Dana Gourrier

Under pressure to land a suspect in the Dora Lange murder, and under threat of being replaced by a new occult-crimes task force, Hart and Cohle lobby for extra time in order to follow up on a lead that takes them from a rural cathouse to an incinerated church.

Two former Louisiana State CID partners give statements to investigators about a murder 17 years previous. As they look back, details of the crime, replete with occult overtones, are accompanied by insights into the detective's volatile partnership and personal lives.

A hidden image at the burned-out church leads Cohle and Hart to a minister whose parishioners finger a scarred, tall man seen with Dora Lange. Looking to establish a pattern of murder, Cohle pores over old cases, finding a link with a woman who drowned years earlier.

Hart and Cohle hunt for their newly identified suspect, Reggie Ledoux, a meth cook who shared a cell with Lange's husband and recently skipped parole. As Hart's personal life collapses around him, Cohle immerses himself in an old criminal identity from his narco days.

In 2002 Cohle and Hart begin to fall back to familiar and violent obsessions. Hart exacts savage vengeance on a pair of teenage boys, and Cohle becomes convinced they left something undone in 1995. 2012, and Maggie sheds light on when Cohle quit the force.