Season 1

Seventeen years later, Cohle and Hart are interviewed separately, five days apart, about Dora Kelly Lange by Detectives Thomas Papania and Maynard Gilbough. Hart and Cohle have not spoken in ten years after a falling-out in 2002. Cohle is shown a photograph of another girl whose body has been found posed in similar fashion to Lange. Papania and Gilbough want to know how the killer could have struck again if he was caught in 1995.

Seventeen years later, Papania and Gilbough continue their interviews of Cohle and Hart. Hart is divorced, and Cohle confides that his daughter died after being involved in a car accident, leading to the collapse of his marriage and the beginning of his addiction. To avoid prosecution for killing a meth user who had injected his own infant child with the drug, Cohle's superiors compelled him to be a "floating" drug undercover officer for four years, until he was hospitalized in a psychiatric institution after shooting three cartel members and being wounded in the gunfight. After his release, Cohle's request for another job resulted in his becoming a homicide detective with CID, where he was partnered with Hart.

In 2012, the Papania and Gilbough interviews of Hart and Cohle identify their character flaws, particularly Hart's hypocritical views on morality and Cohle's nihilistic view of the world.

In 2012, doubts in the investigation start to come forth as Papania and Gilbough question Cohle's sick leave, claiming that there are no hospital records of his father. Cohle tells the detectives about his father while Hart feigns ignorance.

By 2002, Hart is reconciled with his wife and kids, while Cohle has a physician girlfriend. Hart's daughter Audrey has begun acting out and tensions rise once again in the household. Cohle, a renowned interrogator, is brought in to get a confession out of a robber accused of murdering two people in a store while high on PCP. After confessing, the prisoner demands a deal from Cohle, declaring that Ledoux wasn't the killer of the missing girls—the real killer was connected to people high up and, he claims, he himself heard about the "Yellow King," information in the Dora Lange case withheld from the public. Cohle beats the man, demanding "a name," but is restrained by other detectives. He returns later with Hart to find that the prisoner has killed himself in his cell after receiving a phone call (purporting to be from his lawyer) made from a public pay phone out in the middle of nowhere. Cohle returns to the abandoned religious school, where he finds dozens of stick sculptures, and drawings and black stars on the walls.

In 2012, Papania and Gilbough tell Hart that they suspect that Cohle, who they allege conveniently led Hart to every clue or lead in the case, has been behind the killings all along; Cohle has been spotted among the bystanders at the scene of the recent killing in Lake Charles that is similar to the Dora Lange case. Cohle has also been a person of interest in the suspicious death of Reverend Tuttle two years before. Cohle walks out of his interview after the detectives accuse him, ridiculing them to get a warrant, while Hart is asked in his interview to explain what exactly happened between him and Cohle in 2002.

In 2012, Papania and Gilbough interview Maggie, now remarried. She is scornful of their motives and denies that the divorce from Hart had anything to do with Cohle. Asked to characterize Cohle, she describes him as a good man with integrity. Hart abruptly walks out on his interview when Papania and Gilbrough again suggest that Cohle may have killed Tuttle in 2010 and been responsible for all the other murders. Cohle follows Hart and initiates their first contact since the fight. Cohle asks Hart to buy him a beer, saying they should talk.