True Detective: Night Country pulls loosely together in "Part 5"

They say that one of the marks of a good screenplay is a lack of extraneous parts. Every piece of the puzzle has a place. If that's the case, then True Detective: Night Country is looking pretty complete. Seeds planted earlier in the season start to sprout in "Part 5." Threads start to tie together, pieces start to interlock. Whatever metaphor you choose, it feels good to watch.

And yet, I think things could come together a little more smoothly. The gears of the plot lock up, but sometimes they have to be forced into place. Things don't quite lay flush; there are little bumps and gaps, not enough to compromise what has been a very solid story, but enough to distract and annoy. Let's dig into those gaps one last time before next week's finale.

True Detective: Night Country review, "Part 5"

So what seeds start spouting in this episode? Well, since the start of the season, we've been hearing about the Silver Sky mining company, which employs a lot of the people in the town of Ennis but is also a big polluter. (Even now, I'm not sure exactly what Silver Sky is mining, but I'll look past it.) Liz's step-daughter Leah has been getting more radicalized over the course of the season, and in this episode participates in a protest against Silver Sky. There's a conflict with the police on the scene, things get violent, and Leah is barely saved by Navarro, who's there to help protect the mine.

Afterwards, Liz decides to book Leah and lock her up, taking the tough love approach to parenting. It doesn't improve their relationship. Liz is also called to the Silver Sky mine to talk about the protest, and gets some surprising news: the experts in Anchorage have ruled that the deaths of the scientists at Tsalal were the result of a weather event, which is an absurd conclusion given everything we know. Under normal circumstances, Liz would press on with her investigation anyway, but is disuaded by Captain Ted Connelly, who somehow knows about what she and Navarro did to William Wheeler, the abusive husband who killed his wife three years ago. This episode confirms what we guessed long ago: the pair of them killed William and made it look like a suicide, although we still don't know which one of them pulled the trigger. If Liz and Navarro step out of line, Connelly will reveal all and doom them.

In addition, we find out that Hank Prior has been working with Silver Sky from a long way back; he helped them cover up whatever happened to Annie Koutuk years ago, and now the Silver Sky representative (I don't remember her name, which is bad, but I do know that her husband cheated on her with Liz, which is hilarious) wants him to dispose of Otis Heiss, the engineer who could lead Liz and Navarro through the cave system where Annie K was killed.

I like a lot of this because everything is entwining with everything else. After a season spent in the background, the Silver Sky mining company reveals itself as potentially the malevolent force behind everything, which tracks: True Detective has long faked out audiences by teasing supernatural culprits to whatever mystery needs to be solved, but ultimately there's nothing more monstrous than a corporation willing to do anything to maintain its share price. Silver Sky also funded Tsalal so they can massage their "pollution numbers," or at least that's what Liz thinks. (I do feel like the show could have done a little more research into the science of mining, cause it's all pretty vague here.)

I almost wish we didn't have the bit where the Silver Sky representative pressures Hank Prior into killing Otis Heiss. It reduces the potency of Silver Sky as a threat, making them a little more ordinary and less ominous. I would have liked Silver Sky to maintain an air of mystery ahead of the finale. That they take their mask off so soon makes me think there's at least one more layer to peel back here.

The problems with True Detective: Night Country, "Part 5"

But here's where the gaps start to form. I feel like Leah isn't as strongly developed as some of the other characters. She's cutting her stepmom absolutely no slack, even though Liz is trying to get to the bottom of who murdered Annie K, a crime in which Silver Sky most definitely had a hand. They can be on the same page here. Navarro saves Annie from a brutal beating during the protest, but almost immediately afterwards Leah dismisses her as just another pig. I know teenagers can be selfish jackasses, and the show is aware of that, but I don't feel like we're supposed to see Leah that way. When Liz comes to Leah trying to make up, her step-daughter's reassurance ("I haven't given up on you") is what spurs her to continue looking into Annie's case anyway, despite Liz continually pulling Leah's butt out of the fire. Neither of them have given up on the other, and I wanted more acknowledgement of that reciprocity.

Maybe it's unrealistic to expect emotional consistency from a teenager; after all, her mom did put her in jail for a minute. Peter Prior's wife Kayla is also a sore spot. She and Peter have been having marital problems for a while, but last week things escalated suddenly and unexpectedly when Prior intimated that she never wanted to have his baby. This week she tosses him out of their house. I feel like we needed a better understanding of their issues before we got to this point. Peter I feel like I know pretty well, but Kayla is still a cipher.

I also feel like Peter's interest in the Wheeler case sprung up out of nowhere. We knew that Liz gave him the vague details a few episodes back, but I was surprised to learn he's been piecing together what actually happened this whole time. To make matters worse (and quite convenient for the plot), his dad cracked his laptop and learned everything Peter knows, which he then passed on to Connelly, which Connelly used to try and intimidate Liz into dropping her investigation into the murders. For a show that's taken its time getting from point A to B, that's a lot of dots connected very quickly.

I notice that this episode had four writers: Katrina Albright, Wenonah Wilms, Chris Mundy and showrunner Issa López. The multiplicity of perspectives could account for why the story feels a bit jumbled. But things do tighten up towards the end, when Hank tracks Otis Heiss to Liz's house. She's taken Otis out of the rehab center so he can lead her through the ice cave system where Annie K was killed, known locally as the Night Country. (I do love the sound of that.) Hank tries to intimidate Liz into letting Otis come with him, but Liz senses that something is up. Hank kills Otis, and then Peter — who's now living in Liz's shed — kills his own father.

Does it all happen very quickly? Yes. Is it all a bit convenient? Yes. But the actors knock it out of the park — of course Jodie Foster is terrific as Liz, but I have to give a special shout out to Finn Bennett, who has been doing a bang-up job as Peter all season — and I was biting my nails the whole time. I want to see what happens when Liz and Navarro finally enter the Night Country in the finale. The show is doing a good job of keeping me interested, even if it sprays itself thin at times.

True Detective: Night Bullet Points

• I liked the opening of the episode where Navarro waited to receive the ashes of her sister. It was sort of dehumanizing to see the mechanics of the cremation process, but the attendant was still kind and gentle. A nice mix.
• Later, Navarro enlists Rose's help in burying Julia's ashes at sea, and has another moment where some mysterious voice beckens her to death. Rose still feels extraneous to the main narrative, but I suspect she'll have some larger part to play in the finale.
• Navarro and Eddie Qavvik have had a sweet little romance arc over the course of this season. It comes full circle here as they finally appear to trust and support one another.
• Night Country does love a montage set to a moody piece of music. Here we get downtempo versions of "Nothing Breaks Like a Heart" by Miley Cyrus and "Save Tonight" by Eagle-Eye Cherry, and I'm sure I'm missing some.

Episode Grade: B-

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