It is common practice for popular shows to want to flee from Super Bowl Sunday, even if the festivities may be wrapping up at least somewhat close to the time they normally air. In this case, that applies to True Detective: Night Country, and if you didn’t realize this was happening, guess what? You already missed it, and can go watch it now if you like.
Max opted to air the new episode two days ago on Friday night rather than Sunday. Sometimes shows get pushed to Monday instead, others go early like what we’re seeing here.
It’s the penultimate episode of the season, just the fourth season of True Detective in an entire decade, given how slow these are to take shape. And unlike past seasons, this season is only six episodes long. We know this was originally conceived as a different kind of mystery show that was then converted into a True Detective season, so that may have something to do with this. Others believe that because of how little plot progression there can be each week, this may have been a two hour movie stretched into six episodes instead. I don’t actually think that’s true, though I get why people are saying that.
I have been pretty critical about the show all season long, as I don’t think it lives up to past installments. Not even season 2. But I will admit that this week’s episode 5, was probably the best of the season so far, and it’s helped further a few different interesting theories about where the finale might be going next week.
There are absolutely zero indications that a True Detective season 5 is coming after that. HBO seems like they really need to fish for ideas over the long term, and in this case, they grabbed a concept that wasn’t even True Detective in the first place, threw in some links to season 1, and here we are. Live ratings are way down from both the original and even season 3, but given that season 1 was in 2014 and season 3 was in 2019, I don’t think this means anything given the almost total conversion to digital, not-live viewership. I think it’s probably doing pretty well for Max by those metrics.
Next week’s finale will air on schedule on Sunday, February 18. Then no True Detective for let’s say, five more years, would be my best guess, if it ever returns.
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