

A lot of people love this. And it is a Reddit theory-brained type of TV show where they're like, everything you look up about, night country is about how does this connect back to season one? How does this make the lore even, like, how does it make it even more expansive? So I definitely feel like this is HBO. And if you guys want to know how the show is made,

goes into the watch. Issa Lopez has a great interview with Chris Ryan. And she was, even like she had this idea for Night Country and then, you know, HBO hit her up being like, hey, do you have any ideas for True Detective? And I think it became a melding. So with that, let's get to some theories. I have five. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity, or some adults with

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and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99-9 or visit zepbounds.lily.com. Theory number one, the town and the caribou are drinking on that supernatural mud. You know what I'm saying?

What are you talking about? All right. So first, what do we see? First thing in Night Country, the guys like trying to shoot the caribou, they all go crazy. And they basically, I'm assuming it was like a mass suicide

because they jump off the cliff. Sure. We have the one-eyed bear. You know what I'm saying? Off the mud. Second episode, we see the tension between the townsfolk, the indigenous people that live there

and the people who were just, living in the dorms, they're mine workers, they're drilling for oil, all that stuff. Do we think that the polluted water is getting into the system? So not only did it affect the tuddle guys,

but now it's affecting the animals, it's affecting everybody. Situation where whatever chemicals they're using the mine and all of that stuff are, they've gas land, contaminated the water in some way and people are going nuts off the water. Because once again, what did

they say, I don't know if you were supposed to take this completely seriously, but they kind of joke that like, yo, because one of the scientists, they're like, yo, we saw him, he should be dead and we realized in the second episode he's not. But a lot of people are like, yeah, we see dead people. That's just what happens. Right. The lady that sees her dead lover or whomever he was. Oh, Russ is dead.

Yeah, right, Russ is dad. And that leads her out there. And she talks about the fact that it's the first time she had seen someone dead. So perhaps she is hallucinating that because she's drinking contaminated water. She also remarks that the town that they're in is the place where she believes the world is breaking because of its age and it is thinning out. And people are seeing things and experiencing things that they might not be experiencing in other places. Perhaps there is some sort of chemical byproduct to that. That makes a lot sense.

And the Solal scientists were researching, you know, I believe they were researching. Basically, there's some type of micro. Immortality, yeah. Or something that is like can help fight cancer and different diseases. They're researching an organism that doesn't experience cellular degeneration. So essentially, if they could isolate that and synthesize it, they might be. able to keep people a lot forever. Sub theory, before we go on to number two,

do you think, you know, the powers that be, the powers that, the mining people, you know, the Tuttle call, all these people are like, it's really, really bad for our business, you know, as the empire, white folks, if we find this that can like, you know, cancer drugs, aid drugs,

all of these drugs, pharmaceutical. Big pharma. Big pharma is just like, you know what? Got to cut this down. God, we got to nip this in the bud. So they're making people go nuts then? No, I'm saying that they had, do you think that there is like a bigger corporation looming the totals or something, some shell corporation that they were talking about in the second

episode that is like, it's not really in our best interest for y'all to find this organism that doesn't experience. So they had those guys taken out? Potentially. Could be. Theory number two, not as big. Danvers and Navarro are two protagonists have and will do the dirty deed again. All right?

Because, whoa, well, let's look at the facts. Let's look at the facts. Danvers, where she goes over to Navarro's crib is like, hey, yo, is this still where you keep the cans? And I'm like, sis, did y'all do the nasty and after you, like, cook up some chili? You're shipping them.

I'm not, I think the show is saying, and, and we learn in this, Danvers, we have a nice, very tasteful sex scene between Danvers and her superior. I think the show, is playing a little bit with kind of power dynamics. And it would have been really, really fucked up if Danvers and Navarro had a relationship

because Danvers is in a power of control over Navarro. Which forces her to leave and go to the state troopers. Yeah, I get it. And Danvers was basically like, Danvers made the choice to essentially push Navarro there. Navarro didn't want to go. So what I'm also thinking is, we now know that Danvers,

we see that scene where she's dancing with, the dead husband or the dead lover, we don't know what happened yet. We know that she was cheating because when she's hooking up with her boss, she's just like, this has been going on for a while. Do we think that Navarro potentially told the husband, like, yo, me and you're, me and your, you know.

Ruined everything. Old lady have something on the side and Danvers is like you broke the code. And you're gone. Because there does seem to be the backstory between them I'm really interested in it because there does seem to be not just, a soured professional relationship,

but there was a souring and a breaching of trust in a very specific way between them because of the way they relate. Do you think it's also connected, potentially, in the segues, to my third theory. The polar bear did it. You know, because

Navarro sees the one-eyed polar bear, right? What is Danvers? She got the polar bear. She got the polar bear plushy. She brings it out. All right. Let me start connecting some of these dots here. We keep hearing Twist and Shout.

We see it, Ferris Bueller, whatever. You know, Danvers is like, fucking turn that shit off, saying Beatles overrated. Anyway, really quick, let me ask you this before I get back to my theory. Do you think the Beatles could have made jagged edges, let's get married? No. You don't think so. They didn't have the vocal talent. The Beatles, great songwriters, shitty musicians, bad vocalists.

but the music that they were still able to make some of the greatest stuff. They had the vibe. They had they. They have whatever you need. The Beatles are great. Like, they're great. Not fantastic musicians, not great vocalists, but the songs just are amazing. It's just great songs.

Let's go back. Get mad at me if you want. Theory three, polar bear, all right? This is how I'm thinking it's stacking up. Let me know if this theory makes sense. Okay, so Navarro, Danvers, they're on the outs. They potentially have a relationship, all right? She tells the homie, okay?

He goes out. He's like, I'm mad, I can't believe. You're the love of my life. We were smoking weed together. This sucks. He leaves the house mad, right? Drunk driving accident. He was probably playing twist and shout.

The polar bear fucking hears that shit. It's triggered. Triggered. Boom. There's an accident. In the accident, the polar bear loses an eye. And the polar bear is almost like a spiritual presence. that connects our two protagonists.

And they're just like, without that fucking polar bear, this shit wouldn't have gone left. So the polar bear is like a totem of some sort. A totem. That's haunting. Haunting them. I get it. Am I too deep in this?

You're not too deep in it at all. I'm digging what you're going to. Bro, this is almost YouTube video level shit that you're giving me right now. You don't know. I'd really be, man, the Midnight Boys need to theorize more. We need to theorize more. We don't do that much theorizing on the Midnight Boys. No.

This is good stuff. I'm getting into it. All right. So my last, my last theory for you. So Captain Hank, and can I say, Captain Hank,

really quick, is John Hawks on, like, the character actor, like, not Mount Rushmore because there's a lot of them. But whenever I see him

in something, that's like, yeah. I'm like, yeah, we're locked in. See, because what he is,

is he's like a seal of freshness. There's sort of, there's actors that are a seal of freshness. Like, you ever see something that's on the package? It's like, boom, this is stamped fresh.

Yes. Now, on the package, it doesn't really mean anything because they probably made it in some place and shipped it or whatever. But when you see him, you know that you're going to be in something where you're going to be entertained. And that's almost the highest form of flattery

that an actor can get. And it's drama and comedy. Drama and comedy because he's funny shit. I'm just like, this is either going to be funny as shit or this motherfucker is up to no good. Like when I saw him pop up, I'm like, oh, okay, we got something here.

It's good. So my last theory for today, Captain Hank and his mail order slash catfish wife are connected to the total cult. The wife is. The one that he says is coming from Russia, the mail-over wife is, she's in the total cult.

I think, I don't know if she is, but I think it's all of the soup. This is my weakest theory, but let me break it down. Here's a thing. All of the characters, you know what I'm saying? Danvers is basically like, hey, you know, your dad,

She's going to her little homie, her Robin, who's his son. He's like, your dad really ain't shit. We see him slap his son, right? Smack the shit out of him. Leave a mark. And if you, in a mystery, in a cop show, if you see any domestic abuse from a parent to a kid, already my ears are just kind of like, that's the show telling me this motherfucker is, like, this is just no good. Especially the way he slapped him.

He slapped him first and then afterwards gave him the wisdom. That indicates in his character that he's selfish. Yes. He emoted. It's one thing if a character, you can almost play it off as human frailty if you get talked to so much or you get insulted so much to where you explode and slap somebody. But if you walk up and you slap someone and then you say, da-da-da-da-da-da-da. That's basically you saying,

have to harm you first, then give you the wisdom. That's backwards the way her parents should be. So I'm already, I'm already like, yo, already evil vibes, already a terrible person, okay? We have this, this wife, I think, is she from Russia? He said she was Russian. That he's talking to. Obviously, she has her own game because, like, yo, can you send me a little bit of money for mom?

And I'm like, damn, it sounds like you're getting played. But it sounded like one of those stupid, like my girlfriends in Canada type situation. But they kept focusing on it. You know what I'm saying? Like, we saw the text. And I'm just like, what are they trying to tell me about this character? And he was, his son had to steal the box of evidence from the original woman that got killed that Navarro was obsessed with. Right.

Why is he hiding that? Why is he holding on to a song? Yeah. Is there something about the case that he only knows? How is he connected to this murder? Correct? Yeah. Is he connected to the totals from season one?

And maybe they're trying to keep tabs on him by being like, A.O. Shoddy. Like, text him. We need somebody in here. Eyes on the fucking ground. Knows what's going on. Pumping him from information, using his horniness and loneliness to get close to him, he wouldn't know because he's too much of a meatball.

And that's why he's hiding the box because he's like he knows. Like maybe even if he didn't pull the trigger, he knows who did. And he's like, all right. Like he, like, because he was,

he was the chief before Danvers was. It seems like he got to post. So I'm like, you knew something. Right. Like, you know. Because I was asking, I like this, because I was thinking to myself, well, if she's looking into a case, why would he be finicky about sharing information with someone from his own police force? That's what I'm talking about.

Let's wrap it up. Let's do, just in case we do on more of these, let's do a ranking of who we think the killer can be. Because the one thing I do get mad about in like procedurals or missions or whatever is I do think you need to. to show, like, we need to know all of the characters up front. So when the killer is revealed to me, I was like, they were hiding in plain sight all of all. I, in this show, for some reason, it's going to sound so stupid. I don't think the killer knows that they're the killer.

All right, that's a sixth theory. So do you think it's the, like, do you think they off the mud and they just don't really, like, they're not like. For some reason, I think, I don't think the killer, there's just happened a couple of things. I don't think the killer knows that they're the killer. So I think almost everybody, I think everyone thinks they're innocent of this. I think the killer doesn't know that they're the killer.

Something's going on here. We're going to find out that there's that there is a physical killer, but then there's also something that came over them or something that compelled them to do this. So can I give you like my, I'll give you my number one, what I think it is because usually with the killer, they have to hit a couple marks. They have to be super fucking nice. You've got to want to have a beer with them. They're leading you off the trail. and the most important thing, if they love animals,

that's the creator's throwing you off the scent. So my homie, I think his name is Kavik, who owns the bar. We know, like, once I was like, oh, you own those husky puppies. Like, that means you're a good per- like the show is trying to tell me that you're a good person.

He's a good guy. And in Navarro, that seems like the person that she is closest to. Because she almost runs over him a little bit. He's like, he's very, he's like almost reaching out to her with his heart. And it's, I'm just like, Because, like, Navarro, even during that sex, you know, I'm just like, oh, she's dominating him.

She's dominating him. Like, she steals his tooth brush. She's just like, are you coming? No, I'm not coming over. Did it. And I was like, and he's also in the bar. And he is quite literally, because for the first time in the show, we see last episode the miners versus the townsfolk and that tension. He's seeing it.

So do you think something in him is just like, let me, let me start taking these people out? Could be. Could be the mystery theory of the person you think would have done it the least has been subverted in recent things because it's sometimes, at some point, it started to be... It's a cliche. Well, yeah, at some point it started to be, okay, let's not try to put together the actual facts of this. Let's try to look for the person we think is the least likely to have done it. And so they have subverted that recently.

I would wonder, wonder, wonder if they're going to do this in True Detective. I've been watching getting into it. I've almost maybe over-invested. I've been watching theory, videos, and looking at recaps and stop and starting it. I'm trying to. I'm trying to. I'm going to finish it. I'm there with it.

I'm trying to invest into True Detective. I'm not quite there with the show yet from these first couple episodes. We only have four left, so they don't have a lot of time to, like, I do agree with you where it's like, I think that this show is actually, I'm more invested after two episodes, but I do think like, no,

like, episode three is a make or break. Is like you have, because I think the thing that you have been touching on is like, I don't know if I care about the case yet. Where I think because it, not to go back to season one, but I think because season one, the horror of it was so like,

these are children. This would drive anyone crazy. Not to say like the horror of, of, uh, night country is any. lesser. It's just when it's kids, you're just like, fuck. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a level of like visceralness. And I think for this

one, it's like, all right, well, there's violence against the native population, but there's also violence against these scientists and there's also violence against that's happening. There's such, it's happening everywhere. You're like, I don't know emotionally where to put

my care. Does that make sense or does that sound callous? I mean, I get it. It's just different. I mean, look, the show is obviously very compelling. We'll see if they can land the plane with everything they're trying to do in the next couple episodes. I agree. Yo, guys, that has been our prestige TV episode. Thank you so much to Steve Allman for recording us this week. Thank you so much to Sasha Shaw for editing this episode. Thank you to you, Van, for breaking down some theories with me. And make sure you lock in to Joanna

Robinson and Rob Mahoney as they give you their instant reactions every Sunday. And we will see y'all Very soon. This episode is brought to you by Netflix's remarkably bright creatures. What if a Pacific octopus held the key to a mystery that could heal your heart? Well, that's Tova's reality. An elderly widow working at an aquarium. Tova forms an unlikely friendship with their crumudgeonly, Marcellus, whose remarkable intelligence leads her to a life-changing discovery.

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