True Detective: Night Country

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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).

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).

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).