The penultimate episode of True Detective brings Hart and Cohle a bit closer to catching their man (or men if you believe some theories), and the 2012 detectives let someone slip right under their nose.

Kicking off roughly where we last left the boys, Hart and Cohle are in a bar in 2012 where they’re seeing each other for the first time in 10 years. After a stint up in the colder climate of Alaska, Cohle says he returned to the area in 2010 because he and Hart “left something undone” (circles!). He’s been working on this case by himself again and hasn’t bothered Hart until now. Why the delay? He wants to show him evidence that he’s keeping at a storage unit, and convinces him to come over for a visit after reminding Hart that he has a debt to repay.

They go to Cohle’s storage unit and he’s got a whole setup there. “The Yellow King,” “Scars,” and “Carcosa” are scrawled across one wall. Papers, maps, and other data lies everywhere. Cohle wonders why Tuttle’s so interested in the Lange case and points to the task force and their confrontation in ’02.

We’re introduced to a man dressed in drag who Cohle meets in 2010 to hear about his time at Shepard’s Flock (a school where one of the murdered went), where people would take pictures of him. He was drugged so he couldn’t even move.

Cohle asks for Hart to help him by pulling out data at the police station. Case files, missing persons, homicides, etc. Anything they can get on Ledeoux. He thinks this is “sprawling,” that the case goes as high as state police and through the Tuttles. (This would indeed match some theories on the internet that say there were five people involved and could also involve cops.)

Hart is unconvinced and thinks Cohle has willed himself to believe all of this – that this is all conjecture. How’s this for some proof: Cohle tells us he broke into the Tuttles’ homes, and at the second one he grabbed some new photographical evidence – photos of girls with blindfolds, and a video tape that upsets Hart when he sees it. The little girl is Marie.

We jump with Hart to Maggie’s new home (in 2012), where she’s living in a much nicer house than the one they used to be in together as a couple. He’s there to ask Margaret what the cops asked her. Hart reveals he’s going to help Cohle because he “has to.” Maggie suspects he’s there to say goodbye. Later, Maggie visits Cohle’s bar to ask him what they’re up to and if Hart will be in danger. Despite being separated, she still cares about her ex-husband.

Cohle claims that some people took out Tuttle in 2010 after they realized what was stolen out of the safe. In other words, he’s denying that he killed Tuttle.

Now motivated to help, Hart goes to the station and gets permission to pull out old files as they search for more on Reggie Ledeoux. He and Cohle do their work at Hart Investigative Solutions, a private firm started by Marty.

They go to another member of the Ledeoux family, Jimmy, and he’s seen the scar-faced man. Next they go to a woman Hart found in the tax records who worked for Sam Tuttle. Cohle asks her directly about someone with scars, and she thinks it was Tuttle’s grandchild who had them, and they were allegedly created by the child’s father. He shows her devils nests – Carcosas, she notes. She starts going on a crazy rant trying to explain “death is not the end.” The woman’s daughter asks Hart and Cohle to leave.

Hart does some more digging and finds out that their former boss Steve Geraci covered something up. “I never did like that cocksucker,” Cohle says.

Hart meets Steve at a golf course and decides he’s lying about talking to the family of the Fontenots. So, he and Cohle head out on to Steve’s boat (and Cohle secretly gets aboard). After still refusing to answer questions about the Fontenots, Cohle comes out with his gun pointed at Steve and they say they want to question him.

We cut to the 2012 detectives, who are in search of the church they’ve heard about previously, but can’t find it. They ask someone for directions – the man Hart and Cohle previously questioned who was cutting fields at parishes. “My family has been here… for a long, long time,” he says after they peel out. He’s cutting the grass in a circular pattern near a cemetery. In fact, one could argue that the grassy circle matches the green objects in the sketch below. Hart and Cohle never thought to question this guy deeper in episode 3. Remember when Hart broke a tense conversation going on between the lawn cutter and Cohle? In fact, the sketch of the scar-faced man looks similar to the lawnmower man, as illustrated by this graphic:

Source: Imgur

What did you think of tonight’s ‘True Detective’?

Tonight’s episode didn’t answer too many questions, so it looks like the season finale should be a pretty big blowout. That is… if the big questions do get answered at all.