Round Two: Mindhunter

Mindhunter: Season 1, Episode 2 (B)

I’m very mixed on how I feel about this show. In its first few minutes, I found it relatively uninviting, and I wasn’t sure where it was going to go. After Bill makes some creepy cracks about how nothing good would come of Holden talking to Ed Kemper, we got a chance to see Holden sit down with the world’s politest serial killer, who wanted to make sure that his FBI visitor had an egg salad sandwich before they started talking. This was an interesting first interview to showcase, since Ed really does love opening up, fully aware that a lobotomy is a likely outcome and that he’s done deplorable things. As he put it, “I’m just an extremely accomplished murderer who spent my adult life evading capture until I gave myself up.” It’s intriguing to see just how much Holden opens up and lets his guard down when speaking to a convicted killer, and it makes any future conversations he has with far less forgiving audiences likely to get him into major trouble. The time montage and song that chronicled their many travels, cars, suits, and food demonstrated how quickly this show wants to move, chronicling the rise of this kind of work and profiling in the FBI. There’s no denying that this is off-putting material that is very, very dark, but I do think that there’s something here. Now that they have official approval to move down to the basement and start interviewing more killers, I’m curious to see what insights they’ll gain and willing to give this show another shot as they begin their real work.