by Mike Hilty, Contributing Writer
Welcome to Cross-Platform Partners! In honor of a new movie release, I have selected a TV show to watch to pair with the movie. Think of it as a way to get hyped for the new movie, a preview of things to come, a means to tide you over if the movie won’t be released where you live for a little while, or a change of pace if you’ve run out of related movies or sequels.
For November, I picked Mindhunter to pair with The Killer.
David Fincher has made a career of exploring the inner workings of humans. Whether it’s in Se7en, Zodiac, or most recently in The Killer, Fincher has directed some of the most iconic movies about the mind of killers. They’re unflinching, raw, and disturbing, but Fincher also finds a way to show how people interpret and investigate these killers. No better example of that exists in Fincher’s filmography than Mindhunter.
Serving a precursor to what the FBI’s behavioral sciences division would become, Mindhunter focuses on two agents who are on the cutting edge of profiling serial killers. They find it’s not just motive that can lead them to suspects, but building a profile for unsubs (unidentified subjects) to help narrow down the scope of who they should be looking for. What they discover turns into a revolutionary but untested method of catching killers.
Mindhunter does an amazing job of setting up the infancies of the behavioral sciences unit. Both agents, Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany), take part in it due to the frustration they have with the old fashioned way the FBI treats investigations. The exploration and evolution this unit is treated like an experiment. After all, this is a new science for the FBI, and one that everyone is still unsure about the ways it can be used by detectives. Like many new things, they meet resistance along the way from people who don’t think this can help them. Ford and Tench try to focus on teaching people the value of behavioral science versus jamming it down everyone’s throats though.
Fincher’s influence is all over Mindhunter — it feels like the perfect TV show for him to shepherd. It delves into aspects of the human mind that Fincher has done an great job of exploring in his past movies. Throughout the series, darkness is used as a way to show how each interview is putting the FBI in front of someone evil. Whenever they walk out of the interviews, the set is usually well-lit and bright and vibrant. It represents the clarity that the agents get when they find out something helpful or insightful.
We also see how Fincher deconstructs all of his characters, not just the killers being interviewed for a greater purpose. Agent Ford is curious and ambitious to a fault. The first season in particular shows how he struggles with blurring the line between professionalism and doing anything he can to get the most from his subjects. His relationship suffers also because he can’t help but look at people differently from the lens of certain behaviors being precursors to violent behavior. Tench is in a similar situation, where he constantly chooses his work over his family, even when his family comes face to face with criminal behavior close to home. Both the agents are flawed, but they’re also extremely talented and dedicated to what their work could mean to investigators and detectives throughout the United States.
One of my favorite aspects of Mindhunter is the interviews. Not only do we see a steep progression in Tench and Ford’s methodology and practice, but the substance they glean from each interview gets better the more they do them. Each of the interviews offers a chilling look at how serial killers behave, and why that matters, when they recommend a profile of who should be considered a suspect. Some of the United States’ most notorious serial killers are interviewed, including Charles Manson (Damon Herriman), Edmund Kemper (Cameron Britton), and the Son of Sam, David Berkowitz (Oliver Cooper). All the interviews help piece together several characteristics for profiling, like narcissism, a need for control, and keeping trophies from their victims, among numerous others.
The performances in Mindhunter are outstanding, anchored in large part by Groff and McCallany. They make an intriguing tandem, keeping each other in check and helping define profiling for the FBI. The friction between the two at times is palpable, as tensions run high between them when both see everything at stake by taking this new science outside of the FBI walls. In addition to Groff and McCallany, Anna Torv plays a colleague in the behavioral science unit who helps provide structure, guidelines, and analytics to their department. Torv also serves as an outsider who is fascinated by the work they’re doing, and how it can help the greater good when it comes to predicting criminal behavior.
Mindhunter could have easily been just like several other crime procedural shows currently on TV. Instead, it helps elevate a saturated (and stale) genre to heights not seen ever. It breaks my heart to know that Mindhunter will end on a cliffhanger about the efficacy of the new behavioral science unit, as well as a brewing killer who is just beginning his terror in a small Kansas town. In the end, though, it is Netflix’s best show that, like so many streaming shows, had its run cut entirely too short too fast.
You can read more from Mike Hilty, and follow him on Twitter, Letterboxd, and Serializd