Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for True Detective: Night Country.
Thetitle sequenceis a special part ofTrue Detective, the gritty crime series often playing obscure songs against superimposed images of grizzled characters within their season-designated location.Woody Harrelson’s facial structure is made of the elevated highways of Louisiana, whileMahershala Aligets morphed into the wilderness of the Ozarks. So with Season 4, many fans were surely anticipating what the new opening would be like. More shocking than any killer reveals is how the intro forNight Countrygets shaken up withBillie Eilishtaking the spot of an obscure song, and gone are the superimposed images of characters within a setting. But creatorIssa Lópezsets a chilling tone with her opener, putting the audience into the POV of driving down a long, dark Alaskan road, glimpsing Easter eggs and clues along the way that make sense as the finale approaches.
True Detective
Anthology series in which police investigations unearth the personal and professional secrets of those involved, both within and outside the law.
Once the title sequence begins, snow blows off a narrow road, one that is similar to the isolated roads Chief Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and State Trooper Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) drive on to find a lead or head home.The sunny or heated visuals from the past seasons are made icy and inky, thanks to the two months of nightfall taking over Ennis, Alaska. There are bold colors in the font, red bleeding out of the names of the actors and producers, before freezing up into white. The intro’s POV is as if the audience is in the driver’s seat of Danvers and Navarro’s police vehicle, heading onto the road where “we” approach one of the first big images.
It’s a bathtub, black water sloshing inside with the crimson reflection of a word appearing on the surface.It seems to spell “Tsalal,” for the Tsalal Arctic Research Station, a main location inNight Countrywhere its scientific members vanished, kicking off one of several eerie mysteries. The tub’s black water could be the polluted water caused by the local mine owned by Silver Sky, affecting the health of the Indigenous population, and contributing to a high number of stillbirths. Silver Sky is already a major player in Danvers and Navarro’s investigation, and as the title sequence continues, something rolls onto the road in a blink-and-you-miss-it moment.
‘True Detective’ and ‘The Godfather’ Share Fruit Symbolism
An orange crosses the road for a quick shot, the same fruit thatNight Countryhas turned into an omen for the supernatural horror plaguing Ennis. This isn’t by accident, it’s a reference to what the orange stood for inThe Godfathermovies, the sweet, citrus fruit foreshadowing the deaths of many characters. InTrue Detective, oranges are just as menacing. In “Part 3,”Navarro finds an orange left behind from the search party looking for Raymond Clark (Owen McDonnell), a main suspect in the Tsalal disappearance, but when she throws it into the distance, the fruit rolls back to her feet, much like those balls that ghosts tend to use as a scare tactic in horror movies. A deadly encounter with an orange then happens in “Part 4.”
At the treatment center,The Lighthouse, Navarro’s sister Julia (Aka Niviâna) attempts to work on her mental health, due to the possible onset of schizophrenia inherited by their late mother. Tragically, her first night there would be her last. In Julia’s room, an orange rolls out from under the bed and when she looks for the source, she sees the spirit of her mother. It terrifies her, pushing her to take her own life afterward. In the opening credits, the orange reappears again when the peel forms the shape ofthe crooked spiral that is a returning motif from Season 1, the symbol said to have originated in the Alaskan region as a marker for dangerously thin ice.Night Countrywarns about oranges, which look innocent enough, the same that can be said for a stuffed animal that holds painful memories for Danvers.
There’s More Than One Version of the Scarred Polar Bear
A scarred polar bear is seen on the intro’s road, but it’s important what version is shown first. This refers to a past Danvers has talked little about, where she lost her husband and young son which left her as the estranged single parent to Leah(Isabella Star LaBlanc). Among the possessions Danvers has left from her son, is a one-eyed stuffed polar bear. Without knowing the significance,Navarro avoids driving into a life-sized, monstrous version of this bear; at another point, Danvers, while drunk, has to swerve to not hit the creature either.
These two moments are hinted atwhen the polar bear in the title sequence materializes from an approaching car, the headlights shining out of the bear’s good eye. But when Navarro spots the stuffed animal in a box of personal items, Danvers reacts angrily, putting a stop to hearing any otherworldly messages Navarro might have been given, deciding to throw the toy out into the snow. It’s safe to say the scarred polar bear won’t be easy to get rid of, the small or the big one.
‘Night Country’s Opening Credits Return to the Tsalal Station
There are various images of Tsalal glimpsed on the side of the road and from individual shots that cut in. There is equipment and a sign for the research facility. Inserts that are edited in quickly include the ice samples from Tsalal and the shadowy “corpsicle," without showing too much of the frozen, post-mortem crime scene, leaving a longer view of it for the episodes. Also in the opening, there is a scene from the station’s lab, a strong indicator for audiences ofhow connected Tsalal is to Season 4’s mystery, from the unsolved murder of Annie K (Nivi Pedersen)to the cover-up that the mine is a part of. And that isn’t the only way Season 4 emphasizes the industrialized danger to Ennis.
The Silver Sky Mine Is Killing the Indigenous People of Ennis
A shot of a snowy gravesite could be read as hinting at the deaths that will occur in this icy, remote location. It could remind someone of theAmerican Horror Storytitle sequence, where the iconic, surreal music plays under creepy visuals that set a mood but don’t usually end up appearing in the season itself. InNight Country, the patch of white crosses, with names written across the wood, has now appeared as a real location around Ennis. It’s the town’s cemetery, and when Danvers goes there in“Part 5,”she visits a shed where numerous bodies are being held until the weather is warm enough for their burials. Inside the building,she looks at the small coffins with the stillborn bodies, due to the toxic water caused by the Silver Sky mines. A murder mystery isn’t the only problem for Ennis, it seems Danvers is finally understanding the corruption happening due to the mine.
The Opening Credits Go into the Caves Where Annie K Died
For most of Season 4, Danvers and Navarro have reopened the cold case of Annie K, searching for hard, concrete answers. An important site is uncovered in the form of a final video the young woman recorded, footage that has her frightened while in an ice cave before she is attacked. Heroin addict Otis Heiss (Klaus Tange) knows the place this occurred in, having mapped out the ice cave system that is known as, The Night Country. It’s a location thatSilver Sky owner Kate McKittrick (Dervla Kirwan) doesn’t want to be discovered, leading to Otis’ murder, and because of that, Danvers/Navarro know this location might have key evidenceto get justice for Annie. The detectives will get access to the caves in the finale, but when they do, the opening credits caution them about entering.
The ‘Night Country’ Credits Hint That Liz Danvers Is in Danger
Throughout the title sequence, there are insert shots of a woman in an Alaskan police uniform sinking into waterunder the ice. She thrashes about, but no help comes. From the clothes and the hair color, it resembles Jodie Foster’s character, warning viewers about the safety of the abrasive, foul-mouthed Liz Danvers during the finale. With Navarro and others having seen or encountered the spirit world, perhaps it will take a freezing, near-death experience for Danvers to wake up to the supernatural in Ennis, for what can only help her heal from the past. Or, like whatLópez did in her horror film, there might be a major, unexpected death in Season 4’s last episode. Danvers could very well not make it out alive.
The Final Image Always Changes in ‘Night Country’s Opening Credits
Season 4 has been hiding a major revelation in plain sight. “Part 5” reveals that Hank Prior (John Hawkes) was responsible for moving Annie’s body, although he’s clear about not being the one who killed her, and when his “And” credit appears in the intro for some episodes, it’s from within the icy water where an Indigenous woman’s hand sinks out of the frame. There’s another way the intro emphasizes big clues in plain sight. Something else to look out for is the final visual.
It’s a still image of a scene that will be crucial in each episode.In “Part 2,” it’s the secret RV that belongs to Clark, in what looks to be a strange, ritualistic shrine to Annie K. In “Part 5,” it’s the Silver Sky construction site where Kate McKittrick meets in secret with Hank, placing him on his doomed, self-destructive path. Knowing how the show emphasizes the final image in the opening credits, keep an eye out for what that is when “Part 6” arrives. By the title sequence’s end,the POV changes drastically when the police vehicle is seen from the outside and the viewers travel far into the ice and snow, until the vehicle is small, forcing viewers to be lost in the darkness.
Why Billie Eilish Works for ‘Night Country’s Theme Song
When Billie Eilish is heard, it comes out of nowhere, but the music to “bury a friend” is pulsating, with nightmarish lyrics that strongly influenced Issa López. The creator, director and showrunner spoke withIndieWire about how she listened to the singer’s musicwhile developing Season 4: “It’s such a dark, moody, fun, sinister little song that I thought it could absolutely work. I love the fact that it’s so unexpected. It doesn’t seem that we are going to suddenly cut to Billie Eilish, but it just works so well.”Eilish wrote the song from the perspective of a monster under the bedand how the person above is intrigued by the creature, which works to represent the monstrous acts inNight Country, and this season’s detectives can’t help but be drawn to the monsters involved in committing them.
The final verse of the title sequence is a haunting question. “When we all fall asleep, where do we go?” It’s a proper one to wonder about in Ennis,where “sleep” most likely means death, and death isn’t quite the ending to everything. While hearing the popular song may not make everyone happy, the music choice wasn’t put in without thought, making for an exciting change in how it flips the formula of aTrue Detectiveintro. Even without the usual editing and imagery known to the series, the title sequence forNight Countrystands out with its peek at intricate visuals that are begging to be inspected.
True Detective: Night Countryis available to stream on Max, with the finale episode premiering this Sunday.
