Mindhunter: Season 2

Pop Disciple Film & TV Reviews by Sean Shepherd

Based on a book of the same name by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker, the first season of Mindhunter saw the Behavior Science Unit achieve their first tangible results: assisting in the Altoona case, developing their procedure for interviewing violent criminals, and refining the profiling process. But their success has come at a high price. Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff), refusing to confront how his work is affecting him, suffers a failed relationship and severe panic attack that could end his career. Bill Tench’s (Holt McCallany) secretive ways have distanced him from his wife and adopted son, forcing him to rethink his priorities.

Season two ramps up the pressure right from the start. Their superior is supplanted for a far more ambitious, but trusting and supportive one. The Behavioral Science Unit now has all the support it could ask for but at the cost of increased scrutiny and higher expectations. Bill and Wendy have to be cautious of Holden’s mental health, keeping him from the edge while allowing him to be useful, without him noticing what they’re up to. All the while, the newly-christened BTK Strangler—hinted at in the first season—is steadily on the move, creeping to the fore as a proper antagonist.

While taking an interview with obscure serial murderer William Pierce in Atlanta, Holden is accosted by the receptionist at the hotel where he is staying. She takes him to meet several black women who have been trying to get justice for the murders of their children, but can’t get the authorities to connect their cases. Predictably, Holden’s first instinct is to dive right in, but the BSU team finds itself running into roadblocks with infuriating regularity. The city’s first black mayor is trying to rebrand Atlanta as a beacon for the reformed “New South,” and is only tepidly supporting the investigation. Several parties—including the victim’s mothers—are insisting on a racial motivation for the murders, even though it contradicts the BSU’s profiling. Holden’s hard-charging, often tone-deaf manner ruffles a lot of feathers, especially in the politically choppy waters of an Atlanta living in the shadow of the Ku Klux Klan. This is the BSU’s—and the series’—first serious attempt to examine how broad social issues like race or sexual orientation affect the equation in profiling and compulsive crimes and the climate of the 1970s is all-important.

Meanwhile, Bill Tench’s familial problems reach a whole new level. After his adopted son is involved in a terrible incident that ends in the death of a toddler, the possibility that he might have antisocial tendencies begins to loom heavily over Bill. Throughout the season, he and his wife repeatedly endure the indignity of state intervention. The social worker lurks around them and their son, waiting for any slip. Child psychiatrists weigh in on their parenting. Neighbors re-evaluate their relationship with the Tench family. Bill’s wife wants to move in a bid to escape the scandal and trauma of the situation, an idea that Bill is less than thrilled about. On top of his uphill battle to balance his home life with his all-consuming work, the BTK killer—at least seven kills into his career—has made his presence known, and Bill is called in to reopen the case.

The BSU’s resident psychologist Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), gets a little more screen time this season, even engaging in interviews herself. She struggles with the stigma of being a lesbian, but thankfully, relief comes to her in the form of a new relationship with Kay Manz (Lauren Glazier), a local bartender who appears to have found a way to live openly against all odds.

As in the first season, the trio of Holden, Wendy, and Bill form a classic “heart, head, and gut” combo. Holden, with his drive and intuition, is the “gut.” Wendy, with her analytical nature and even temperament, is an ideal “head.” Bill, a family man who, despite a well-worn toughness, can never forget the horror of what he studies, is the “heart.” Seeing them work, lock horns, and play off of each other is as satisfying as it ever was, and their dynamic becomes more complex as time goes on and pressure mounts. Jim Barney (Albert Jones), the BSU’s first black member, joins the team early on, providing a grounded, personal approach to interviews. In one case, he gets an inarticulate, evasive interviewee to talk by simply bribing him with junk food, having observed an affinity for it in an old photo of the subject.

As the situation in Atlanta gets worse, the BSU gets more creative. They begin using incognito police officers and agents to pick up black children, trying to get a sense of how easy it might be. It leads to a surprisingly hilarious moment when Greg Smith attempts—rather clumsily—to play at stranger-danger, and the neighborhood kids mock him mercilessly, while a grandmother tells him off from a third-story window. Humanizing moments like this serve to remind us how much trial-and-error had to take place for the discipline of forensic psychology to take shape. There’s even an attempt to lure the unsub by posting job offers for security guards at a Sammy Davis and Frank Sinatra benefit concert put on for families of the victims, knowing that the irony could be irresistible to the monstrous ego of the perpetrator.

The decision to use interview scenes similar to those found in early psych thrillers like Silence of the Lambs as the central pillar of Mindhunter was ingenious. Season two sports some of the biggest names in deviant murder, David Berkowitz (Oliver Cooper) and Charles Manson (David Harriman) among them. The Manson interview is by far the most spectacular in the season. He instantly establishes dominance by sitting on the back of the chair, looming over them as if from a throne. From there, David Harriman’s performance explodes into a brilliant cascade of personas: first, a philosopher, then a charmer, then a persecuted victim, then a castigating prophet, each one just on the edge of convincing. The moment he realizes Bill Tench is a family man, Manson immediately seizes upon his insecurities as a father when going into detail about his relationship to his own so-called “family.”

“You’re not supposed to let children fall, you’re supposed to guide them!” barks Bill, to which Manson responds: “Guide them into what? Guide them into what you guided them into?” From there, it becomes a duel, with Holden shoved into the role of referee, and Manson in control the entire time. In the end, it’s Bill, not Holden, who can’t take anymore and wisely ends the interview before he reaches across the table and wrings Manson’s neck. If this performance proved to be a warm-up for Harriman’s role as Manson in Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood, then Mindhunter was lucky to be the training ground. Following Manson’s colorful obfuscations, we get a brutal reality check from Tex (Christopher Backus), who describes the murders themselves in terrifying detail. In stark contrast to Manson, Tex makes no excuses whatsoever and speaks of his terrible acts like a traumatized soldier telling of a civilian massacre he took part in. It’s among the most powerful moments in the show to date. It highlights a new subject: the potential for seemingly ordinary people to be driven to deviant acts by charismatic sociopaths.

David Fincher’s trademark direction is in evidence here. Careful use of lens filters. Oppressive, often claustrophobic atmosphere. Eager to show off urban decay whenever he can. The issue with directing true crime stories is that so many of them consist of scene after scene of people in small rooms talking, and it can be very difficult to keep the overall energy up. To make up for this, these scenes in Mindhunter are extremely economical with regard to their length. The lighting in most scenes is deliberately dingy, and the best lit scenes are usually the interviews with the convicts. The brief moments of the BTK killer going about his daily business at the start of each episode are useful in maintaining a sense of momentum.

With Seven (1995) and Zodiac (2007) under his belt, this is hardly new territory for Fincher, and he’s able to fill the spaces around his characters with a kind of weathered, lived-in dread. A good illustration comes when Holden gets the idea to use a solidarity march as an opportunity to flush the killer out. Unfortunately, the BSU runs into a maddening amount of red tape just to commission the construction of the memorial crosses for the event. Galled by the absurdity, Holden, Tench, and Barney purchase the crosses themselves and have less than an hour to assemble them and run them to city hall. The race to get ahead of the march is shot with occasional film grain on an unsteady camera, as if a news station was capturing it. Jason Hill's disjointed piano and string score highlights the strangeness of the scene, Holden sprinting with a bulky, white cross over his shoulder, rushing to get ahead of the march of the victimized community; the same community that he believes the killer to be a part of. It’s a fantastic portrait of the situation in abstract and showcases the signature David Fincher style.

The new cast had a hard act to follow but did not disappoint. Harriman’s performance as Charles Manson is both intense and iridescent, shifting personas at will as if he’s been doing it his whole life. Oliver Cooper’s turn as the “Son of Sam” David Berkowitz gives the impression of a deadly con man, knowing exactly what to say to fascinate and convince both the media and the psychiatrists that were a little too eager to buy his story. Christopher Livingston plays Atlanta Murderer suspect Wayne Williams with a quiet, unshakable narcissism that crawls right under your skin after a few minutes. June Carryl gives a fierce performance as Camille Bell, the mother of one of the murdered children and leader of the local group of activists trying to raise awareness of the murders. Whenever she’s on screen, her stone-faced, uncompromising countenance gives the sense that this might not be the first tragedy she’s endured, but it’s certainly the last one she’ll take lying down.

The old cast faced new challenges, as well. Groff’s performance as Holden now balances moments of acute vulnerability with the unerring focus that defines his character. McCallany has done a remarkable job of integrating the long list of new worries Bill has to cope with into his performance. The dread in his eyes when he sits at his desk alone, the way he struggles with his adopted son’s impenetrable silence, his increasing frustration balancing his work and home life—it all shows in his face in the quiet moments. Stacey Roca gives a varied and often powerful performance as Bill Tench’s put-upon wife Nancy, looking for any way to improve their dismal situation and becoming gradually more inward and secretive. For a role that’s usually thankless, she’s very memorable.

One distinct feature of Mindhunter is that despite the incredibly grim and disturbing subject matter, there’s practically no violence actually shown. A quick glance at a sketch by the BTK Killer or the briefest glimpse of a crime scene photo sticking out of a file are the only direct looks we see of the horrific acts the BSU routinely analyze and try to prevent. Everything else is verbal. It’s probably the single most intelligent choice the series has made since its inception, and its benefits have been manifold. It helps keep the show from becoming exploitative, a very real danger when dealing with actual killers and actual victims. Paradoxically, it only adds mystique to the terrible acts themselves.

Most often, the only living witnesses to the suffering of the victims are the perpetrators themselves, and since the show’s interest is in why they do what they do, showing anything directly would be like showing the animatronic endoskeletons of a horror movie monster before seeing the movie. The whole point would be moot since lack of access to the events and what causes them is the whole reason any of the characters get out of bed in the morning. Mindhunter flatly refuses to privilege the viewer with sight beyond what the characters can see, excepting, of course, the opening or closing scenes of the BTK Killer, which themselves aren’t forthcoming with details on what he does to his victims. In effect, the viewer is groping around in the dark right alongside Holden, Bill, and Wendy, grounding the show in a deliberately unglamorized reality.

The perfect demonstration of this is a scene in which Kevin Bright (Happy Anderson), a rare survivor, agrees to speak to Bill and a local cop from the back of a patrol car. We know that his face has been disfigured by a gunshot wound in a struggle with the BTK Killer, but Bill does his best to respect his sensitivity, staying in the passenger seat, and never directly looking at him. He’s only filmed at oblique angles or at a distance, and often just out of focus. His quavering voice and frayed nerves become more pronounced the more he speaks, and the cinematography greatly enhances the anxiety of the scene.

Obviously, this show is a must for any fan of David Fincher, but I would highly recommend Mindhunter to anyone with interest in the true crime genre. Its fictionalized elements keep it engaging as a story, but its dedication to representing reality as closely as it can makes it a wonderful bridge between the crime drama and true crime genres. Anyone looking for procedural dramas might be mildly frustrated by the loose, somewhat meandering plot structure, but find a lot to like in character dynamics. Psychological thriller fans will find a lot more “psych” than overt “thrills,” but the former is so well-honed it could easily compensate for a lack in the latter.

It isn’t entirely clear how long we are condemned to wait for season three. Fincher is working on a new film, Mank, about Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, and will dutifully return to Mindhunter production after that project concludes. In the meantime, lock your doors and be wary of strangers. After hours of rewatching the show and reading the book, I know I will.

Watch the official trailer for Mindhunter.
Streaming now on Netflix.

Mindhunter Soundtrack Season 2 Jason Hill David Fincher

Listen to Jason Hill’s score for Mindhunter.

Author | Sean Shepherd
Editor | Alex Sicular
Layout | Ruby Gartenberg

Sean ShepherdDecember 9, 2019