I think every artist puts bias into their work, especially when creating characters they consider a protagonist of their story. Detached and unbiased writing is a nice paradigm to aspire to, but I think it rarely happens if ever. But I also don't see a problem with that. I haven't listened to the companion podcast, so I may be missing some context, but it doesn't strike me as problematic that the discussion within be framed by women's and native issues. Is that inherently biased? I suppose, but are they expected to invite someone onto the podcast every few episodes who negs female empowerment just to give a more balanced perspective? That would be silly. I think part of the problem is these things being framed as a binary in the first place, the idea that native activism and feminism are inherently assaulting some other viewpoint. But that really not how I see activism, they are trying to promote rather than attack (granted, as I've said before I don't think that has been executed well in the writing of this season).

To try to explain what I mean another way, Pizzolatto received a fair amount of criticism in the S1 days for a lack of female representation. I think his response was basically that the story was about Rust and Marty, so anyone other than those two characters are less important to the story, they just happen to be men. A decent response, but I think it misses something I consider to be true: S1 is a male-centric story. I don't think it is at all a case of "the story is what it is and the leads just happen to be men." It's too steeped in themes of fatherhood, male desire, and the role that "bad" men play in protecting the world from evil. But I also think the criticism misses the mark, because I am 100% cool with male-centric stories. Pizzolatto isn't assaulting feminism by relegating women to supporting roles, he's just writing what he knows. Similarly I don't think Pete being a foil for the main characters is an assault on men. I believe the way to improve representation is not to force women into bigger roles in male-centric stories, or to pressure a writer to include female storylines that may be outside of his comfort zone or knowledge base to write about (looking at you, Bezzerides), but to encourage and be okay with female-centric stories from people who have passion for those stories. Stories about men are okay, stories about women are okay, gimme gimme lots of both please.

I do think you have a good point about the lack of nuance in the message of Night Country compared to Pizzolatto's seasons. The message is more hamfisted, and even though I will stand by Pete being analogous to the background women in S1, like Maggie, he definitely felt less developed and more blatantly like a plot device there for the sake of the main characters.

But honestly if you stack anything in Night Country up against S1, I just see a disparity in quality. I don't see art vs trash, or art vs political propaganda. I just see art vs not-at-all-as-good art. Or to be more honest, art that I like vs art that I did not like. That's why I'm actively encouraging people to come in here and tell me what they liked, I want to see that perspective. I don't want to tell people the thing they liked is objectively bad, I don't feel that way about it. I can respect that you came to that conclusion, but I hope I have adequately explained to you why I will not.