“True Detective: Night Country,” the fourth and critically acclaimed season of “True Detective,” written and directed by Mexican filmmaker Issa López, ended on Sunday night and became the most watched in the anthology’s history at HBO. According to THR, the show averaged 12.7 million viewers across all platforms since January. 14 premiere, besting season one, which aired a decade ago and averaged 11.9 million viewers across platforms (HBO measures viewing for 90 days after a season premiere).
While acclaimed by critics—though its initial 90%-Rotten Tomatoes score fell to 78% by the end of the series (our review said it was a “return to spellbinding form”)—one person who doesn’t seem to be happy with any of it was original creator Nic Pizzolatto.
Pizzolatto helped usher in the era of PeakTV with the celebrated season one of the series. Still, after seasons two and three, which suffered from critical disappointment, audience disapproval, and lower ratings, the writer and HBO could not come to terms with a fourth season. Eventually, they parted ways, and Pizzolatto was essentially cut out of any creative say on the show (though, as an executive producer, he still makes money off the show).
But ever since season four aired without him, Pizzolatto has appeared very petty about the female-led series starring Jodie Foster and Kali Reis, commenting negatively on or disparaging the series by sharing other people’s gripes.
Pizzolatto was already caught in the comments sections of one of his posts saying the way that ‘Night Country’ connected to season one with specific callbacks was “stupid.”
Sunday night’s finale had even more callbacks to season one, including a mention of the iconic “time is a flat circle” line of dialogue spoken by Matthew McConaughey.
But further connections to season one seemed to provoke Pizzolatto’s ire, and on Sunday and Monday, the former creator started sharing more disparaging criticisms about the ending on Instagram stories (since deleted but captured by eagle-eye fans; see below).
“I do know that the hardcore Pizzolatto Forever fans are going to perhaps believe that it was put there just to appease them, but it’s not true,” López EW this week explaining how she was careful and considerate about any callbacks. “That phrase, it was not something that I planned on putting in the series at all. I think it’s super cheesy to say, ‘I will find a place to put this.”
“It’s absolutely organic, and it came from the script,” she continued, explaining how she came upon a sudden epiphany to use the line. “So it was not an intention, but I love that the connection between this season and the first one was so true organically that the lines were coming from the lips of the characters.”
Audiences online called Pizzolatto’s bitter maligning of the show “pathetic” and akin to being a “sore loser.”
‘Night Country’ co-star Kali Reis shot back on Twitter, writing about Pizzolatto’s reproachful remarks, “That’s a damn shame…but hey, I guess “if you don’t have anything good to share, shit on others” is the new wave 🤷🏽♀️ lol.”
Read some of the comments yourself, but it does seem déclassé and unprofessional to rip on something you’re still making money from and will likely continue to as long as “True Detective” continues to air. Furthermore, if Pizzolatto ever wanted back in with HBO, this isn’t the right approach, but maybe Scorched-Earth is more his style.
