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Notes -
True Detective Night Country
There is a culture war internet discourse happening around HBO’s newest show True Detective Night Country. The discourse can generally be summed up as follows: HBO newest show TD Night Country is the 4th season of an anthology mystery/crime miniseries. The first season came out ten years ago and it starred Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as two detectives searching for a killer in Louisiana. The plot does not particularly matter, but the show is widely viewed as one of the greatest single seasons of TV ever. Speaking for myself, I agree with this assessment. I return to it every few years and I am still impressed at how good the acting, story, and cinematography are.
Fast forward ten years…two mediocre seasons (2 and 3) were released, and HBO announced the release of True Detective Season 4, co-named Night Country. Season 4 stars Jodie Foster and Kali Reis as two detectives unravelling a murder mystery in Alaska and people were very, very excited for this season. Prior to release, Night Country received overwhelming critical reception from TV critics. It currently has a 93% Rotten Tomatoes score (RT can be gamed, but the 93% score shows the general reception).
I was also very excited for this show. Critics were calling it the best season of True Detective since season 1; some were even saying it was better than season 1. With these very lofty expectations, I watched the show as it was released, week by week.
By episode two, I knew this show had problems. By episode four, I knew it just wasn’t very good. By episodes 5 and 6, I was hate watching. Many people have reviewed and discussed the show’s problems much more eloquently than I. This video is quite good and sums up the many many problems the show has:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=y2TCOd_YZF4
What I will say is that the show is simply…boring. It is a six-hour miniseries and at least 70% of the show is filled with boring relationship drama (the remaining 30% being focused on the actual…criminal investigation). The characters are uninteresting, low stakes, and unlikeable. The easter eggs paying homage to season 1 are like a frying pan to the face in their obviousness. The story carries no emotional weight, has major plot holes, and the ending is unsatisfying and bewildering. It’s bad. I would not recommend this show to anyone.
Now here is where the culture war comes into play. Online, fans of the True Detective series are panning the series. Go check out the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, it is a paltry 61%. The True Detective subreddit is especially critical of the show. People are especially disappointed and confused given how critically hyped it was before its release.
But what has happened is that many critics, podcasters, even Issa Lopez, the director, are blaming the backlash on sexism and misogyny. They say that male fanboys of season 1 are brigading review sites and review bombing the show. They are saying that the viewers dislike the show because it features two women lead detectives and that viewers can’t stand the lack of masculinity that was so integral to season 1. Even the professional critics who have dared to post their negative opinions on Twitter are being called misogynistic.
The problem with this read is that…the show sucks. It’s just not good for all of the reasons I’ve listed above. It’s extremely frustrating to see people called misogynistic and “anti-woke” for criticizing a show with two women leads. I find it particularly unfair because other detective shows with women leads, such as Mare of Eastown or Sharp Objects, were fantastic. It didn’t receive the critical backlash because those shows were actually good. We now exist in a bizarre universe where a magazine like Rolling Stone overwhelmingly praises the show while a magazine like Forbes pans it.
I’m not one who normally gets involved in the culture war, but I found this discourse particularly egregious. I don’t know what the future of this series holds, but I’m hoping someone at HBO sees the light.
Update: Issa Lopez has been hired to write and direct season 5 of True Detective. Whoosh.
You know what was really awful, with terrible plot, weak characters and acting, and tons of boring filler?
Every Jean Claude Van Damme movie.
Do you know what was widely enjoyed by male audiences, with positive reviews, fond memories, and enough cultural cachet to spawn respectful memes and callbacks?
Jean Claude Van Damme movies.
I'm not going to make any claims about this True Detective thing, I didn't watch the show, haven't followed the coverage or reaction, haven't seen the director's interviews. Don't really care about the particulars of this one case much, the dynamic you are describing is definitely a thing that could exist and very well may, for all I know.
But I do want to complicate the narrative beyond 'The people giving this show terrible reviews aren't saying it's bad because it has female leads and don't explicitly believe that's why they dislike it, therefore the director is wrong to say that they are rejecting it because it has female leads.'
No one would say 'I like Jean Claude Van Damme movies because the lead character is a man.' But a lot of similarly brainless beat-em-up action movies have been released with women leads over the years, often with better objective craft and quality overall, and male audiences have generally rejected all of them. It can be true both that male audiences did not reject those movies out of explicit misogyny, and that they would have enjoyed them more if they had starred a cheesy male lead. Those two things don't actually contradict each other.
So there is in fact a nuanced claim the director could be making here, that audiences 'aren't ready' for a female lead in this type of story, or that the story was written in a way that would appeal more to women audiences but the existing audience was mostly male and liked it less, or that having female leads and director led to some necessary changes from the first season that aren't bad but that are noticeably different and therefore upsetting to big fans who were promised a return to form, or etc. etc. etc.
I just want to carve out the fact that there is room for nuanced claims in this discussion, and we don't always have to reduce discussions about things like this down to the barest-bone caricatures of the two 'sides' in the culture war.
Also every porn movie with female leads has worse acting, plot and characters and yet is welcomed by male audience. I think this totally disproves the misogyny narrative.
On a more serious note - the van damme movies were good where they mattered - the action. Nobody watched them for the plot. Also it's not like men shunned Cynthia Rothrock or the likes.
Universal Soldier (1992) was a masterpiece of cinema and the fact it has a 34% RottenTomatoes score is a blight on our culture.
This is the big issue. From what I did watch, Night Country is not a True Detective series. Had the True Detective name never been attached the critics could sing its praises in peace. They could glorify the importance of its message in a thousand reviews that no one would read. Then, the Prestige TV-cels could have then watched an episode, laughed at it, and never thought about it again.
The studio's decision to attach the True Detective brand cashes in a little HBO credibility with some part of their audience, but apparently the viewership was good? I guess there's a market for bad TV on HBO. It is a shame they pulled a bait-and-switch on a fanbase that I assume really really really wants another good season of True Detective, but alas. It ain't happening. I quickly bailed on the series and have no inclination to watch it.
It depends what you mean, Season 4 was I think (and the audience scores seem to agree) better than season 2. Was season 2 a real True Detective show? What is the requirement (beyond owning the IP) for it to be a True Detective show? I don't think it can be quality, because season 2 was pretty bad.
I think that (setting aside quality) Season 4 is definitely more True Detective than Season 2. In fact I might argue the reason it isn't good it because it is too much True Detective. It takes Season 1 and turns it up to 11. One detective who sleeps around, 1 with weird visions. A strange seemingly posed body/bodies. The spiral, a conspiracy, an ambiguous ending with something unexplained yet some sort of hope for the protagonists, An emphasis on visuals and a crime still being investigated years afterwards. A final confrontation in a maze like cave. The final reveal not really living up to the set up.
I'm not a huge fan, but I do recall it being lambasted for not meeting expectations or anything alike S1. After reading this thread I looked at the TD sub and it sounds like there's a rehabilitation of Season 2 going on.
From what I saw, it has some more similarities to Season 1 than S2. Season 2 may have had more detective work if not the cultish, supernatural vibes? It has been quite awhile since I've seen S2 and I don't think I will watch again. The shootout was the coolest part.
I recently watched Season 3 and it was enjoyable and interesting. After the noise surrounding S2 it makes sense they try to re-align with S1 vibes. It'd be fine if True Detective didn't follow the S1 formula with each season having its own themes, setting, and tone that aren't all that similar to each other. Big A-list names with acting bonafides, interesting/logical/grounded detective work, some well-written twists, and sure some supernatural flair if they want. Setting aside quality, that sounds neat.
Season 2 went to a bigger ensemble, (3 cops 1 mob boss) and yeah had basically none of the supernatural vibes (bar perhaps, Velcoro's dream). I think it is probably the least True Detective season and probably the worst season overall. Though I think it looked worse than it was as it was right after Season 1. I think season 3 got the cop dynamic right but the mystery was weak. 4, tried to go back to 1, which makes sense because most of the criticisms of 2 and 3 were they weren't enough like 1.
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