Fair Warning: The following review contains minor spoilers for Mindhunter Season 2.
Nearly two years after the first season went live on Netflix; Mindhunter is back with another mind-boggling thrilling season.
Set in the late 1970s, Season 1 was one of the most rewarding slow burn thrillers we’ve watched and Mindhunter Season 2 continues to build up on that reputation but at the same time giving the series a whole new dimension with clever storytelling and improved structure.
The finale of Season 1 saw FBI Agent Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) suffering from a severe panic attack after a “hugging” encounter with convicted murderer Edmund Kemper (Cameron Britton). Now, we realize that may not sound as terrifying as we hoped but we recommend watching the entire Season 1 and you’ll get a better perspective of what we’re referring to.
Season 2 starts off with the medical confirmation that Agent Ford indeed suffered severe panic attacks and had no choice but to have his partner Agent Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) fetch him in the hospital. The later part of the series is then set in the early 1980s mainly in the up and coming city of Atlanta, where a series of child murders involving black children in their early adolescent to their late teens, leaves the authorities in frenzy and much of the city in a state of panic.
For fans of the series, you’ll also be pleased to know that this new season has given the characters a much needed back story. The relationships of FBI Agent Tench and his wife Nancy Tench (Stacey Roca) are dug deeper. Another more notable is that the show’s in-house psychologist, Dr. Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), her relationship and sexuality was closely focused.
The King of Slow Burn Thrillers
The whole plot of the season begins to get clearer after 2 or 3 episodes. Yes, Mindhunter is a slow burn thriller. And, we dare say it; Mindhunter might just as well be the King of Slow Burn Thrillers.
But unlike most slow burns, Mindhunter season 2 will not reward you with a major reveal or anything of the sort. Instead, it will keep you begging for more.
The greatest aspect of Mindhunter, however, lies in the details and also the lack of it. That does not make a lot of sense. But, if you pay close attention, the series gives out a lot of unimaginable details of a murder, oftentimes detailed by the killer himself, but it will not show you the entire visual of the crime and instead leaves it to your imagination to envision everything.
Twisted!
Quite Historic
Mindhunter is like the father of all the modern police procedural TV series. This show will really give you a lot of insights on how difficult it was to solve crimes back in those days and how criminal profiling basically came to existence. The limited technology and criminal database made a lot of things harder then. Heck, the term “serial killer” is not even socially accepted, even with the authorities.
The show is quite historic in the sense that it was actually based on true accounts of former agents on how the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit was born. Much of the show is dramatized, we assume, still it’s rather informative.
Skip or Watch?
Mindhunter Season 2 is simply genius and binge-worthy television. So, yes, it is definitely a Watch! Watching all episodes in one go, preferably on a weekend, is recommended as this show is so detail oriented you can’t risk forgetting anything.
Mindhunter deals with absolutely mature and often unsettling subject matter. The murders and the racial implications may be too much for some. It would be best to tuck the kids in first before watching this.
Fun Fact: Mindhunter is based on the book “Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit” by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker.
Here’s our rating for the Mindhunter Season 2. For more reviews, simply click this link.
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