The Daily Stream: Mindhunter Is A Pristine, Pitch-Black Study In Obsession
Netflix By Valerie Ettenhofer/Feb. 25, 2022 5:00 pm EST
(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they’ve been watching, why it’s worth checking out, and where you can stream it.) The Series: “Mindhunter” Where You Can Stream It: Netflix
The Pitch: “Mindhunter” is a gorgeous slow-burn psychological thriller with a pitch-black heart. The series follows FBI profiler Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff), an overconfident young agent who all but invents the field of criminal profiling in the 1970s. Ford’s character is inspired by John E. Douglas, whose book forms the basis for the series. Holden has an unnerving scientific curiosity about criminal behavioral patterns that leads him down the darkest of rabbit holes. He and his team, which includes old school agent Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) and psychologist Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), find themselves chatting with the sickest serial killers in America on a quest to better understand, and ultimately prevent, violent crime. As the series unfolds, their immersion in such bleak work has unexpected consequences for their own minds and relationships, not to mention the field of criminal investigation as a whole.
The Daily Stream: Mindhunter Is A Pristine, Pitch-Black Study In Obsession
Netflix
By Valerie Ettenhofer/Feb. 25, 2022 5:00 pm EST
(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they’ve been watching, why it’s worth checking out, and where you can stream it.) The Series: “Mindhunter” Where You Can Stream It: Netflix
The Pitch: “Mindhunter” is a gorgeous slow-burn psychological thriller with a pitch-black heart. The series follows FBI profiler Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff), an overconfident young agent who all but invents the field of criminal profiling in the 1970s. Ford’s character is inspired by John E. Douglas, whose book forms the basis for the series. Holden has an unnerving scientific curiosity about criminal behavioral patterns that leads him down the darkest of rabbit holes. He and his team, which includes old school agent Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) and psychologist Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), find themselves chatting with the sickest serial killers in America on a quest to better understand, and ultimately prevent, violent crime. As the series unfolds, their immersion in such bleak work has unexpected consequences for their own minds and relationships, not to mention the field of criminal investigation as a whole.
The Series: “Mindhunter”
Where You Can Stream It: Netflix
The Pitch: “Mindhunter” is a gorgeous slow-burn psychological thriller with a pitch-black heart. The series follows FBI profiler Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff), an overconfident young agent who all but invents the field of criminal profiling in the 1970s. Ford’s character is inspired by John E. Douglas, whose book forms the basis for the series. Holden has an unnerving scientific curiosity about criminal behavioral patterns that leads him down the darkest of rabbit holes. He and his team, which includes old school agent Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) and psychologist Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), find themselves chatting with the sickest serial killers in America on a quest to better understand, and ultimately prevent, violent crime. As the series unfolds, their immersion in such bleak work has unexpected consequences for their own minds and relationships, not to mention the field of criminal investigation as a whole.
Why it’s essential viewing
“Mindhunter” is undoubtedly for fans of true crime, but it’s less interested in sensationalizing the brutality at its core than it is in figuring out the price of letting this stuff into our heads in the first place. The profilers who inspired the series did the work that led to the public knowing — and becoming fixated with — the grisly details of noteworthy crimes, basically creating the craving the modern craving for true crime content as we know.
Fincher and Penhall clearly still have plenty of narrative and ethical avenues left to explore, but for now, the show’s future seems to be in limbo. Regardless, the masterful two seasons we do have on Netflix are more than capable of pulling any unsuspecting viewer who clicks “play” into their dark, near-perfect orbit.
