# Mindhunter



## Droflet (Oct 23, 2017)

Another Netflix triumph. Great writing and acting and for a pretty grim show the humor is subtle. This is the story of the early days of the FBI's search for a better way to understand violent and deviant behavior. A small team, fighting against entrenched FBI dogma delves into the first days of deviant behavior. As one character says to his disinterested boss, "If we want to keep ahead of evil, we have to understand it." The term serial killer came from this team. This had the potential to be as boring as bat  but thanks to superb writing and first class performances, especially from the psychos, I found this to be totally enthralling. Highly recommended. And yeah, I know it's not SFF, but it's really good.


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## ctg (Nov 5, 2017)

Droflet said:


> Another Netflix triumph. Great writing and acting and for a pretty grim show the humor is subtle. This is the story of the early days of the FBI's search for a better way to understand violent and deviant behavior.



Spectucalar series. It's like Quartz. Or other Netflix hits that they keep churning out with a steady rate. This one is as you said, a study into the violent and disturbing nature. Not just on the psycho's but all that we consider being abnormal. But the thing is, this series makes you think what's normal as we all seems to do somewhat abnormal things. 

I'm not saying that we are all psycho's, but it is as it was the with Quartz, you get a very close perspective to lives of these people. The people who study them and the people who are far out in the realm that's disturbing. Some of the scenes might make you turn away, but at the end, I haven't been able to stop watching. In fact this is straight out binge material and as a weekly episodes, the intrigue would be cruelling. But that's the thing, these binge long mini-series are as complex as books. In fact this series is based on one Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's _Elite _Serial Crime Unit written by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker.

On the science fiction side, this is dramatised version of the actual events, making it as much SF as the Breaking Bad. People, sadly, don't recognise it under that category, even if it belongs in there.


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## ctg (Nov 5, 2017)

As a note don't watch this with your children. Young adults maybe.


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## Connavar (Nov 5, 2017)

A truly great tv show,story, impressed with the directing,writing most even if the acting was great too.   It was so original that it feel like it was like a seminar,study of sick,criminal minds and the abnormal things about humans.   It didnt take the easy way of thrills,blood,violence like generic FBI shows that focus too much about the violence of the serial killers.

It was all the more scary listening to calm discussions of the serial killers.  Great to see Anna Torv who played my fav heroine in SF tv history.


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## Connavar (Nov 5, 2017)

ctg said:


> In fact this is straight out binge material and as a weekly episodes, the intrigue would be cruelling. But that's the thing, these binge long mini-series are as complex as books. In fact this series is based on one Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's _Elite _Serial Crime Unit written by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker.
> 
> On the science fiction side, this is dramatised version of the actual events, making it as much SF as the Breaking Bad. People, sadly, don't recognise it under that category, even if it belongs in there.



I have read interviews, about the real life FBI career of Douglas im shocked how much of the things he did in real life, had to invent a criminal science with the work with real serial killers, use of psychology etc The events, Ford is changed by his personality, his less normal private life is changed from Douglas but the work they do in the show is very real, the interviews in the tv show is almost word for word the same Douglas and co did.

I hope season 2 focuses on the science, the work of the FBI unit, agents,scholars who used this to hunt killers and less focus on Ford problem with having a girlfriend.  Seeing Ford, his partner personal life is interesting  when his old partner said he had issues bringing the work of dead women, children home.  Hope to see more of that, read an interview with John E. Douglas where he said trouble looking at his kids, his wife having bloody finger when his mind went to analyze blood splatter, thought about dead children.


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## ctg (Nov 5, 2017)

Connavar said:


> I hope season 2 focuses on the science, the work of the FBI unit, agents,scholars who used this to hunt killers and less focus on Ford problem with having a girlfriend. Seeing Ford, his partner personal life is interesting when his old partner said he had issues bringing the work of dead women, children home. Hope to see more of that, read an interview with John E. Douglas where he said trouble looking at his kids, his wife having bloody finger when his mind went to analyze blood splatter, thought about dead children.



The cases, which they don't have real words for yet are really intriguing and the baddies, really disturbing. Intimidating even. But as a writer, you have no choice but to look the evil in the eye if you want to write to the adult audience and not fabricate complete fantasy. This is as much research material for me as it might be entertainment for the others. Things has been dramatised for sake of the actors, that's for sure, but what translates me is that they don't dive into the darkness these investigators deal with when they're left on their own devices. We only get very close translation to the actual events for the sake of viewers.

For children sake I hope we have reached the end of criminal behaviour, but some part in me says that there's still a lot that we don't know about the mind of abnormal persons.


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## J Riff (Nov 6, 2017)

The Mindhunter, and the other Douglas books were really popular, no surprise someone picked it up.


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## Connavar (Nov 11, 2017)

J Riff said:


> The Mindhunter, and the other Douglas books were really popular, no surprise someone picked it up.



Yeah i saw for books about true crime,FBI they seem to be real popular but the lucky thing for us is that David Fincher, several really talented visually directors created a show with great style that felt more like a long form storytelling version of a thriller film.  The writing was very clever too, they didnt try to make it too fictional, too exicting bloody,twisty thriller.  The real story,history behind the show is fascinating enough on its own.


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## AE35Unit (Nov 15, 2017)

We watched this series, hoping for a season 2 soon. We watch a few cop shows (CSI, Law&Order SVU etc) and Mindhunters is kind of a SVU begins


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## ctg (Dec 2, 2017)

> Netflix is probably a long way from divulging the _Mindhunter_ season 2 release date, but hopefully it will arrive before the end of 2018.
> 
> *Mindhunter season 2 story*
> 
> ...


 Mindhunter has been officially renewed for season 2


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## AE35Unit (Dec 2, 2017)

Cool, but its a jump from the previous series, set in the 60s. The characters would be older!


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## ctg (Jul 31, 2019)




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## Droflet (Jul 31, 2019)

Great news, I loved the first season.


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## ctg (Aug 17, 2019)

Well, it's back and while AE35Unit mentioned the faces should change, it's better they stayed normal for the sake of the continuity. It would be a too big ask to make them age with the series, when the actors cannot wait decades in between. 

It's greater that they show clothes, hair styles, technology changing. What remains is the behaviour and for the viewer the Mindhunters does a marvellous job as they lead them with the character inside the rabbit hole. Luckily for us, it's not a tumble, but a gentle push towards the subject that involves compulsive offenders. 

It is a strange topic to study or even think about as thinking about it involves sort of darkness, where the people doesn't ... er, didn't delve into. It's stranger that for us the serial killer shows are a big thing and to some, if it involves the Behaviour Science Unit, it's even a bigger thing. To be honest, as long as we have books or a screen, we don't mind about studying them. But as soon as you become involved personally into that darkness most of us wants to escape it.

I love that they start the season from establishing the BSU as a real criminal science unit inside the America's scariest institute known as the FBI. And the first thing that they do is making the BSU to the first port of call, when it becomes to these incidents. To my mind they are nothing else, because even though there are more sociopaths in the wild, then there are those who go psychopaths. 

We understand these days that it is the triggers that cause them to repeat the offence. But we also know that very often these inviduals are also smarter than average bears. In other words it is likely that the thing sits in all of us, but for most of us, that darkness is well locked up and never brought out in the light ... unless it is necessary. But then the question becomes: How do you turn off the light?

Well, this series is more about the Mindhunters than the minds of the criminals. I, for one, am glad that there is a screen between me and the altered. Then again I personally have visited the valley of the shadow of death so many times in my caring role. So, I'm glad that FBI followed the role that Scotland Yard established and became an Institute that many fears.



Spoiler: S02E01 - 03 



I was surprised about Holden's panic attacks. But then again, those has happened to me, and I associate them with the PTSDs. I fight the panic with the logic of my mind, but after Viv's death, something has broken in me. I don't know to what and to what extend, but it is clear that the darkness leaves its marks on all of us.

In the second episode the homicide detective spoke about the same thing. How those who get selected in the murder squad cannot handle the business, as it freaks them out. I'd call them getting affected by the PTSDs as it takes a bit to realise you're going through one or several. The truth is we can learn to cope with it, but it takes time and while you're doing it, you might not get a chance to completely avoid the subject. When it happens, you are on adrenaline for hours, not just the time of the incident and the adrenaline is a funny thing. It burns your body, it makes you ignore the pain, even mental anguish.


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## ctg (Aug 17, 2019)

Spoiler: S02E04 - 06



At first I thought that Brian's Child-in-the-Cross case was connected to the other child cases, that the unsub had got wind about the BSU tracking his case and wanted them to back off ... or else. It became clear that I was wrong and there was nothing like it in the case, which lead me to think that Bill investigating the darkness of human mind affected the boys mind.

It is likely to be the case, just like it has been in many other cases. The things we bring home affects our families. They affect other lives, even though we try to shield them. In the Project Blue Book case Dr Hynek's work caused a similar case. Thing is, nobody never teaches anyone that these things might happen, that we should be extremely careful and maybe even secretive, if one works with the stuff like you'll see in the Mindhunter.

I know I pluralised it before, because the Mindhunter alone just suggests a singular case, but these cases are about all of. The whole Behaviour Science Unit, and not just about Bill or Holden or even about Wendy. I don't think they can't change the name now, even though it's very obvious.

What wasn't obvious was that the BTK is a white man, and Holden's profile pointed out to a blackman, just because one of them had difficulties on recruiting children. Later on, when they start to put their theories in the practice it looks almost as if they were winging it. I have no doubt that the local law enforcement saw it that way, and hence they were against the changing the norm. 

Today there would be no doubt about what the BSU says might be very close to the truth, but back then, it seems as if everything was on moments from breaking down. Somehow the raise from the interviews and putting together theories to put them use in the field was a real struggle. Why?


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## ctg (Aug 19, 2019)

> There are a handful of moments scattered throughout Netflix’s excellent Mindhunter season two, in which lead characters Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff), Bill Tench (Holt McCallany), and Dr Wendy Carr are asked the most common question in the American lexicon: what do you do for a living?
> 
> The question comes at a cookout, in a bar, and in a social worker’s office. Each time the question is asked, Holden, Bill, or Wendy begin with the technical jargon. They work for at the Bureau, in the psychology department, working on “special projects.” The questioner always invariably takes in the word salad, sifts through it to find the relevant bit of salacious information they’re looking for, and presses on.
> 
> ...


 Mindhunter season 2 interrogates True Crime obsession

I finished the season and unlike the first one, the second felt like an overlong episode of Criminal Minds. In fact, the case that starts in the first couple of episodes lasts till the end, and at the end, the BSU is rolled officially into the practice. Thing is I did find Bill's travels to be exhausting and the series made me wonder what happened with Holden and his problems, as it just disappeared as the time moved on. Frankly, if they make the third season I hope they'll give two to three episodes per case, and if there is a need they can start the long arc in the beginning and end it at the final, but the thing is they need to the give characters room to grow. Otherwise I recommend this series to every crime and science lovers.


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## tegeus-Cromis (Sep 14, 2019)

AE35Unit said:


> Cool, but its a jump from the previous series, set in the 60s. The characters would be older!


No, the first season is 1977-1980, the second 1981-1982. No major jump.


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