“True Detective: Night Country” creator Issa López brushed off criticism from O.G. “True Detective” creator Nic Pizzolatto, who wrote on social media that viewers “can’t blame” him for their dissatisfaction with the latest installment of the HBO crime drama.
“I believe that every storyteller has a very specific, peculiar and unique relation to the stories they create, and whatever his reactions are, he’s entitled to them. That’s his prerogative,” López said in an interview with Vulture. “I wrote this with profound love for the work he made and love for the people that loved it.”
López, who served as writer, showrunner and director for all six episodes of “Night Country” while Pizzolatto took a step back, added that the latest installment was a “reinvention,” admitting it was “different” from its predecessors.
“It’s done with the idea of sitting down around the fire, and [let’s] have some fun and have some feelings and have some thoughts,” López added. “Anybody that wants to join is welcome.”
Despite remaining on as an executive producer for the fourth installment, Pizzolatto recently replied to several disparaging comments — as seen in a Reddit post — by distancing himself from the Jodie Foster-led season, saying, “I certainly did not have any input on this story or anything else. Can’t blame me.”
Pizzolatto also shaded the Easter Eggs found in “Night Country” referencing the Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey-led season, calling them “so stupid.”
When HBO called up López with the opportunity to helm the next installment of the anthology series, López told TheWrap she revisited the first season to interrogate what it was about the show that struck a chord with millions of fans around the world.
“It’s these two characters, beautifully cast, that are carrying heavy pasts and a lot of history, and are barely holding it together, trying to bring a little light into a world of darkness,” López told TheWrap. “They’re working in the setting of a corner of America that is not often portrayed in media and that is full of secrets and stories that are not told.”
“If I can bring that back — the feeling of two characters that are carving entire worlds of secrets within them, and trying to solve a very sinister crime in a very strange, eerie environment that is America, but it also doesn’t feel like America completely, and then I sprinkled some supernatural in it — I think we’re going to capture the essence of ‘True Detective,’” López said.
