What I’m Watching: Mindhunter

Mindhunter: Season 1, Episode 7 (B+)

This was an intriguing if disturbing episode, with Holden employing unusual tactics to coerce their latest uncooperative interviewee to open up about his motivations. He was more than happy to boast about some of the things he did but none of the details, and it was only when Holden showed up with a pair of women’s shoes that they got him to start really talking. Referencing Kemper and the fact that they would believe anything suggests that they shouldn’t put as much stock in what their number one subject told them, and also shows that their study isn’t flying quite as under the radar as perhaps they had hoped. The most interesting part of this episode was how it showed the home lives of our two FBI agents, with Bill reacting badly to his wife’s response to his son finding a photo of a murder victim in his office and Holden being very sentimental with Hannah before she tried something new that didn’t go exactly as planned. I’ve read that people believe Holden has sociopathic tendencies of his own, and the way he looked at those shoes suggested that he couldn’t escape the world that he now lives in while he was in that moment of intimacy. Sharing a true moment from his childhood also got Bill upset since it made him vulnerable when he really shouldn’t have been. Wendy doesn’t seem to approve either, and she’s hitched herself to this wagon and needs to commit fully now. On a lighter note, Bill’s revenge on the guy who refused to move out of the middle sweet was entertaining.