Fortunately, each episode is better than the last! A big misstep with this season is that they didn't drop us right in middle of the Iñupiat communities and then build the mystery from there.
As this episode clearly shows, the strongest scenes have involved Chief Danvers and Trooper Navarro interacting with locals, side characters like Leah (Danvers' step-daughter) getting more involved with the anti-mine movement, and learning more about the murdered Anne Kowtok. We do explore Kowtok's murder and gradually meet the locals in the first two episodes, but they definitely felt more peripheral - I'm saying it might've been more of an impactful introduction if the story started at the core of the communities and then revealed the mysterious Tsalal Research Center deaths.
The detective scenes have felt consistently stiff and forced throughout these first three episodes - I get a tiny bit of a Twin Peaks vibe, giving us the crime procedural archetypes and tropes all while the true drama and suspense exist in the scenes with Iñupiat characters and the otherworldly.
The opening scene of Navarro attempting to arrest Kowtok but ending up witnessing a home birth with Iñupiat midwives was powerful and revealed so much about both Navarro and Kowtok. The interaction between Navarro and Eddie Qavvik where she reveals that she was never told what her native name was, followed by the elusive Oliver Tagaq belittling Navarro and accusing her of "forgetting" her native name; Danvers' tension with her stepdaughter, not wanting her to get involved with the anti-mine movement, and especially scolding her for getting traditional markings temporarily tattooed on her face - these are all scenes that develop strong characters and set the foundation from which the mystery and tension can be conjured.
Here's to hoping that the season continues in this direction!
As this episode clearly shows, the strongest scenes have involved Chief Danvers and Trooper Navarro interacting with locals, side characters like Leah (Danvers' step-daughter) getting more involved with the anti-mine movement, and learning more about the murdered Anne Kowtok. We do explore Kowtok's murder and gradually meet the locals in the first two episodes, but they definitely felt more peripheral - I'm saying it might've been more of an impactful introduction if the story started at the core of the communities and then revealed the mysterious Tsalal Research Center deaths.
The detective scenes have felt consistently stiff and forced throughout these first three episodes - I get a tiny bit of a Twin Peaks vibe, giving us the crime procedural archetypes and tropes all while the true drama and suspense exist in the scenes with Iñupiat characters and the otherworldly.
The opening scene of Navarro attempting to arrest Kowtok but ending up witnessing a home birth with Iñupiat midwives was powerful and revealed so much about both Navarro and Kowtok. The interaction between Navarro and Eddie Qavvik where she reveals that she was never told what her native name was, followed by the elusive Oliver Tagaq belittling Navarro and accusing her of "forgetting" her native name; Danvers' tension with her stepdaughter, not wanting her to get involved with the anti-mine movement, and especially scolding her for getting traditional markings temporarily tattooed on her face - these are all scenes that develop strong characters and set the foundation from which the mystery and tension can be conjured.
Here's to hoping that the season continues in this direction!