The First Photos & Premiere Date For 'True Detective' Season 3 Are FINALLY Here

On Thursday, Oct. 11, HBO dropped exciting, highly-anticipated news. The True Detective Season 3 premiere date has been announced, as reported by Deadline, and it'll be here before you know it. The HBO series will return on Sunday, January 13, so fans should mark their calendars accordingly.

For loyal viewers of the show, the news about the season premiere has been a long time coming. Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali's casting in True Detective season 3 was announced all the way back in July 2017, so it's a relief to know that the third season is finally in sight. As Deadline reported, Ali will play Wayne Hays, an Arkansas-based police detective, in the upcoming installment of the show.

In addition to Ali, Justice League actor Ray Fisher will star in the upcoming True Detective season. Fisher will play Ali's son, Freddy Burns, Deadline revealed earlier this year. The actor isn't the only familiar young face fans will see in the new season, either. Lonnie Chavis, who plays the young version of Randall Pearson on This Is Us, will also be in True Detective season 3, as a younger version of Freddy.

HBO has revealed several photos from the upcoming season, and it looks like Ali's Wayne is hard at work solving local crimes. There's one photo of Ali and Stephen Dorff in what appears to be a police interrogation room, but the picture doesn't reveal who's opposite the table from them. (Dorff's True Detective character, Roland West, is an Arkansas State Investigator, per Variety.)

There's also a photo of Wayne speaking into a walkie-talkie while flanked by police cars. It's hard to tell what's going on in the photo, but it could be a crime scene, as the cars appear to be parked in the middle of a road.

And if the clothing styles in the new HBO photos look a bit dated, you're not imagining things. The new season focuses on the mystery surrounding two missing children in 1980. The season won't be entirely set in the '80s, though. True Detective season 3 will take place over three separate decades, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which could explain why two different actors have been cast as Freddy.

Back in August, HBO shared a trailer for True Detective season 3, and it sheds some more light on what fans can expect from the upcoming season. In the minute-long teaser, a voiceover from Wayne declares that his "whole brain's a bunch of missing pieces," which is always a comforting thing to hear a detective say. There's also a slow-motion shot of two children riding their bikes, followed by Wayne looking at one of the now-discarded bikes in the woods.

The trailer ends with Wayne saying, "I want to know the whole story," which isn't exactly a revelation for a detective investigating a case. But the dramatic pacing, combined with the fact that it's Ali saying the somewhat cheesy line, is enough to get fans plenty excited for the new season. And now that the premiere date is set, it won't be long until viewers can finally learn what happened to the missing kids.