Laird Barron is enthusiastic about the fourth season of True Detective, arguing that the writer/showrunner, Issa Lopez conjures an “ethereal undercurrent of magical realism”. He sees many of the artistic (and philosophical) decisions made reflect the lonely, estranged Alaskan setting. He also discusses the show as being within the tradition of “polar” horror, though refreshingly using women as the POV characters. Barron sees the new season as a “mirroring and jagged, splintered refraction” of the first season. He asserts that Navarro, one of the main characters is “an avatar/vessel of the Inuit goddess, Sedna” and praises the “dreamlike aftermath” of the final episode.
I particularly liked Barron’s take on the season’s ambiguity and he provides a plausible explanation to the symbolism of the orange throughout the season:
The recurring orange and coin suggest the mutability of physics, of reality at large. Time is circular, distance illusory, free will a charade. All matter, all space, condenses to an origin point if your field of view is broad enough. Or maybe it’s a parlor trick and we’re rubes. Chicanery and magic bear a close resemblance in the dark. The same could be argued of events in Ennis, the perspectives of its residents.