True Detective will be back for a fifth case at HBO. Fresh off the best ratings in series history for the show’s Alaska-set fourth season, True Detective: Night Country, the network has renewed the series for a fifth season with Night Country showrunner Issa López at the helm once more. López is eager to return to the dark world of the crime anthology series, and credits the help of HBO head of programming Casey Bloys and drama chief Francesca Orsi, “From conception to release, Night Country has been the most beautiful collaboration and adventure of my entire creative life. HBO trusted my vision all the way, and the idea of bringing to life a new incarnation of True Detective with Casey, Francesca, and the whole team is a dream come true. I can’t wait to go again.” López has signed a new multiyear overall deal that will see her create new exclusive programming for HBO and its streamer wing Max, in addition to the new True Detective season.
Night Country was both a critical and ratings success for HBO, after a five-year hiatus between seasons. It currently sits at a 92% “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and its recent final episode attracted 3.2 million cross-platform viewers, a 55% increase over the finale of season 3. Although no plot or casting details have yet been released for the upcoming season, it is likely that it will revolve around a new pair of detectives solving a new case, as all previous seasons have; this season, however, did tease connections to previous seasons, with mentions of the father of Matthew McConaughey‘s Rust Cohle from season 1, and even quoting Cohl’s famous “Time is a flat circle” aphorism.
What Happened in ‘True Detective: Night Country’?
Set in remote Ennis, Alaska, Night Country centers around local police chief Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and state trooper Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) who reluctantly work together when eight scientists mysteriously disappear from a nearby research facility. Soon enough, the scientists are found frozen into a gruesome “corpsicle”, which only deepens the mystery. Danvers and Navarro have to overcome their painful shared history to delve into the mystery of the scientists’ deaths, which may also be connected to the disappearance of a local woman years earlier. Along the way, they run into opposition from the authorities, Danvers’ colleagues, and a local mine whose pollution may be the key to the entire case. The season also starred John Hawkes, Fiona Shaw, Finn Bennett, Isabella Star LaBlanc, and Christopher Eccleston.
With a swift renewal, True Detective fans may have a shorter wait for a new season than in previous years. While the much-maligned second season of the show was released in 2015, a year after its first season debuted in 2014, the Mahershala Ali/Stephen Dorff-led third wasn’t released until 2019. Following that season, the pandemic and the dual SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes conspired to push Night Country‘s debut into 2024.
The first four seasons of True Detective are streaming now on Max in the U.S. There is currently no release date for Season 5.
via Collider