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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.
This seems very common in media that isn't good enough to be well liked by either men or women, or where they try to have a basically masculine plot, but with a Mary Sue lead, as though that would appeal to large segments of either sex.
This is the first I've heard of True Detective, Season 4. I generally like Fargo because it's a good mix of detective stuff, characterization, and interesting cinematography and music, along with a tiny bit of fantasy. The TD4 trailer looks like a less interesting Fargo knock off.
Fargo season 5 is actually an excruciating example of this. You've got the ruthless girlboss executive running a debt collection agency who's painted as a villain in the first few episodes but then she totally owns some male, pale, and stale bankers, reevaluates her relationship with her daughter in law, and totally redeems herself. You've got John Hamm as the sheriff who's a total caricature of a right winger. You've got repeated unbearable catchphrases ("you know that a witch hunt is not witches hunting men, right? It's men hunting women to keep them in line"). The main character is (mostly) hyper competent and just about every man in the story is incompetent or a bad guy.
Even on reddit some people come out and say that it's a bit over the top, and others shout them down and call them "triggered magats" or whatever.
However it's still rated better than season 4. I don't remember the details of season 4 but I don't remember disliking it, I don't know why it got panned in reviews.
I think I quit on Fargo midway through season 3. It's a shame because seasons 1 and 2 really were extremely good.
I didn't really like season 3 too much and gave up on season 4, but season 5 was good enough.
I agree with a lot of what sarker said above, but the main variation with the wife in this one was, I think, an acceptable single degree of freedom (and a funny variation given how they've written the wife in Movie/S1/S2). Unlike True Detective Night Country, Fargo S5 worked pretty well just because they did so many of the little things well, even if a few things including sarker's points were grating. It's also not so jarring having the other characters, men, being incompetent since the show was always based on mostly everybody being incompetent for where they've found themselves. There's one episode later on that's almost a total write-off, but it's worth checking out.
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