“Petty” True Detective star slams Season 4 online

Jasmine Valentine
Nic Pizzolatto on True Detective.

One notable cog in the True Detective machine is missing from Season 4, with fans calling him “petty” for making the distinction clear online.

So far, True Detective Season 4 – officially subtitled Night Country – has only released one episode, but praise for the show is already rolling in.

Kicking off with an astounding Rotten Tomatoes score, fans have been quick to dive into plot theories, the epic soundtrack, and clues that may be hidden in plain sight.

One famous face behind True Detective has already cleared his name from being involved with the project, leading viewers to call him “petty” for doing so.

“Petty” True Detective creator calls out Season 4 online

True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto has been branded “petty” by fans after clearing his name from being involved with Season 4 on social media.

On his Instagram profile, his bio read: “True Detective S1-3 (NOT Night Country), Galveston, et al. Manipulating people with the alphabet.” Not even 24 hours after fans picked up on – and captured – the slamming brackets, the bio has already been changed.

“Son wasted no time updating that bio I’m in tears,” one fan posted on X/Twitter after spotting the True Detective mention. “Petty but I get it,” added another, with a third weighing in, “He’s def still getting money off of it so acting out is corny lmao.”

For some viewers, Pizzolatto’s distinction comes from the quality of the Season 4 pilot itself.

“I don’t blame him; that pilot ep was shocking,” commented one user, though another disagreed, “I’m taking the pilot of Night Country over any S2 episode tho Nic…”

The creator has been responsible for writing, directing, and acting in Seasons 1-3 of True Detective, though has shifted into the role of executive producer for Season 4. For other fans, the social media shoutout is potentially due to previous allegations of Pizzolatto plagiarizing the series from authors including Thomas Ligotti.

Allegations first surfaced back in 2014 after website Lovecraftzine published an interview piece heavily alluding to Pizzolatto outwardly plagiarizing full lines of dialogue.

“As I reviewed Jon’s [Padgett] research, and did more of my own, any doubts I had about plagiarism disappeared.  It became obvious to me that Pizzolatto had plagiarized Thomas Ligotti and others – in some places using exact quotes, and in others changing a word here and there, paraphrasing in much the same way that a high school student will cheat on an essay by copying someone else’s work and substituting a few words of their own,” one quote from the piece reads.

“That’s quite alarming, it’s a hell of a lot of ‘borrowing‘. Nonetheless, it’s an amazing script, but these things really should be explained by Nic,” one fan added on Reddit.

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About The Author

Jasmine Valentine is a TV and Movies Writer at Dexerto. She's the go-to source for all things Young Sheldon, as well as many Netflix originals. Jasmine has also written for the likes of Total Film, The Daily Beast, and Radio Times.