Netflix’s Mindhunter introduced the early days of criminal psychology and profiling when it premiered in 2017, following FBI agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany), along with psychologist and academic Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), as they create the bureau’s first Behavioral Science Unit in the late 1970s. Set in the early ’80s, Season 2 finds the unit with a new boss — one that actually takes their work seriously and invests in this new line of thought.
He seeks to empower Holden’s work, but also to reel him in a bit. Last season ended with Holden in a full-blown panic attack after getting a little too close to killer Ed Kemper (who sadly appears only briefly in this season; Cameron Britton gave such a spot-on, chilling performance). That task falls to Bill, who not only has the pressures of his job to manage, but also an intense family crisis at home.
If Bill’s child, Brian, seemed creepy last season — not communicating or showing emotion, stealing photos of crime scenes and hiding them in his room — he ups the fear factor this time around when he’s involved in a horrific incident with some other kids. The storyline brings about the debate of nature versus nurture, sending Bill on a painstaking mission to be a good dad and husband while still doing his job, and feeling like he’s failing at everything. It’s a heartbreaking but compelling way to show more facets of his character.
We also see more of Wendy’s personal and professional life this season, as she delicately deals with not only being a woman in a male-dominated field, but also with being gay when it was considered a mental disorder by some of her own colleagues.
A major draw of this series is the portrayal of real-life cases and criminals, the latter being depicted with uncanny accuracy by doppelganger performers. This season brings a long-awaited interview with Charles Manson (Damon Herriman, who also portrays the cult leader in Quentin Tarantino’s summer blockbuster Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood, and it’s clear why he’s the go-to) and David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz (Oliver Cooper), among others.
But the team isn’t just doing research anymore. When a chance encounter introduces Holden to the mothers of the victims of the Atlanta child murders — cases that aren’t being properly investigated by local forces — his unit steps in, with stakes higher than ever before. It truly exposes the cracks in the criminal justice system and law enforcement, especially as they relate to people who are already disenfranchised.
One thing the show does well is create a dark sense of foreboding without actually showing more than a flash of gore. It’s purely psychological, a nod to the work Holden and Bill’s team do. There’s nothing wrong with subtlety and ambiguity, but this season left so many unanswered questions and unresolved plotlines — including the mysterious ADT guy that’s been teasing viewers for two seasons — I feel just a tad shortchanged. Hopefully we won’t have to wait two more years for a little resolution.
It doesn’t appear the popularity of true crime media will subside anytime soon. As frightening and macabre as these sinister people and acts may be, it’s endlessly fascinating. That’s nothing new. People have been interested in serial killers before the term even existed — just watch the reaction Bill gets from his neighbors when his work comes up in this season’s first episode. Bill reluctantly shares a few details with the guys at a cookout, much to his wife’s chagrin. But they’re not repulsed. Rather, they’re intrigued, eager to know more about coming face-to-face with pure evil. As counterintuitive as it may seem, many of the killers in Mindhunters themselves are no different. They speak candidly about their crimes, or return to the scene to relive the thrill.
No doubt Holden and Bill, too, will revisit their experiences from this season, not for pleasure or intrigue, but to question whether they did everything they could — to help those Atlanta mothers, to raise a healthy, happy son. Because catching a bad guy doesn’t always equate to solving a crime.
This article appears in Aug 21-28, 2019.