True Detective, the anthology mystery series that captivated HBO viewers back in 2014, returns this weekend for its first new season in five years. The new installment, True Detective: Night Country, has a fresh visionary in filmmaker Issa López. Her goal with this story, she told Vanity Fair last year, was to create a mirror image to the first season, which starred Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey and was set in bright, balmy Louisiana. “Night Country is cold, and it’s dark, and it’s female.” López’s take on the police drama is spooky and poignant, but as promised, it’s mighty bleak, to the extent that some may have a hard time sticking with it.

Like the first season, Night Country centers on a pair of police officers investigating a mystery with ties to an unsolved case from their past. Jodie Foster stars as Police Chief Liz Danvers, whose crusty demeanor got her exiled to the small Arctic town of Ennis, Alaska, where winter is accompanied by weeks of uninterrupted night. When an entire team of scientists suddenly vanishes from a research facility within her jurisdiction, Danvers puts her tiny, under-equipped precinct to the task of solving their disappearance. Meanwhile, Danvers’ former partner State Trooper Evangeline Navarro (boxing champion Kali Reis) believes the incident........

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