True Detective hasn’t felt like True Detective for a while. It’s been a decade since the first season of the neo-noir phenomenon launched a new era of A-list stars making the pilgrimage over to TV. But in the years since Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson pondered whether time was a flat circle, True Detective lost the power it used to hold over pop culture. Even a back-to-basics reset with the third Mahershala Ali-led season, which returned the show to its sweaty Southern noir roots, couldn’t bring back the phenomenon.
