Also, while the show is awesome and incredibly well-written, the "dude doesn't write women well at all" is a legit criticism.
I think it's more that the show doesn't feature any diversity in terms of female characters - it's a collection of victims/prostitutes and the Jilted Wife. You could argue it makes sense: the show is almost entirely about two male detectives, we rarely see anything that isn't from their perspective, and unlike Breaking Bad or Mad Men there isn't much focus on the wives; we don't get to see Maggie's daily life unless she is interacting/reacting to Marty or Cohle.
It's a detective show set it deep Louisiana, I "get" why the female parts are sparse. Hell I was surprised there are two black detectives, and even those roles are largely background/not big. It would have been interesting if one of the black detectives was a white female - I think that would lead to some dynamic scenes with Marty.
While watching the episode I found myself thinking lol, Alyssa Rosenberg is going to have something to say about this. She has criticized the show's portrayal of black people in episode 4 (the tracking shot through the projects). But even there I can't help but think...what do you expect to see in the projects, from a cop's perspective? Likewise it's not surprising a philandering pos detective like Marty would focus his attention on crazy, clingy women over his wife - who honestly seems like one of the few "decent" people on the show.
