Let me correct that - the Yellow King was Sam Tuttle - Errol’s grandfather, not Ted Childress, Errol’s father.
I’m not that disappointed with the ending. I think the meat of the show was the main characters, and the dynamic between them. How they evolved and changed over time. The crime just being a backdrop. I think the audience built it up as a crime-solver show, not simply as a show about two detectives.
I thought it could have been and should have been both.
As far as their relationship--Throughout the show I got the feeling Cohle and Hart were so opposite that they could never be friends as partners nor of course outside of their partnership. But the case is what bound them and held their reluctant relationship together. and that despite not liking each other personally they had a mutual respect for each other's abilities as detectives that grew as they solved the case.
Instead the end made it feel like it was just an odd couple buddy picture with hart sentimentally patting a crying cohle on the shoulder (really cohle crying?) halfway expecting him to say tearfully "I love you man" and "there there little fella". Way too sentimental an ending IMO for what otherwise was a brilliantly dark and creepy, think-outside-the-box series.