A 1995 murder case is revisited 17 years later, calling into question the supposed solving of the crime by Louisiana State Police Detectives Rust Cohle and Martin Hart, and reopening old wounds related to the detectives' volatile partnership and personal lives. The enquiry unfolds in the present day through separate interrogations of the now former co-workers, who narrate the story of both the investigation and their lives, including why Cohle left Louisiana's Criminal Investigation Division in 2002. As the timeline weaves between 1995 and 2012, Cohle and Hart are brought back to a world both thought they had left behind.