True Detective: Night Country

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FORBES > INNOVATION > GAMES 'True Detective: Night Country' Episode 6 Review – A Truly Embarrassing Season Finale Forbes Erik Kain Senior Contributor Ⓒ I write about TV shows, movies, video games, entertainment & culture. 0 True Detective: Night Country CREDIT: HBO Un Follow Feb 18, 2024, 10:15pm EST Rolling Stone POSTMORTEM MUSIC POLITICS TV & MOVIES (SUB)CULTURE RS R 'True Detective: Night Country' Just Gave the Series Its Best Finale Ever Season Four finale of HBO's crime-drama anthology not only sticks the landing - it sets the standard for how to close a "True Detective' case BY ALAN SEPINWALL FEBRUARY 18, 2024 Jodie Foster, in a scene from the finale of 'True Detective: Night Country. MICHELE K. SHORT/HBO

la.donna.pietra @ladonnapietra I try not to use the word "bitch" to refer to a person, as I think that it promotes a really negative stereotype about femininity regardless of whom it's in reference to. That said, Nic Pizzolatto is being an astonishingly whiny little bitch. 11:22 PM. Feb 19, 2024 ...

Phillip Maciak @pjmaciak You may have liked the TRUE DETECTIVE finale or you may have hated the TRUE DETECTIVE finale, but one thing is indisputable: Nic Pizzolatto is on Instagram, posting other people's stories about how Issa López ruined the franchise like an absolutely enormous baby. 10:29 PM Feb 19, 2024

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About

True Detective: Night Country is the fourth season of the True Detective franchise, directed and written by Issa Lopez. It is notably the first season of the franchise without franchise creator Nic Pizzolatto and the first season featuring two female leads (actresses Jodie Foster and Kali Reis). Upon release in early 2024, the series was met with mixed critical reception, and discourse surrounding the show often tended to fall along political lines, as some online debated whether sexism played a part in some critics' distaste of the show. Nic Pizzolatto was among some of the most vocal critics of the show following its finale in mid-February 2024, which led to further discourse around the series. True Detective season four also spawned numerous memes referencing it, particularly after it ended.

History

The development of True Detective: Night Country was announced in March 2022^[1] with Issa Lopez tapped as the showrunner. Jodie Foster and Kali Reis were tapped as the leads shortly after. Nic Pizzolatto had no involvement with the series but is credited as an executive producer. On April 12th, 2023, the first trailer for True Detective: Night Country was released (shown below).

True Detective: Night Country takes place in Alaska and follows a mystery concerning a group of murdered scientists who died under strange circumstances. It ran six episodes from January 14th to February 18th, 2024.

Reception

True Detective: Night Country drew mostly positive reviews from critics, scoring an 81 on Metacritic,^[2] the best score a season of True Detective received since the first season. In a 5-star review, The Telegraph^[3] called it one of the best seasons of television in years. In a less-positive review, the New York Times^[4] called the show preposterous but praised Foster's performance.

The finale provided much more divisive following its mid-February 2024 release, as several critics panned the solution to the mystery, as well as the actions of the two lead cops. Forbes^[5] lambasted the finale, calling it baffling while rattling off a list of plot elements they found preposterous. On the other hand, Rolling Stone^[6] called it the best finale of the series (seen below).

Online Presence

The series generated a bevy of discourse online, as some viewers loathed the series and were baffled at the mostly positive reviews it received from critics. For example, on February 19th, 2024, on the /r/TrueDetective subreddit, Redditor bagpepos posted that they were stunned that critics seemed to like the show, gaining over 1,700 points in one day.^[7]

The subreddit also hosts several memes making fun of the show and the critical reception to it. For example, on February 19th, Redditor thecoolmb^[8] posted an object-labeling meme comparing Forbes to Rust Cohle fighting the villain of True Detective season one, representing publications that gave the series positive reviews, gaining over 890 points in one day (shown below, left).

However, several users who liked the ending voiced that they felt its critics disliked it because it was female-driven (a common sentiment often seen online during the 2020s^[12]^[13]). For example, on February 19th, Twitter / X user @_Adam_____^[9] tweeted that he felt the show's critics "hate the show because it has female leads/showrunner," depicting critics as the South Park WoW Guy / Fat Computer Nerd meme and gaining over 110 retweets and 1,000 likes in one day (shown below, right).

Forbes Rolling Stone Slate New Yorker Guardian Variety NPR

אדם @_Adam_ There's a certain type of person that's very angry and triggered by the new season of #TrueDetective #TrueDetective NightCountry and will never admit that it was a pretty good season and great finale. It's pretty obvious they hate the show because it has female leads/showrunner II GIF ALT 9:05 AM Feb 19, 2024

Nic Pizzolatto Criticism

True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto was particularly vocal in his criticisms of season four following the season finale on February 18th, 2024, and used Instagram stories to repost others who voiced criticism of the show that same day (examples shown below).

21:10 nicpizzolatto 20m sdotglass Just want to send love to @nicpizzolatto. I can only imagine how it feels to have his all time classic dialogue butchered and misappropriated like it was last night. And the interview where she says they exist in same universe. No they do not!!! Last night's finale was some of the sloppiest writing I've ever watched. So 46% ال insulting calling it True Detective, and beyond disrespectful invoking time is a flat circle.' Rewatching S1... I feel this may be blasphemy, and it may be due to 20 more yrs of rewatches, but it hits me harder than Twin Peaks right now. S1E1 is perfect. Every beat. It's mind blowing how loaded it is. Every decision had the entire show's central idea in it. The layering in these scenes, the subtext in the dialogue that you only know later, wow. Unlike 99% of TV, they were not making this up as they went along. The entire idea was in every shot. I am so thankful. I bow. Cleansing my palette now with a full S1 rewatch. ||| O †

nicpizzolatto ✪ 24m lula1216 max @hbo should have stuck with @nicpizzolatto ... @truedetective and @hbo You had Jodi Foster, a naturally threatening atmosphere, and access to Nic, McConaughey, and Harrelson AND still couldn't stick the landing or maintain suspense without a cheap reliance on jump scares. Final Opinion: oof. Scathing YouTube reviews for True Detective, Season 4 episodes were the best thing to come from this. (YT LuekReviews) x Season 4 was a hot mess of faux character archs with forced, contrived emotionality through exploitation of legitimate real world issues that were wrapped in self-aggrandizing 'solutions' and tactless handling. The moral stances felt unexplored, forced, and were told more than shown, while criminal actions lacked any genuine thought or insight into the human psyche and every action seemed a childish, impulsive response to circumstance wholly lacking any sort of forethought or contribution to the whole story, serving only to get to the next thing I want to shoot/point I want to make'. Lazy, nonsensical, and counter character resolutions across the board. @issitalopez missed the mark HUGELY and capitalized off allusions to a successful season with a solid set of characters, lore, and expectations without having any actual tiebacks. The Polar Bear Theory would have been a better, more surprising solution than the trite, self righteous vigilantism offered as an appeal to emotional and moral indignation of the audience, but only served as a weak conclusion to the repeated heavy handed attempts of the season's 'proof' that Men=Problem. The solution raised more questions than provided answers. I waded through 5 episodes hoping for a payoff in episode 6. Soooo did not get that.

Pizzolatto's behavior and vocal criticism of Night Country led to further discourse online. For example, TV critic Philip Maciak^[10] called Pizzolatto an "enormous baby" for his behavior in a tweet that gained over 580 retweets, 210 QRTs and 3,700 likes in one day (shown below, left). User @ladonnapietra^[11] called Pizzolatto a "whiny little bitch" for the criticism, gaining over 100 likes in one day (shown below, right).