What I’m Watching: Mindhunter

Mindhunter: Season 1, Episode 9 (B+)

We’re getting to the point where the actual interviews encompass a small portion of the hour and it’s the analysis and, in this case, fallout that occupy much more time. Richard Speck was probably the most memorable interviewee yet, mainly due to the showy entrance that Holden and Bill had tried to avoid and the vicious language that he used. It was indeed interesting that Speck was so insistent that he wasn’t crazy like the other people they were talking to, though he didn’t do much to prove that. The most disconcerting part of the entire interview was Holden deciding to use crude language of his own to bait Speck, which worked but also ended up getting the team in hot water after that. The ousted principal’s wife tracking Holden down at home and commenting repeatedly on how young he and Debbie were to be ruining someone’s life was yet another signal that Holden, in his calm, matter-of-fact way of speaking, is going totally rogue. Having Gregg redact Holden’s controversial part of the conversation was a deliberate act, and the fact that no one in the Office of Professional Responsibility actually cared about Speck’s complaints doesn’t negate what happened. Wendy and Shepard listening to the tape indicated that they don’t trust Holden, and their joint decision to destroy the tape didn’t mean much when Gregg decided to mail it in anyway. I’m curious to see what happens in the finale and how that plants the seed for the second season that was recently announced.