Why Mindhunter is Netflix' best, and why putting a third season in limbo is a crime

By Thom Ernst

Mindhunter is one of the best programs on Netflix. To borrow from real-estate terms—in the saturated market of available Netflix programs, Mindhunter has terrific curb appeal. The series is overseen by David Fincher, who directs seven episodes, Charlize Theron is listed as an executive producer, the premise is based on a best-seller, and most tantalizing of all, it’s a true-crime thriller.  

So, if Mindhunter is as good as I say, why am I afraid there may not be a third season?

Here’s a hint: it has nothing to do with oversight or underperforming. 

Mindhunter follows a surge of interest in true crime stories sparked by the popularity of such podcasts as Serial and Someone Knows Something, as well as with documentaries like Making a Murderer and The Confession Tapes—although, it’s worth asking if the appeal of true crime stories has ever truly suffered a recession? 

Holden Ford and Bill Tench interview serial killer Edmund Kemper (Cameron Britton)

Unlike these programs, Mindhunter is a docudrama and therefore is a true-crime story that works within the perimeters of true crime relying on sets, performances, scripts and artistic speculation. It’s the kind of story-telling that prods viewers to look beyond each episode. Those with an inevitable need to distinguish the fact from the fiction will find an online consensus that many of the depictions in Mindhunter don’t stray far from reality. 

And insomuch as the imagination is unlikely to conjure up any details more lurid than the crimes committed by David Berkowitz, or Ted Bundy, true crime junkies will find that the fiction in this non-fiction is far tamer than the facts. It’s an unnerving realization.

But none of this would matter if Mindhunter lacked the complexity of character, story, and suspense. Regardless of how hard-wired the appeal is, true crime stories still require a narrative that triggers something beyond sensationalized carnage. Mindhunter is not unlike director Richard Brooks's masterful interpretation of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (1967), in that both films integrate humanity with the unthinkable, upending any thread of casual exploitation. 

The series is based on the book Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker. The story essentially belongs to Douglas. He pioneered the profiling of serial killers through a series of intense face-to-face interviews with America’s most vile and reprehensible offenders. His work revolutionized the way serial murder crimes are investigated. 

Douglas is represented in the series as Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff). Holden teams with Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) a gruff but fair-minded family man, the kind of guy you’d expect to have played fullback on his college football team. A third prominent member of the team is psychologist Dr. Wendy Carr (Anna Torv). There are others of course; family members, partners, bosses, along with the occasional suspicious grade school principal, and shady arborist for added measure. 

I could go on about Mindhunter’s engaging side stories, but I don’t imagine anyone tunes in to follow Dr. Carr’s professional struggle against a patriarchal society or witness the increasing wedge between Trench and his family. They came for the serial killers. And on that, Mindhunter delivers. 

Martin Scorsese described The Age of Innocence (1993) as the most violent film he made even though not a weapon was drawn. That can’t be entirely said of Mindhunter where the occasional weapon is drawn, but true to Scorsese’s suggestion, the series most violent scenes happen in the confinements of a prison interrogation room. The more visceral aspects of Mindhunter’s violence happens long before Agents Ford and Trench arrive on the scene. But that’s not to say that there aren’t moments in Mindhunter that will wring the comfort out of a good night’s sleep.

What terror there is comes in the remarkable performances from Cameron Britton as Edmund Kemper, Jack Erdie as Richard Speck, Oliver Cooper as David Berkowitz, and Damon Herriman as Charles Manson (Herriman also plays Charles Manson in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) all who deliver eerily accurate portrayals of their real-life murderous counterparts. The horror of these men’s crimes is conveyed through their deceptively gentle nature, their pseudo-intellectual sparring, and in their disarmingly still demeanor. It’s all too easy to imagine easy it was for them to lure in their victims. 

Some viewers might find themselves conflicted by the voyeuristic nature of the show. According to an article in Psychology Today, giving in to a morbid curiosity for serial killers can be the cause of underlying feelings of guilt. Mindhunter doesn’t dodge the possibility that it could be feeding into a culture that makes superstars out of monsters. The script effectively brings into question the cult of serial killer celebrity through Agent Ford’s starstruck anticipation over the possibility of meeting convicted killer Charles Manson (a pivotal moment in Season 2). Ford seems oblivious to his obsessive nature and social inadequacies. It’s a quality that sets him apart from his colleagues who take a more pragmatic view of their case studies.

But if Ford’s imprudent idolizing is not enough to taint any sheen that might rub off on the show’s violent perpetrators, then the irrevocably wounds left on the victims, will. In a scene that ranks as one of the most heartrending moments in television dramas, Ford and Trench sit in a parked car, their backs turned to the broken and tormented voice of a man, the surviving victim of Dennis Rader, aka the BTK killer, who sits in the backseat relaying the ordeal that left him injured and his sister dead. 

So, to return to the question, will there be a 3rd season of Mindhunter?

Nothing’s been decided.

It’s Fincher’s call. 

But it’s not looking good. 

Is it possible that Mindhunter could continue without Fincher? Artistically, maybe; Contractually, perhaps not. But even if Fincher is willing and able to pass the baton, the show is so embedded with his style that it’s difficult to imagine the series without his influence.  

All of this leaves fans in a bit of a lurch, given that the series was thematically designed for a five-season run. That duration would allow for the two-minute opening that graces each episode to catch up with a fifth season timeline. If rumours are accurate, then the fifth season would tie those opening sequences into a finale that would end the terror of the BTK killer.  

And that would be a great way to end a series. 

Fincher has not confirmed a 3rd season choosing to focus his attention on his upcoming Netflix film, Mank, based on screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz’s writing of Citizen Kane (1941). Sounds good, but if it means forgoing three more seasons of Mindhunter, I can wait. 

There are two seasons of Mindhunter currently streaming on Netflix.