At SeqArt, Harry Edmundson-Cornell writes about the fourth wall, metafiction, tone and character in True Detective and Community (as well as Bojack Horseman and Rick & Morty). “When a show points out the mechanics driving the medium they’re essentially violating the realism of the art. They’re pointing out the frame of the painting, which tends to have a distancing effect. This change in surface style, change in artistic quality, is a change in tone. Think of it like this – don’t movies that are incredibly meta, good or bad, have a common feel to them?

Which is where we start to talk about True Detective and Community.”