i watched true detective season 1 this week, and it was definitely good and i enjoyed it, but i also feel like i'm quickly morphing into a person who thinks that true detective is overrated
i liked the leads. i liked their dynamic. i liked their philosophical conversations. i liked the mystery. i liked the way the story jumps back and forth in time in a way that feels very natural. i liked the occult undertones. i liked the vibes of these decaying gulf coast small towns and the conservative forces sucking them dry, which hit close to home as someone who grew up in a microscopic rural town about an hour's drive away from florida's gulf coast
but man... this show just isn't very good with women. i saw someone say that true detective just doesn't care about empathizing with its female murder victim in the way that twin peaks (particularly fire walk with me) empathizes with laura palmer, and i think that's true. every female character seems to just exist somewhere on the madonna-whore spectrum, defined entirely by their sexual relationships with men or the lack thereof. tons and tons of the obligatory HBO tits and ass, lots of prostitutes and strippers for the sake of it. a decent chunk of screentime is taken up by the marital drama with marty cheating on his wife with younger girls, and i just don't think this goes anywhere particularly interesting compared to the marital drama in other beloved Golden Age Of TV Prestige Dramas that i like more (breaking bad, the sopranos, etc.). it doesn't feel like marty's wife gets much interiority, for one. the show doesn't really give us her side. she's not much more than the nagging wife on the sidelines of the investigation. and it seems like marty and the killer are being set up as two sides of the same coin when it comes to men harming and controlling women, because obviously masculinity and misogyny and whatnot are big central themes of the show. but i feel like the show stops just short of this thesis and goes soft on marty in the end, giving him a token reconciliation with his family that he was completely horrible to as a reward for catching the killer
like, again, i enjoyed it, but i definitely can't call it The Most Perfect Season Of Television Ever Made when it writes its women like this