"True Detective" is an HBO crime drama anthology series written by Nic Pizzolatto. The first season, starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, tells the story of two detectives as they search for a serial killer over the course of almost 20 years. Critics hailed the first season as one of the best dramas of 2014. While the show was overall a hit, many critics panned the depiction of women. The show is told through a male perspective, and the women are depicted with their bias in-mind. "True Detective" is not a misogynistic show. The writers use the misogyny of the male characters as a way to develop the story.

The two focal characters of "True Detective's" story are Rustin “Rust” Cohle (McConaughey) and Martin “Marty” Hart (Harrelson). The only major female character is Marty’s wife, Maggie Hart (Michelle Monaghan). The show begins with Rust and Marty giving separate interviews to two current Louisiana detectives, Gilbough and Papania. They talk about the start of the case, which involves the ritualistic murder of a prostitute, Dora Lange. They follow the trail and eventually connect their case to other murders and disappearances of little girls. Through the almost 20-year ordeal, Cohle and Hart have falling-out because Maggie has an affair with Rust. After their interviews, Rust and Marty team back up to continue their search for the killer. They eventually track down the killer, Erroll Childress. Childress is connected to a prominent Louisiana religious family and cult that rapes and murders women.

Critics don’t disagree that a huge theme of "True Detective" is misogyny. Willa Paskin defines the female characters in the show as only “prostitutes, corpses, mistresses, a nagging wife”. Some claim the sexism to be intentional, while others believe it to reflect the misogynistic views of the writer and director. Critics who claim the misogyny is an intentional point to the show’s source material, while those who panned the show believe the show’s finale revealed the sexism of the creators.

A majority of the season is told from the point of view of Rust and Marty as they give their interviews. Paskin points out that though Maggie is later invited by Gilbough and Papania to give an interview, “she methodically, calmly denies them.” Paskin also notes how Hart uses “his married-father status as a cover to misbehave”. Marty Hart echoes what so many working-class men say about the amount of stress they face daily from their jobs.

Maggie Hart is one of the top bill characters, but she is not a three-dimensional character. The writer’s use of her is rather one-sided. The viewer is not given much understanding of her from other than a man’s perspective, Paskin says of Maggie. Paskin continues, “self-absorption is typical of all the men on 'True Detective', who often don’t even notice female insight.” A scene that exemplifies this theme is one in which Marty is at dinner with his family. Hart’s one daughter argues that females do not have to look like how men envision them. Maggie attempts to tell Marty their daughter is correct; however, Marty completely ignores them.

Much of "True Detective ’s" source material extends from the mythology of the “City of Carcosa” and the “Yellow King”. Alyssa Rosenberg writes about the broad mythos present in the show. Rosenberg says the “Carcosa” myth first appears in the book “An Inhabitant of Carcosa” by Ambrose Pierce. Another piece of the “Carcosa” myth is in Robert Chambers’ collection of short stories, "The King In Yellow". This work by Chambers is later referenced in a story called “More Light” by James Blish. Rosenberg explains the premise of the story:

“a character much like Blish himself visits a critic named Bill Atheling, who’s been seemingly transformed. Much like Rust, Atheling has a beard that’s sitting poorly on him, and ‘He had lost some twenty or thirty pounds, which he could ill afford…His skin was gray, his neck creepy, his hands trembling, his eyes bleached, his cough tubercular…If he was not seriously ill, then he had taken even more seriously to the bottle.’ But the cause of his troubles seems to have been how deeply he’s read into the actual manuscript of ‘The King In Yellow,’ given to him by H.P. Lovecraft (whose real-life writings referenced Carcosa, too) — though he’s been unable to finish it.”

Rosenberg points out a moment in the story Blish and Atherling talk about why Atherling hasn’t shown his wife the story. Blish notes that “Female common sense would blow the whole thing sky-high in a minute.” This makes note of how a woman would view the “Carcosa” myth; a female’s common sense would destroy it in a second. Rosenberg draws a comparison between Atherling’s wife and Maggie Hart. Willa Paskin agrees with Rosenberg. “'True Detective' is a man’s story taking place in a man’s world, a world in which ignoring women has been the cause of untold horror,” Paskin says of the show. Had the men listened to the women in the show, maybe they would not have ended up in the situation they did. However, part of the problem is that the women do not feel comfortable speaking out to these prominent male figures. These allusions to literary sources may explain the show's perspective on women, as the legend of the “Carcosa” is primarily a male myth.

Willa Paskin does, however, switch her view after the season’s finale. Paskin believes the women in "True Detective" are just “ancillary”. She explains that the females depicted in the finale are just supportive of the males; they don’t do anything but move the development of the male characters. Take, for instance, the mentally disabled half-sister of Erroll Childress (the serial killer), who is used to just show us a side of the Childress as Paskin. Marty’s ex-wife and daughters are used at the end when he’s in the hospital. Paskin points out how they are “mostly as an excuse to give us a long close-up on Marty’s sobbing face.” The critics are not saying the show is bad for this; they actually say this is the reason the show is such a big hit. “'True Detective' is an unfettered celebration of two men, men whose flaws and doubts and mistakes only make them more heroic,” Paskin points out the “bro-ness” of the show.

"True Detective" does ignore the use of more three-dimensional female characters. However, I agree this is an intentional theme of the show. The reason the show celebrates the male characters and casts its women as merely supportive is simple: The show is for men and about men. Nic Pizzolatto is not misogynistic to make a show about men which views its female characters as the male characters would. I think gender is an important part of society. Gender is not just personal; it also has political intentions. I believe gender is also artistic and literary. It’s used to create stories and to develop narratives. "True Detective" is a show that does just that.