True Detective: How Many Days Of Night There Are In Alaska

True Detective‘s fourth season, True Detective: Night Country, is perhaps the anthology series’ most ambitious season as it is set in the fictional town of Ennis, Alaska and features the distinct days of night throughout its storytelling. True Detective features a series of spirals – that is, enigmatic drawings, paintings, and carvings that connect strange happenings to the cases many of the protagonists are attempting to solve. While True Detective‘s first season is the best, True Detective: Night Country‘s female characters are not only better written than what’s been previously seen, but they’re far more crucial to the story too.

Remaining consistent with each season of True Detective having its own distinct feeling, the women and the more significant supernatural elements in True Detective: Night Country are two of the biggest things that separate it from previous seasons. As early as True Detective: Night Country‘s first episode, audiences were made aware of a unique phenomenon known as the days of night. While the days of night don’t immediately appear to have much to do with the events of the case, its real-life origins as well as its potential influence over the show have some interesting implications for the crime series.

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Alaska’s Northernmost City Has Over 60 Days Of Night

This contributes to residents experiencing abnormally longer and colder nights.

Alaska’s northernmost city, Utqiaġvik, can get up to sixty-seven days of darkness, while southern cities can experience the same phenomenon to varying degrees. The days of night is an event in which the Earth tilts on its axis at a degree of roughly 23 1/2 during the winter seasons, thus causing the sun to remain below the horizon for extended periods. As a result, the northernmost regions plunge into darkness for approximately two months, thus bringing about the days of night. Although unique, it doesn’t impact all of Alaska, but it can affect its citizens in many different ways.

Why The Night Is Important To True Detective: Night Country

The night reflects the mindsets and attitudes of Ennis’s residents regarding the case.

The night is important to True Detective: Night Country for many reasons, as extended periods in darkness and/or isolation can lead to people experiencing hallucinations, mood swings, and various other mental health struggles. Furthermore, The night subtly and overtly references real-life scenarios, thus elevating the framework of the case that Jodie Foster’s Liz Danvers and Kali Reiss’s Evangeline Navarro are investigating. Initially, night is simply a means of highlighting the desperate circumstances of the case – scientists stowed away at a research facility far from society who suddenly and mysteriously perish under bizarre circumstances.

However, delving a bit deeper into its importance, The night is more significant because it underlines the mindsets and feelings that many of the residents of Ennis, including law enforcement, have regarding the region’s crime, mysteries, etc. Many of the residents of Ennis in True Detective: Night County are hardly fazed by what has been dubbed “the corpsicle,” thus suggesting that they’ve seen things like it before or worse. Furthermore, darkness is typically representative of evil, so a city that is engulfed in darkness for months on end is, in effect, engulfed in evil as well.