Entertainment
Who (or what) killed the scientists? Issa López explains the 'True Detective: Night Country' finale
This story contains spoilers from the the season finale of “True Detective: Night Country.”
The darkness has lifted, “True Detective: Night Country” has come to an end, and some of us may never look at an orange in the same way again.
Written and directed by Issa López, the latest incarnation of the anthology mystery series relocated the action to the fictional town of Ennis, Alaska, and follows two women — Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster), the local police chief, and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis), a state trooper, as they investigate the mysterious death of a group of scientists at an Arctic research station — all while trying to heal the wounds of their past.
Invoking familiar “True Detective” imagery (creepy swirls) while introducing all new eerie iconography (one-eyed polar bears), “Night Country” put a welcome, feminist spin on the franchise after a four-year hiatus.
Leading into Sunday’s finale, many unanswered questions remained, starting with who — or what — was responsible for turning the Tsalal scientists into a corpsicle, who really killed Annie K., and how her tongue ended up at the research station six years after she died.
Over the course of the New Year’s Eve from hell, Danvers and Navarro make one bombshell discovery after another, learning that: 1. the scientists at Tsalal were pushing the mine to pump out more pollutants because it made it easier for them extract DNA from the ice; 2. Annie found out about it and destroyed their research; 3. the scientists killed her in a collective fit of rage; 4. members of the cleaning crew discovered the ice cave, where they saw the evidence of Annie’s murder; 5. they returned to the research station, forced the scientists out onto the ice in the middle of a storm, made them strip, and left them there in an act of revenge that proved fatal to them all; 6. except Raymond Clark, who hid in the abandoned ice cave for weeks until Danvers and Navarro found and interrogated him; 7. and he wound up becoming a corpsicle, too.
In the finale of “Night Country,” we witness Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Navarro (Kali Reis) uncovering the mystery of what happened to the scientists at the Tsalal research station.
(Michele K. Short / HBO)
Phew. Got all that?
The episode ends on a decidedly ambiguous note, however. An epilogue skips ahead four months to May. Navarro has seemingly vanished and Danvers faces questioning by investigators about the events of the previous December. She is evasive when asked about reported sightings of Navarro — who we see walking onto the ice, alone, then standing on a porch next to Danvers in the parting shot of the season. Is it really her? Or just an apparition? It’s impossible to say. “This is Ennis, “ Danvers tells the investigators. “Nobody ever really leaves.”
Speaking recently by Zoom, López broke down the series finale and was, thankfully, willing to answer more questions than Danvers. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
It turns out the women of the cleaning crew were responsible for the deaths of the scientists at Tsalal — or at least they are the ones who drove the men out into the cold. Did you always know that would be the outcome?
I knew from the very beginning. Being Mexican and having moved to Los Angeles some 10 years ago, it’s interesting to see how behind every scene, there is someone you would never notice. I’m Mexican, and most people in California are Mexican or Latin American. They’re the person that washes the dishes, the person that cleans the office after you leave. They’re really invisible. However, they’re everywhere, they have access to everything, they know everything. Invisibility is a superpower. It can be terrible. And it can be conducive to horrors like missing and murdered Indigenous women. But at the same time, it can be a superpower. Why not flip that coin and use it for power?
The scientists turn out to be the bad guys in this story. They’re willing to kill Annie and pollute the town in the name of scientific progress. How did you decide to make them the villains?
That’s a tough decision for me. I’m a massive believer in science. If there’s a religion for me, it’s science. The idea that ancient DNA can be used is not impossible, it’s not madness. But it would be very hard to extract. All of that is factual. The pursuit of knowledge or any greater good without a moral compass, I think, is the question of our age, as we look at what’s happening with AI and so many technologies that put the human race in a place that we never imagined. I don’t know if there’s a moral compass behind those. I don’t think we’re growing morally at the speed that we’re growing intellectually. And that’s a very dangerous place to be. If you abandon responsibility for the greater good, it’s very, very dangerous. It’s not about the pursuit of knowledge, it’s absolute self-obsession. It’s egotistical. In the traditional Greek tragedy, the mistake of the hero is always taking endeavors that go beyond the human. When you overstep human capacities, it ends in tragedy. So I just went with the Greeks on this one.
The version of Alaska that a lot of us know through pop culture is this male-dominated frontier with fishermen and ice road truckers. In your version of Alaska, it’s the women who dominate and the men who seem lost. Were you consciously trying to present a different idea of Alaska?
I think that the male and female characters in the series are democratically helpless, in the sense that everyone is lonely — men and women. Everyone is a little terrified of the stuff that they carry inside of them, perhaps with the exception of [Eddie] Qavvik on the male side — that guy’s fine — and Rose on the female side. They have their s— figured out. Everyone else is completely lost and trying to find their own path. It’s the nature of this town at the edge of the world, at the edge of civilization, at the edge of reality.
The Alaska that you were describing is predominantly male in its presentation. And the Alaska that I explored is predominantly female, the characters leading the conflict and the drama and the decisions are female. That comes from my understanding of these communities — Nome and Katovik and Utqiagvik [Alaska] — these communities [can be] 70% [or more] Inuit and particularly Iñupiaq. The strength of the Iñupiaq women is key to their survival. They’re just as much the hunters and fishers. They’re dog-sledding. They’re just indomitable. It’s incredible. Putting that in there felt very necessary.
Issa López, writer, director and showrunner of “True Detective: Night Country.”
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
A number of Indigenous women were consultants on the series. What kind of perspective and input did they bring?
I conceived the idea when we were in the lockdown. I couldn’t just pick up and go to Alaska and write it, which is what I wanted to do. I had to do the first passes based only on watching endless hours of “Alaska State Troopers” and “Life Below Zero,” which, by the way, I recommend.
I consumed hours and hours of social media of the people living in these towns. I listened to local radio stations while I was writing the scripts. Once I had an initial pass, we worked together through an association called Illuminative, which is amazing and connected us with two Alaskan producers [who were] very much in contact with the culture. They put together a council of the elder women of the Iñupiaq. When you say “elder,” I always think “ancient,” but there were women of [age] 45 and women of 90. They went through every single page of the scripts. I would mention elk, and they would say, “There’s no elk, not in that region.” [They provided details] like the type of fish, or how would they address someone coming into their house and insulting them.
Then I went to Alaska and I ate the animals that they hunted, we broke bread and I drank the wine that you have to get in the depot. I brought all that into the scripts and then some of the women in the elder council actually appeared in the series. They came with the clothing they made and they cooked the food that we served to the characters in the series. It was just beautiful. They became completely intertwined with the fabric of the series. They’re watching and loving it, which makes me endlessly proud.
I’ve watched the finale twice now. I’m still trying to figure out how literally I should interpret the final shot, with Danvers and Navarro on the porch. I assume you wanted to leave us with a mystery to think about. Tell me about that.
I think that the entire series has two readings. One of them is that everything is connected to the supernatural. The other one is there’s absolutely nothing supernatural happening. The dark brings its own madness and neurosis to some characters. The men walking onto the ice — you can go with they froze to death in a flash freeze and they had paradoxical undressing and delirium because of hypothermia. Or [you can believe] they walked onto the ice, and faced the thing they woke up by being in the wrong place. It’s up to you to decide which one of those readings you are going to embrace.
Navarro asks in the series, “Don’t you ever feel that you just want to go and walk away and never come back?” She talks about getting calls from something that has called the women in her family for generations. She’s terrified. In the climax of Episode 6, she goes into the darkness on the ice. When she finally surrenders to [the calls], in peace, she receives a piece of herself that she was missing: her name. That part of her is complete.
The part of her that wants to just go away is still there. Danvers says, “If you ever go, please come back.” In the very last part of the episode, we see her at peace. It’s up to her to decide if she goes on a walkabout to find herself and come back, as Danvers asks, or if she goes to be with the other women in peace, and is visiting as an apparition. It’s up to you to decide which one of the two it is. I have my version, but I’m not going to tell you.
“I think that the entire series has two readings. One of them is that everything is connected to the supernatural. The other one is there’s absolutely nothing supernatural happening,” says Issa López.
(Lilja Jons)
Clark says “time is a flat circle,” a callback to what is probably the best known line of dialogue from the original season. How’d you decide to bring that line in the episode? And did you have any anxiety about such a recognizable callback?
Here’s the thing. I never set out [like], “Oh, let’s put everything we can that references Season 1.” I believe in the idea of letting the story speak to you. I decided that Alaska was a super interesting setting for this series. I rewatched Season 1 and I realized Rust Cohle’s father had lived and died in Alaska. It would be crazy to never mention it. It’s the same universe. There is a corporation that is funding the endeavors of a greedy machine that is lying about pollution. In Season 1, there is an evil corporation too — it would be silly to have two different ones. When there is a symbol in my season that signifies the proximity of a different level of reality — the supernatural — and there is a symbol for that in the first season. So why add in a new one? That just makes it not “True Detective.”
The idea in Clark’s crazed mind [is] that Annie’s spirit has always inhabited this cave, because maybe Annie is herself, in a way, whatever was sleeping there. Annie’s friend tells us she dreamed about this spiral when she was in school. Clark [tells Danvers], “She has been there forever, she will be there forever.” it’s just absolutely natural that he says, “Time is a flat circle.” That is a concept that comes from quantum physics. He’s a scientist, so it’s the most organic thing.
The other unresolved mystery is the tongue. How does that fit in?
Same story. If we’re going to go with the supernatural story, Hank is the one that dumps [Annie’s body] and cuts out the tongue. He leaves the tongue there, and the tongue disappears. No one ever finds it until six years later. In the moment that the scientists face their fate, the tongue reappears because it’s the time to tell the story that was silenced before. Was it Annie’s ghost?
If you’re going to go rational, Hank cuts the tongue and leaves it there. And then the body is found, not by Navarro — Navarro is the first cop at the scene — but by the community. In my mind, the women find Annie and they cannot take her body, but they can keep her tongue in a gesture of kindness for their friend. Danvers says it has some unusual cellular damage, it could be from freezing. They keep the tongue, they freeze it and when they go into the research station [to attack the scientists], they leave it there: Full circle. Time to pay. You can decide which one you believe.
Can you talk about how the ice becomes a border between the human and the supernatural, the living and the dead, especially in this last episode?
It’s absolutely at the center of the entire narrative. If you look at the title sequence, it’s all about that; we’re on this road that will expose what’s under the ice. When I picked the setting, [I was interested in] the idea of the things that we freeze inside ourselves, and hide under ice, so we cannot access them. However, the ice breaks, and the things that lie beneath will come to light. The ice won’t last forever. It is a massive metaphor, and it is at the very center of everything we’re saying in this story.
Pizza Movie (2026) Director: Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney, Star: Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone
Somehow, I got through an hour of this movie. I was seconds away from turning off in the first fifteen minutes because of the juvenile humor. Pizza Movie is too silly, repetitive, and the characters are annoying. Stranger Things Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone star as college friends, Jack and Montgomery. College angles are rarely seen in films right now, and that’s the one saving grace of the film. Similar to high school, people are also trying to fit in. The story and visuals were too corny. You can only watch someone’s head exploding for so long without letting yours.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026) Director: Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, Stars: Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy
I never saw the first Super Mario Brothers Movie when it was out, but I heard it got positive reviews. My brother always loved playing Super Mario video games as a kid, and I’d watch him. I tagged along with my friends to see Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and it’s a cute and fun film. I like it when movies explore the video game world. The animation creates unique worlds and characters. The characters are split into their own storylines, and for me, I felt like it worked. It adds more action, especially for kids who are seeing the films.
Emily in Paris Season 5 (2025) Creator: Darren Star, Stars: Lily Collins and Ashley Park
After a bright spot in season 4, I thought season 5 of Emily in Paris would continue its growth in the story and its protagonist, but no, it’s all drained out in the usual Emily (Lily Collins) mishaps. Ashley Park (Mindy) has become too good for this show. Emily and Mindy waste several opportunities because of their love lives. The whole relationship angle is ruining it. I don’t understand why Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) is still in the show. I thought writers learned their lesson, but by the last episode, they’re continuing to bring the past into an apparent season 6.
Sarah’s Oil (2025) Director: Cyrus Nowrasteh, Stars: Naya Desir-Johnson and Zachary Levi
There’s always history lurking right beneath our noses. Sarah’s Oil (2025) tells the true story of Sarah Rector, an Oklahoma-born African American girl who became the first black female millionaire in the U.S. Naya Desir-Johnson is fierce and driven as Sarah. Zachary Levi is also along for the ride as Bert, a man who helps Sarah. Kate (Bridget Regan) was another favorite character as an intelligent woman. Cyrus Nowrasteh was drawn to the subject for its story and its themes. Nowrasteh’s direction is compelling as he unearths a hidden story from history. The film is streaming on Amazon Prime.
Jack Goes Boating (2014) Director and Star: Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Ryan
Jack Goes Boating (2014) didn’t quite work for me, largely because of its slow pace and uneven storytelling. The film stars the late Seymour Hoffman as Jack, who also directed the film. This was Hoffman’s first and only time in the directing chair. Amy Ryan also stars in the film, giving a solid performance. This was also based on a play that Hoffman starred in. Jack wants to participate in a swim championship. That’s hardly what the film is about, tracking other characters’ stories. While the film aims for quiet intimacy, it ultimately drags, making it an underwhelming viewing experience.
You Kill Me (2016), Director: John Dahl, Stars: Ben Kingsley, Tea Leoni, Luke Wilson
Meet You Kill Me (2016), yet another film that I found in the museum of underrated gems. The concept revolves around Frank (Ben Kingsley), a hitman, who is sent to an A.A. meeting to get his mind focused again. A different story happens, where Frank falls in love with Laurel (Tea Leoni). Leoni is one of my favorite actresses. It also stars the funny Luke Wilson. I liked the trio’s dynamics. You Kill Me is a mental health movie. It’s okay to make changes if you’re not happy. I recommended that you keep an eye out for this movie.
Entertainment
Review: Trigger warning? ‘For Want of a Horse’ gives new meaning to the term ‘animal lover’
“For Want of a Horse,” a play by Olivia Dufault receiving its world premiere in an Echo Theater Company production at Atwater Village Theatre, wants to have a rational conversation about a taboo topic that can provoke instant outrage.
The subject is zoophilia, not to be confused with bestiality, though for many of us it will be a distinction without much of a difference.
Calvin (Joey Stromberg), a good-looking, mild-mannered married accountant, has harbored a secret for much of his life. He has a thing for horses. His erotic interest began at an early age, and all his efforts to lead a normal life have left him depressed and contemplating suicide.
His wife, Bonnie (Jenny Soo), is a permissive kindergarten teacher who’s having difficulty restraining a girl in her class who has discovered the joys of masturbation. Worried about her husband, she discovers through his browsing history that he’s once again visiting strange animal sites.
She suggests he keep a horse, explaining that she doesn’t want to end up a widow or divorcée. Calvin is taken aback by her generosity but has come to recognize that his preference is more than a kink. It’s part of his identity — and maybe the only part that makes his life seem worth living.
Joey Stromberg and Jenny Soo in “For Want of a Horse” at the Echo Theater Company.
(Cooper Bates)
A horse named Q-Tip (Griffin Kelly) enters the couple’s lives. A stable is secured, and the mare, who senses that something strange is going on, is indulged with apples and caresses.
Kelly, a statuesque presence in a dress, harness and boots, brings the horse to life with wild, unpredictable movements. The sheer size of the animal poses a threat to humans. One kick, as Q-Tip herself explains in one of her thought-bubble monologues, is capable of penetrating a steel wall. But controlling an animal’s food supply is an effective way of winning over its trust.
Calvin has found support in the online zoophilia community. PJ (Steven Culp), a man whose current inamorata is a bichon frise, is considering moving to a country where zoophilia isn’t illegal. He’s tired of the shame and the secrecy. He’s proud of his attachment to pooch, even if his thing for dogs has cost him contact with his daughter and ex-wife.
Dufault doesn’t shy away from sexual details. For PJ, intimacy depends on peanut butter. Calvin describes the physical signals that reveal Q-Tip’s erotic satisfaction. The play occasionally descends into sitcom humor. (PJ says he’s considering creating a human-dog dating app called Rin Tin Tinder.) But mostly the subdued tone steers clear of sensationalism.
The production, directed by Elana Luo, is scrupulously well-acted by the four-person cast. Stromberg makes Calvin seem not only reasonable but surprisingly sensitive. Soo’s Bonnie sweetly embodies the excesses of a kind of progressive piety. As PJ, Culp gruffly embraces his role as the play’s polemical fire-starter. And Kelly’s Q-Tip, in the production’s most physically demanding performance, straddles the human-animal divide with theatrical aplomb.
Steven Culp, left, and Joey Stromberg in “For Want of a Horse” at the Echo Theater Company.
(Cooper Bates)
The open-mindedness that Dufault, a trans playwright, brings to the play creates some dramatic slack. Possibly the same fear of making value judgments that has inhibited Bonnie from imposing common-sense discipline in her classroom has robbed “For Want of a Horse” of a propulsive point of view.
The play moves monotonously between Calvin and Bonnie’s bedroom and the stable. Scenic designer Alex Mollo has worked out an efficient way of shifting between these realms by employing the same set of wooden trunks. But the argument of the play doesn’t so much build as elapse.
Time takes its toll, and Calvin eventually has to make a decision. But the character who interested me most was Bonnie, whose reality is only glimpsed. The play tacitly uses her husband’s threat of suicide as a trump card. Zoophilia isn’t merely a fetish for Calvin but a nonnegotiable part of his identity.
This questionable assumption can be psychologically scrutinized not only from Calvin’s point of view but also from his wife’s. The play wants to have an intelligent debate, but it doesn’t want to interrogate certain political positions too skeptically.
At one point, Bonnie objects when Calvin compares his situation to that of homosexuality, but the conversation ends there. The reality is that the right wing has been making a similar claim, arguing that same-sex marriage opens the door to bestiality, polygamy and incest. “For Want of a Horse” inadvertently lends legitimacy to this line of reasoning.
Griffin Kelly in “For Want of a Horse” at the Echo Theater Company.
(Cooper Bates)
Not that extremist positions should be off limits, but they ought to be more rigorously addressed. Similarly, Bonnie’s concern about the issue of consent — how can a horse say yes to intercourse with a human — is introduced only to be dismissed in a shrug of mild-mannered bothsidesism.
While watching “For Want of a Horse,” I recalled a program on PBS called “My Wild Affair” that wasn’t about zoophilia but about the problematic nature of human bonds with untamed animals. Relationships with a seal, an elephant and a rhino, for example — obsessive, protective, loving friendships — all seemed to end if not in outright tragedy, then in shattering heartbreak.
Q-Tip is rightfully given the play’s last word, and Kelly, an actor (HBO’s “The Book of Queer”), writer and comedian, is the production’s driving force. We can never know what’s inside this mare’s mind because Q-Tip’s brain has evolved so differently from our own. Kelly plays the anthropomorphic game while retaining some of the inscrutability of a four-legged creature.
It is through language that we, as humans, traverse the chasm separating us from one another. That’s not possible with animals, even with our closest domestic companions. (Try explaining a necessary medical procedure to a cat.)
“For Want of a Horse” sets out to speak about the unspeakable, but its construction may be too tame for such a wild subject.
‘For Want of a Horse’
Where: Echo Theater Company, Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., L.A.
When: 8 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays, Mondays; 4 p.m. Sundays. Ends May 25
Tickets: $15-$42.75
Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes (no intermission)
Info: echotheatercompany.com
Desert Warrior, 2026.
Directed by Rupert Wyatt.
Starring Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley, Ghassan Massoud, Sharlto Copley, Sami Bouajila, Lamis Ammar, Géza Röhrig, Numan Acar, Nabil Elouahabi, Hakeem Jomah, Ramsey Faragallah, Saïd Boumazoughe, and Soheil Bostani.
SYNOPSIS:
An honorable and mysterious rogue, known as Hanzala, makes himself an enemy of the Emperor Kisra after he helps a fugitive king and princess in the desert.
With aspirations of being a historical epic harkening back to the sword and sandal blockbusters of yesteryear, Rupert Wyatt’s seventeenth-century Arabia tale is about as generic and epically dull as one would expect from a film plainly titled Desert Warrior. Yes, there appear to be real locations here, and there are some admittedly sweeping shots of various tribes storming into battle on horseback and camels, but it’s all in service of a mess that is both miscast and questionable as the work of a filmmaking team of mostly white creatives.
The story of Emperor Kisraa (Ben Kingsley, a distracting presence even with only one or two scenes) rounding up women from other tribes to be his concubines, which inevitably became the catalyst for a revolution led by Princess Hind (Aiysha Hart), uniting all the divided clans and strategizing battle plans for flanking and poisoning, is undeniably ripe for cinematic treatment. The problem is that what’s here from Rupert Wyatt (and screenwriters Erica Beeney, Gary Ross, and David Self) is less than nothing in the primary creative process; no one seems to have a connection to Arabic heritage or culture, but they have made a flat-out boring film that is often narratively incoherent.
Following the death of her father and escaping the clutches of oppression, the honorable Princess Hind joins forces with a troubled, nameless bandit played by Anthony Mackie (he totally belongs here…), who seems to be here solely to give the movie some star power boost without running the risk of white savior accusations. Whatever the case may be, it’s jarring, but not quite as disorienting as how little screen time he has despite being billed as the lead and how little characterization he has. It is, however, equally disorienting as some of the other names that show up along the way.
As for the other factions, Princess Hind talks to them one by one, giving the film an adventure feel that fails to capitalize on using beautiful scenery in striking or visually poignant ways at almost every turn; the leaders of these tribes also often have no character. There also isn’t much of an understanding of why these tribes are at odds with one another. This movie is filled with dialogue that consistently and shockingly amounts to vague nothingness. Nevertheless, each tribe doesn’t take much convincing to begin with, meaning that not only is the film repetitive, but it’s also lifeless when characters are in conversation.
That Desert Warrior does occasionally spring to life, and a bloated 2+ running time is a small miracle. This is typically accomplished through the occasional fight scene between factions that also serves to demonstrate Princess Hind coming into her own as a warrior. When the tribes are united in a massive-scale battle, and that plan is unfolding step by step, one certainly sees why someone would want to tell this story and pull it off with such spectacle. However, this film is as dry as the desert itself.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder
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