In 2012, two homicide investigators of the Louisiana State Police's Criminal Investigations Division - Rustin "Rust" Cohle and Martin "Marty" Hart - are summoned for questioning by detectives Maynard Gilbough and Thomas Papania over the Dora Lange murder investigation of 1995; they have not seen nor spoken to each other since an altercation concerning Martin's wife Maggie Hart over a decade prior. With many of the old files destroyed in Hurricane Rita, the two men are asked to recount the history of their working relationship, personal lives, and the Dora Lange murder investigation, as well as a series of other related individual cases as new evidence suggests that the perpetrator remains at large.