True Detective

Ultimately, though, “True Detective: Night Country” plays like a slog through deep snow before getting around to unlocking its secrets, a too-long journey into night.

I finished “True Detective: Night Country” feeling frustrated as well as moved. This was a season with good bones (pun intended) that needed more than six episodes to breathe. Absent that space, it leans on so much shorthand that the setup starts to feel hand-wavy and a little, well, generic.

Trying to bite off more than it can chew to the detriment of its own strengths, this multifaceted descent into a chilly abyss doesn’t completely come together.

A female-forward story that personalizes and internalizes the anthology’s typically convoluted plotting in a way that’s refreshing and frequently potent. But as the first True Detective season not to tell its story over eight episodes, Night Country comes off as needlessly truncated in key areas, lacking the opportunity to truly inhabit its most distinctive elements.

There’s a compelling story buried in here, about the town’s indigenous Iñupiaq women, and how and why they operate on the margins. “True Detective” mostly keeps them on the edges of the story, as well. The finale suggests a more interesting story that could have been front and center.

Too much going on, but still an improvement over seasons two and three.