Mindhunter: Interesting and disturbing
I realised I didn’t watch any series in the recent past. I’ve watched a few David Fincher movies earlier and knew he was associated with the Mindhunter series. It has been on my watchlist for a long time now, and I thought about starting to watch it last week.
I completed the series — two seasons in 4 days, binge-watched it by sacrificing sleep.
Before I write my thoughts about the show, a small detour.
From the age of 12, I remember reading the Sunday magazines of Eenadu, and Sakshi, the two leading Telugu dailies. Sakshi magazine had a section that mentioned one crime scene every week. Reading about crimes and criminal psychology fascinated me from then.
Even now, we get Velugu magazine every Sunday, and they write about mysteries and crime scenes in a section. Every time I read them thoroughly and search for more information on the internet. Innately curious towards those stories.
Serial killers like BTK killer and Cyanide Mohan are a couple of criminals who were introduced to me by these magazines.
Okay, back to the series now. Mindhunter is based on actual events and stories in the US, leading to the formation of a new Behavioural Science unit in the FBI. It explores criminal psychology while not being a documentary but a thrilling show.
David Fincher is the showrunner for the series, and it has released two seasons, with 19 episodes, each episode between 50–60 min.
This series has two FBI agents, Bill Tench and Holden Ford, talking to the criminals, understanding their history, and knowing them better so that they can come up with criminal profiling that can help reduce crime.
They interview serial killers to understand what went into their minds while killing, what made them kill, what made them choose their victims, and whether they have remorse. Some killers are talkative, like Ed Kemper, who helps them by letting them know what he did and the reasons, starting from childhood.
I felt it was weird and disturbing while watching a couple of these interviews. Imagine a criminal who killed several people in a cold-blooded manner and peacefully explained all details of each murder with the thoughts running through their mind. It’s spine-chilling to listen to their words.
Also, this series tried showing the formation of deep sexual fantasies of the infamous BTK killer at the beginning of each episode, while the remaining episodes focus on these two FBI agents.
Apart from the crimes they solve, it’s a good parallel narrative of the criminals these two agents interview, the talks they’ll have with their superiors and their personal lives. Bill Tench’s son gets involved in a murder of an infant.
When Bill is at a party with his superiors, one judge mentions he’d have given life sentences to all these serial murderers by looking at their faces back in their childhood to avoid these beasts committing crimes.
The camera slowly zooms into the face of Bill, who, as usual, smokes a cigarette while worrying about his son.
Holden Ford tries to go against the norm and develops a friendship with Ed Kemper, which doesn’t go well for his health. He gets a panic attack and is vulnerable throughout season 2.
Even Dr Wendy, an academician turned consultant for Behavioural Sciences Unit in FBI, uses her personal story during one of the criminal interviews to make that criminal open up about the crimes.
The first season explores the criminal’s mind, making the FBI agents learn. The second season is about applying these learnings to a case that shook the nation back then — Atlanta Child Murders. In the second season, it felt like watching an investigative thriller that kept me hooked and made me binge-watch.
After completing the series, I browsed the news of the Atlanta Child murders, and it was scary after I read that the accused hadn’t been proven guilty yet.
The camera angles are interesting — at times, it doesn’t feel like a staged series, has close-ups to get closer to the characters, and during the Atlanta march, I think they used handheld cameras that felt like the actual footage taken during the march in the 80s.
The music adds a layer of fear and weirdness to our mood, and in a couple of scenes, they went with deafening silence making it scary.
Overall, it is an interesting series and looking forward to more seasons. Wish we have one such series in India too!
