Season 1

1. S01E01

   The Long Bright Dark

   2014-01-12

   Former Louisiana State CID partners Martin Hart and Rustin Cohle give separate statements to a pair of investigators about the murder of a prostitute, Dora Lange, 17 years earlier. As they look back, details of the crime, replete with occult overtones, are accompanied by insights into the detectives' volatile partnership and personal lives.

   Pilot note — From the desk: True Detective opens its catalog run with “The Long Bright Dark” (2014-01-12). Made limited-run prestige crime a seasonal event format. Season 1 mythos vs. later whiplash — and Night Country's new discourse wave.

2. S01E02

   Seeing Things

   2014-01-19

   Under pressure to land a suspect in the Lange murder, Quesada warns Hart and Cohle that they might be replaced by three detectives from a new task force. The pair lobbies for extra time to follow up on a lead that takes them from a rural cathouse to an incinerated church. With his marriage to Maggie already strained by work, Hart finds respite away from home.

3. S01E03

   The Locked Room

   2014-01-26

   Hidden image at the burned-out church leads Cohle and Hart to Joel Theriot, a tent-revival minister whose parishioners finger a scarred "tall man" seen with Dora Lange. Brought in for interrogation, a sex offender matching the description is quickly dismissed by Cohle, despite offering a confession. Hart gets sidetracked after Maggie sets Cohle up with a friend at a C&W bar. Looking to establish a pattern of murder, Cohle pores over old case files, finding a connection with a woman assumed to have drowned years earlier.

4. S01E04

   Who Goes There

   2014-02-09

   Hart and Cohl follow a series of dangerous leads in an effort to locate prime suspect Reggie Ledoux.

5. S01E05

   The Secret Fate of All Life

   2014-02-16

   Hart and Cohle share the spoils of a solved case; Papania and Gilbough confront the detectives with troubling new intelligence.

6. S01E06

   Haunted Houses

   2014-02-23

   Maggie sheds light on Cohle's activities in 2002, when his relationship with Hart fractured and he quit the force.

7. S01E07

   After You've Gone

   2014-03-02

   Hart and Cohle forge a truce to probe a murky string of disappearances that tie to the symbology of the Dora Lange murder and the Tuttle family.

8. S01E08

   Form and Void

   2014-03-09

   An overlooked detail provides Hart and Cohle with an important new lead in their 17-year-old case.

More from the 2010s.