Sharp Objects represents a new benchmark for TV about women -- and a rejoinder to True Detective's inherent misogyny

Slate

On most male-focused crime shows like True Detective, the most important women are the dead ones, says Willa Paskin. But HBO's Sharp Objects, based on Gillian Flynn's first novel, is a reminder that women can do anything. "This is an overdue development, spurred, perhaps, by recent events finally revealing to male executives just how dark the female experience has always been," says Paskin. "It seems to me to be a necessary next step, advancing the parameters of 'prestige' to include female creators—not just female characters—who are permitted to be as dark and serious as men, with the full and robust backing of a major network and its marketing department. But Sharp Objects also seems to me to be utterly burdened by the clichés of prestige TV—if very likely to reap all of that format’s awards."

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• Sharp Objects turns out to be something much darker and more ambitious than your average whodunit
• It's reminiscent of Season 2 of Westworld, except it offers more immediate gratification
• Sharp Objects is an experimental viewing experience, slowly burning its way to a climax rather than throwing all the detective work in your face
• Sharp Objects proves that a two-hour movie just can’t compete with an eight-hour series for creating a layered, complicated world
• Sharp Objects is the scuzziest, sweatiest, booziest drama of the summer -- but suffers from "a getting-the-hell-to-the-point problem"
• Labeling Sharp Objects a small-town mystery or a crime thriller feels a bit like false advertising
• Amy Adams is tremendous in her role -- your attention never wavers from her
• Adams says it was necessary to have a TV drama that delved into women's rage
• Gillian Flynn worried that a film adaptation of her novel would lose the character study: "To me, Sharp Objects was a character study hidden inside of a mystery. It was as much of a who-is-she as a whodunit."