Another new series, another round of review bombs. The toxic internet trend has now set its sights on True Detective Night Country, Season 4 of the acclaimed HBO production, though its showrunner isn’t taking it lying down.
Five years on from the previous season and a full decade since the show debuted, True Detective finally returned on January 14, 2024 with its all-new ‘Night Country’ focus. Starring the beloved Jodie Foster in the leading role, she’s once again thrust back into the heart of a violent mystery though this time, deep in the chill of Alaskan Winter.
Alongside Foster is former boxer turned acting newcomer Kali Reis. Helming the female duo, Mexican showrunner Issa López serves as writer, producer, and director for Season 4. Though mere hours after Episode 1 premiered, López found herself quickly having to take to social media.
Despite near-universal praise from critics in the lead-up, currently sitting at a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the platform’s audience score quickly dwindled after the HBO series returned, in what appears to be the latest instance of review bombing.
For much of the first day following Season 4’s start, it sat with a considerably lower audience score than critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. As a result, López took to X (formerly Twitter) to address what she and many others labeled as review bombing.
“If you liked last night’s episode and have a Rotten Tomatoes account, maybe head over there and leave an audience review?” Lopez urged in a now-deleted tweet. “The bros and hardcore fanboys of [Season 1] have made it a mission to drag the rating down, and it’s kind of sad, considering all the 5-star ones.”
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Later that day, López deleted the original post, though as always, things last forever on the internet. Many more quickly took to Rotten Tomatoes to bombard Season 4 of True Detective with further negative reviews, some even acknowledging the situation in the process.
“Director can fight ‘review bombs’ all she wants, but this is absolute garbage,” one half star review on the site reads. Meanwhile, others flooded in with similarly low scores, with one refusing to provide their reason, simply stating there was “too much to articulate.”
“I despise review bombing of any kind,” López later followed up after removing the original post. “I used a generalization about who was bombing, and generalizations are always a mistake,” she apologized. “So many beautiful bros and True Detective Season 1 hardcore fans loved our ep 1!”
For now, the scores on Rotten Tomatoes are leveling out somewhat, though only time will tell how the season ultimately falls when all episodes are available. True Detective Night Country is streaming new episodes every Sunday on Max.
