The first season is an absolute masterpiece. Also because it is vastly different from your usual cop-serial killer story in which the WHO is the theme. TD1 was way more about the painful and ardeous hunt itself and what it does to the characters involved and how their personal outlook on life ties into the world of crime.
Don't mean to be patronizing but imo your sentences show that you have missed the point of that season. Just exemplary: Harrelson's phony outlook on religion and family are challenged ("You wonder ever...if you're a bad man?"). McConaughey's challenge is more intervowen with the case itself cause his philosophy of pessimism and bleak outlook on life is cured - to a point - by finishing what they started. It fundamentally changes them as human beings. It is cathartic: "We...left something undone. We gotta fix it."
If you like this season more than the first, that's of course up to you. I think it is worse than TD1 and TD3, maybe on par with TD2 depending on the finale tomorrow. But in terms of depth, this season doesn't come close to TD1. And not only cause there is 2 less episodes.
