Every Main Character From True Detective Ranked From Worst To Best

Wives of male cops in a detective series tend to get a rough deal; they're either doting housewives with not a lot of agency or a sulking divorce waiting to happen as they resent their husbands for their taxing job.

While there are still traces of this in Maggie Hart in season one, her resentment to Marty is not because of his job but because of his philandering, neglectful behaviour. Michelle Monaghan brought to the character a refreshing narrative on the typical "cop's wife" as she sees through her husband's lies quickly enough to know when he's deceiving her.

That isn't to say there are flaws with the character; her response to discovering Marty has cheated on her for the second is to get one back at him. Having sex with Cohle might be concluding some romantic tension between the two, but it does nothing to empower Maggie and worse, it is completely out of character for her.

Maggie worked brilliantly as a subversion of the cop's wife trope. It's just a shame that for one moment, she was written as a sex device for the other characters.