- Critic's Rating - 9/109/10
“I believe all the great things are created in a place between method and madness.”
Nearly two years later, Netflix returns with a highly anticipated season two of the non-fiction crime-thriller drama Mindhunter. David Fincher returns to direct three of the season’s nine episodes. To recap, it follows the story of two FBI agents who team up with a psychologist on a pan-American journey for criminal profiling. Most of their clientele includes infamous convicted serial murderers. The team, which forms the core of the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit (BSU) is collectively responsible for interviewing the murderers, unearthing their motives, creating databases, establishing statistical relations, configuring heuristic connections, and helping out the open mass murder cases across various departments.
Season one dealt with the initial years of criminal psychology study and the interview of serial killer Richard Speck. Season two picks up immediately after Speck’s interview. The prime focus of the season two would be the active investigation into the Atlanta Child Murders which results in deaths on atleast 28 black teens. However, before the show steers into the active crime scenes, it focuses on strengthening the team and drawing insights from the interviews. Son Of Sam, William Hence, Paul Bateson and the most known of all the serial killers- Charles Manson would be interviewed by two FBI agents.
Jonathan Groff’s Agent Ford and Holt McCallany’s Agent Tench excel in their workmanship of the detectives both ways. Their stubborn and nuance performance makes one believe that they are tailor-made for the job of FBI agents. The evolution of their relationship takes a new turn when Agent Tench is bounded by “family emergency”. Surrounded by the ever-increasing responsibilities and failure to stop serial killers at large, the situations would push them on a path which they never thought of. Yet, in the face of this never ending madness, they will stand firm when everything else would fall apart. They are unwilling to be railroaded into a decision made by other officers and department. But the bigger questions is: when you are out of options and see the evil triumph over you, should you read between the lines?
Mindhunter elevates the investigation setting and asks everyone to look for the facts and determine the pattern. It asks whether a serial killer has a logic behind the murders or not? Or if inadequacy and failure can turn a person into a mass murderer? Or they have been possessed by the devil, taking a cue from some mythologies? Or if everything stops making sense is it right to be methodical? Mindhunter cautiously plays with our mind demands us to be “submissive” to the murderer in order to understand the inner working of his. It’s the haunting nature of these interviews coupled by the eerie background music and creepy expressions which dumbstruck its viewers. It clearly plays form the view of an agent who is either actively involved in the investigation or passively connected with analysis. These unimaginable day-to-day events certainly takes a toll on their personal lives- especially psychologist Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), who finds herself lost in work and in life.
Mindhunter season two stands as a mindblowing & mammoth masterpiece of madness, an undisputed champion in crime-thriller TV series. David Fincher plans to take the series till five seasons. Only time will tell if it will materialize or not. However, with two excellent seasons under its belt, Mindunter stands not only as one of the finest from Netflix but also one of the greatest shows of this decade.
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