First season of True Detective is basically retelling of Twin Peaks, set in different setting and going on with different theme but basics are the same. Small town with ordinary people living their ordinary lives when inexplanable crime happens. Outsider comes to solve the case only to find out that citizens of the small town aren't so ordinary as it seemed at first glance. Same can be said for most of Steven Kings work as well.
Second season is a bit different because corruption is not that occult in nature, but is mostly your typical money/politics related corruption which means the second season of TD isn't so otherwordly like the first.
What differentiates Twin Peaks from TD and the likes is Lynch branded weirdness which is pretty peculiar and hard to explain but you know it once you see it. Twin Peaks is weird and thus hard to swallow for mainstream much like the other Lynch work, Eraserhead, Dune etc.
