Mystery Binges: Presumed Innocent & True Detective: Night Country

Are you ready to sink your teeth into a murder mystery? Then I’ve got two different flavors of murderous mayhem to share with you!

True Detective: Night Country: I was never a big fan of True Detective and was only able to watch 1.5 seasons because it felt a bit too male and self-aggrandizing under the aegis of creator Nic Pizzolatto. Well now, Issa Lopez has taken over as showrunner, and cast Jodie Foster and Kali Reis as Liz Danvers and Evangeline Navarro, two Alaskan cops who must investigate a VERY creepy incident involving some scientists from a local research station who disappear and are then found outside in the snow, frozen to death. Also, all of this is taking place in December as their town of Ennis, Alaska experiences its last sunset and plunges into endless polar night for a few weeks. Eek.

Our diligent duo have to deal with a whole mess of wild characters, as well as navigate their own fractious relationship and past secrets. This incident seems related to an old unresolved murder investigation of a local Inupiaq woman named Annie Kowtok, but as they delve deeper into the case, they keep throwing up more questions than answers. And also, there are a lot of spirits and supernatural jump scares that will ensure you always get freaked out at least once per episode.

Only six episodes long, this series is dark, scary, and riveting. I was worried that the mystery would not have a proper resolution, but the final episode wrapped everything up beautifully. Yes, the hour-long episodes can feel a little slow and bloated at times, but then something super scary will happen and you will jump from your seat and wish you could go back to just calmly staring at a snowdrift for some time. Foster and Reis are incredible, and the show does a good job of slowly doling out backstory until it all comes to a head in the finale. It’s an atmospheric thriller packed with literal and figurative chills and while I could only manage to watch an episode a day, so I didn’t get too scared, it was worth the sacrifice.

Presumed Innocent: All eight episodes are now available for one big binge, but I personally enjoyed watching this show from week-to-week. Based on the novel by Scott Turow (I never saw the 1990 movie adaptation starring Harrison Ford), the series was adapted for TV by David E. Kelley, the master of the legal drama. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Rusty Sabich, a Chicago prosecutor who must stand trial when his colleague (who he was secretly having an affair with) is found murdered and he is the key suspect. What follows is an intense drama both inside and outside the courtroom that ultimately culminates in a rather pleasing finale where all is finally revealed.

I love a courtroom drama, so the second half of this show, that takes place almost entirely during the trial, was very enjoyable for me. It’s also fun to see Peter Sarsgaard play Tommy Molto, the prosecuting attorney who hates Rusty’s guts. Sarsgaard and Gyllenhaal are brothers-in-law in real life, so I like to imagine they had a lot of fun playing these warring characters who can’t stand each other. Ruth Negga is also phenomenal as Rusty’s wife Barbara, a quiet, long-suffering woman who thought his affair was over and now must deal with his betrayal while still supporting him in public for the sake of their children.

The finale doesn’t disappoint, and you will get a satisfying answer to the mystery, though I was more engaged in all the preceding legal battles and grandstanding before the judge and jury. I will admit to being a little distracted by the purported American accents deployed by O-T Fagbenle and Renate Reinsve in the supporting cast who in real-life are English and Norwegian respectively, but you know what, you can’t have everything. Overall, this is a great, well-acted, tense show that has a lot of cliffhangers that will leave you clamoring for more.