True Detective missed an opportunity to delve into race with Mahershala Ali in the lead role

The Ringer

Everything about race on Season 3 felt "vague and perfunctory," says Micah Peters, reminding us that Ali had to talk creator Nic Pizzolatto to rewrite the lead role for a black actor. "To varying levels of success, True Detective has examined masculinity, Pyrrhonism, and the big and small ways in which people destroy or distance themselves in the aftermath of a … I was about to say a great tragedy, but True Detective treats evil as banal," says Peters. "So I may have expected more than I should have when I saw Mahershala Ali seemingly chewing on a wasp in all the Season 3 promos. There was an opportunity for True Detective to explore themes about race it hasn’t tried to in prior seasons. But though each episode has something—a heated exchange, a squad car confessional … OK, it’s usually a heated exchange—what True Detective has to say about race is generally inexact, and feels a little ad-hoc. Often it was as if the show wanted to score points rather than make statements."