There’s nothing like the moment in a thriller on television when a character finally breaks down and does something they weren’t even capable of. For True Detective: Night Countrythis moment comes late in Episode 5 and hits almost every character at the same time.
NightlandThe fifth episode mainly focuses on how Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Navarro (Kali Reis) continue their investigation. After discovering the connection between the mine and the whole affair, Danvers suddenly has a target on her back by harboring the missing scientist, and Hank Prior (John Hawkes) turns out to be the mine’s troubleshooter. At first glance, this all seems to clear up a question or two about Annie’s death, but the series refuses to let the answer be that simple.
While it’s clear that all of this ramps up the season’s action, it’s not until Pete Prior (Finn Bennett) is kicked out of his house and forced to move into Danvers’ shed that we really get a sense of how this goes Season shrinks more and more, puts all the important players in one place and applies pressure until something bursts. And boy, does it pop.
But any show can bring its characters to an explosive climax. What makes the climax of “Part 5” so exciting is the tension you can feel: no character in the scene wants to be there or knows what to do next. Hank stands in the kitchen, cornered by Kate McKitterick (Dervla Kirwan) and the mining company, Pete is literally forced to decide which mentor figure will live and which will die, and Danvers always prefers to hold the gun rather than close it have pointed at them.
But every choice we’ve seen so far in the series has brought these characters to this one place. That’s what television does best. We’ve spent almost five full episodes with these characters and we know them better than to think that this situation would immediately erupt into violence. But we also know that each of them is stubborn and resolute in their own way. In every second of the entire standoff, it’s clear that each of them just wants a way out – a way to defuse the situation that doesn’t end with the walls of Danvers’ house splattered with blood. And yet in the end everyone knows that this isn’t possible, and then the shooting begins.
However, any series can end its penultimate episode with the death of a main character. The fun on True detective – any time of the year, actually – is to observe reality in the minutes following the explosive moment. Danvers, Navarro and Pete stand around a kitchen island contemplating how to dispose of a body. This is a calm scene full of adrenaline.
If television, at its best, is about spending time with characters and watching them change, there’s nothing better than watching Pete volunteer to clean up the blood of the father he killed just killed. It’s an unmistakable shift, and one that Bennett plays perfectly. All of his discipline and dedication as a police officer comes to the fore in an instant, shattering any thought that his life or psyche could be changed forever. Suddenly everything is a business, and a body is a body.
Nightland is, among other things, a show that addresses the question of how people live with decisions and how they reconcile with the past. For some characters, this means literally seeing the past as visions or ghosts. For Danvers it means hating the Beatles and denying one’s own pain, while for both her and Navarro it means perpetrating a lie about William Wheeler but finding other ways to further Annie’s case. All of these crucial moments happen long before the show begins, so it would be a waste if the show ended without us witnessing any of these impossible decisions. This time it’s Pete’s. The slow development of this scene is a fine example of Pete’s point that there is no going back. In the context of the show, we can easily imagine how much this particular night and this particular shot will haunt him. But in keeping with the show’s themes, life for Pete begins immediately with this decision: he volunteers to clean up the mess as soon as he makes it.
Doing all of this in one episode risks losing momentum. But Nightland He cleverly avoids this trap by telling Hank Prior one last detail to add to the Tsalal case before he’s gone for good: he just moved the body. It’s an admission that feels at once small, telling, crude and desperate – Hawkes delivers the line as if he’s convinced himself he’s done nothing wrong while simultaneously asking for forgiveness. It’s a perfect ending for the show’s saddest character, but it’s also a great build-up to the finale, which finally seems ready to reveal where the mystery of this entire season has been leading.