Billie Eilish Inspired More Than the Opening Credits of 'True Detective: Night Country'

Sunday night's debut episode of True Detective: Night Country is full of terrifying images. In the premiere, Jodie Foster and Kali Reis take on a case that involves undead guides, frozen bodies, and (potentially!) another scary cult working behind the scenes. Though we have to wait to find out exactly what lies ahead, we have a lot to look forward to in the episodes ahead. Night Country is also the most female-focused story in the anthology series yet, with True Detective's new showrunner, Issa López, looking to capitalize on the latest reimagining of the HBO hit drama.

To kick things off, López scored season 4's opening title sequence with Billie Eilish's 2019 hit, "Bury a Friend." In an interview with IndieWire, the showrunner described the song as "just really fucking nicely female," adding, "It’s such a dark, moody, fun, sinister little song that I thought it could absolutely work. I love the fact that it’s so unexpected. It doesn’t seem that we are going to suddenly cut to Billie Eilish, but it just works so well." Lopez also reportedly listened to Eilish's music "day and night" when she was writing Night Country. "It was so weird because I thought of the tongue and burying a friend and stepping on glass—all of the things that are in the show," she said. "I was like, ‘That’s insane... All the elements of the series are in the song.'"

According to Eilish, she wrote the song from the perspective of a monster under her bed. "I also confess that I’m this monster, because I’m my own worst enemy,” the singer said in an interview with Alternative Press back in 2019. "I might be the monster under your bed too." Many of Eilish's fans also drew comparisons to a story the singer shared about sleep paralysis, which Eilish later hinted was partially true.

In the premiere of Night Country, Foster finds a severed tongue, drives in the middle of the night, and even discovers dead bodies frozen in ice. The tone of the series shares a lot of similarities to Eilish's song, which includes disturbing lyrics such as, "Step on the glass, staple your tongue/Bury a friend, try to wake up." Is it possible that Eilish's song played a larger part in True Detective season 4's script? "It’s perfectly possible that the events of the show happened because I was listening to Billie," Lopez told IndieWire. "So I just hope she doesn’t call me wanting some writing credit."

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