HBO's True Detective Gets Darker Than Ever in Season 4

Looking for your next binge-watch, or just need to fill an hour? Welcome to Your Weekly Watch List, our curated collection of the best shows on television. Here's what to watch from Sunday, January 14 through Saturday, January 20.

Detectives are everywhere to be found on television this week, which sees the premiere of three (!) very different murder mysteries. While Jodie Foster takes over as no-nonsense police chief Liz Danvers in True Detective: Night Country, Hulu's Death and Other Details sets sail aboard a luxury ocean liner, and Clive Owen expands the story of Monsieur Spade on AMC. And if it's real-life horrors you're after, Netflix offers up American Nightmare, a stranger-than-fiction tale about the 2015 kidnapping of Denise Huskins and the ensuing media frenzy.

True Detective: Night Country

Sunday, 9:00 PM ET on HBO
*Our must-watch pick of the week

10 years after Nic Pizzolatto's True Detective first premiered on HBO — and five years since the last installment aired — the anthology series returns with a different perspective. For the first time, the crime drama adopts a distinctly female point of view as Ennis, Alaska Police Chief Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and State Trooper Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) investigate the sudden disappearance of eight men from a nearby Arctic research station. The detectives soon realize that the case is connected to the unsolved murder of an Indigenous activist; as they uncover the truth of both crimes, they're forced to confront the darkness lurking in nearly every corner of their community.

True Detective: Night Country, a subtitle that reflects the season's setting amid polar night, is the first installment to be written by someone other than Pizzolatto, but new showrunner, writer, and director Issa López slips seamlessly into the role. López is best known for her work as a horror auteur, and she brings that sensibility to the HBO drama, delivering moments of skin-crawling terror alongside poignant reflections on the epidemic of violence against Native women. Her efforts, and those of Foster, Reis, and the rest of the cast, "restore faith" in the True Detective franchise, as Leila Latif wrote in her review, despite the relentlessly bleak visuals.

Monsieur Spade

Sunday, 9:00 PM ET on AMC and Streaming on AMC+

Monsieur Spade is best considered a new chapter for Dashiell Hammett's private detective. Set in the aftermath of The Maltese Falcon, the limited series stars Clive Owen as hard-boiled investigator Sam Spade, who has settled into retired life in the South of France after a celebrated career. Spade happily spends his days looking after his late wife's (Chiara Mastroianni) vineyard and smoking in his salon, but when his old adversary Philippe Saint-Andre (Jonathan Zaccaï) returns to Bozouls and four nuns end up murdered, Spade is reluctantly drawn back into the gumshoe game.

The AMC series takes advantage of every second of its six-episode runtime, introducing new characters and conflicts at a rapid clip. While the information dump can be confusing, Owen's performance as the world-weary detective remains a highlight, and his sardonic air offers a nice contrast to the megalomaniac billionaire he recently played in FX's A Murder at the End of the World. It helps that Monsieur Spade is easy on the eyes; as we head into the depths of winter, there's something to be said for a show that foregrounds sweeping shots of the French countryside and vibrant 1960s costuming.

Death and Other Details

Tuesday, Hulu

Like Monsieur Spade, Death and Other Details presents a more colorful take on the murder mystery. Part Knives Out, part Below Deck, the drama centers on the brilliant but underestimated Imogene Scott (Violett Beane), who sets sail aboard a luxury ocean liner with the ultra-wealthy family of her best friend, Anna Collier (Lauren Patten). When an irritating passenger (Michael Gladis) turns up murdered — just hours after Imogene stops by his room to give him a piece of her mind — Imogene realizes she's become the prime suspect, but in order to prove her innocence, she must team up with a controversial figure from her past, famed detective Rufus Cotesworth (Mandy Patinkin).

Over the course of 10 episodes, Imogene and Rufus discover sordid secrets about their fellow travelers (a large ensemble that includes Angela Zhou, Pardis Saremi, Jere Burns, and Rahul Koli), bringing them closer to solving both the murder aboard the ship, and that of Imogene's mother years prior. These revelations come fast and furious — and Beane and Patinkin make for a delightful odd couple — so viewers should have no problem zipping through the season as they inch toward the killer. Two episodes of Death and Other Details premiere Tuesday, followed by one every week through early March.

American Nightmare

Wednesday, Netflix (Full Season)

American Nightmare is a true-crime docuseries that has to be seen to be believed — in fact, that was exactly the problem for Aaron Quinn and Denise Huskins. In March 2015, a masked assailant broke into Quinn's home, abducted Huskins, and demanded a ransom in exchange for her release. Huskins was freed two days later, but by that point, police in Vallejo, California had already come to doubt Quinn's version of events and identified him as their prime suspect. In a clear case of confirmation bias, Huskins' return only strengthened their belief, and the police and the media, sensing an opportunity to generate clicks off the "Gone Girl kidnapping," branded the young couple as liars perpetrating an elaborate hoax.

Quinn and Huskins have been open about their experience (they published a 2021 book, Victim F: From Crime Victims to Suspects to Survivors), but in American Nightmare, they relive their harrowing ordeal in vivid detail. Their testimony is captivating — for obvious reasons, it's rare for victims of violent crime to offer a minute-by-minute account of what happened — yet stomach-churning, particularly as Huskins recounts the sexual abuse she suffered in captivity. That combination makes the three-part series an early contender for one of the most intriguing true-crime docs of the year, but what else would you expect from the filmmakers behind The Tinder Swindler?

If You Have...

An Hour

The Curse Season 1 Finale: Sunday, 9:00 PM ET on Showtime (and streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime as of Friday, January 12)
Fargo Season 5 Finale: Tuesday, 10:00 PM ET on FX
Found Season 1 Finale: Tuesday, 10:00 PM ET on NBC
Wild Cards: Wednesday, 8:00 PM ET on The CW
Sort Of Season 3 Premiere: Thursday, Max

An Evening

75th Emmy Awards: Monday, 8:00 PM ET on Fox
June: Tuesday, Paramount+
Chicago Med, Fire, and PD Season Premieres: Wednesday, 8:00 PM ET on NBC
On the Roam: Thursday, Max
Law & Order, Special Victims Unit, and Organized Crime Season Premieres: Thursday, 8:00 PM ET on NBC

A Full Day

A Shop for Killers: Wednesday, Hulu
Cristóbal Balenciaga: Friday, Hulu
Hazbin Hotel Episodes 1-4: Friday, Prime Video

Up Next

The Woman in the Wall: Sunday, January 21 on Showtime
Griselda: Thursday, January 25 on Netflix
Sexy Beast: Thursday, January 25 on Paramount+
Expats: Friday, January 26 on Prime Video
Masters of the Air: Friday, January 26 on Apple TV+

Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.