Mindhunter- Season One (2017)

Created By: Joe Penhall
Directors: David Fincher, Asif Kapadia, Tobias Lindholm, Andrew Douglas
Cast: Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, Hannah Gross, Cotter Smith

Mindhunter is a Netflix original crime drama series based on the book 'Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit' by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker. The lead character played by Jonathan Groff is based on John Douglas and the first season is set in the late 70s. As they put it in one of the scenes, FBI is still under the influence of Hoover era good-bad binary thinking while the nascent behavioural science unit is trying to bring some grey perspective into it. What we now take for granted from the point of view of nature-nurture debate, psychological interrogation techniques etc were quite niche back then. I didn't know that the coining of the term serial killer was this recent and they dabble with sequence killer instead through much of the season one.

Charlize Theron serves as an executive producer for the series and David Fincher directed four episodes in total, a couple each at the beginning and end. A usual season for American TV drama series proceeds like a 50 over ODI innings, with fast paced beginning and end, and the middle can be a phase of consolidation. They have you hooked with the big hitters Fincher and Asif Kapadia directing the first four episodes. TV is kind of seen as a writer's medium but you do see the difference in style when it is Fincher and Kapadia directing it as opposed to Lindholm and Andrew Douglas.

Se7en is seen as the first big break for David Fincher as a director and had, *Spoiler Alert*, Kevin Spacey playing God as the serial killer in it. He again had a go at this genre with 'Zodiac', which I reckon is the high watermark for it. Many of these films have super intelligent evil genius characters, like Hannibal Lecter, as serial killers and with Mindhunter, Fincher supposedly wanted a more realistic portrayal. Ed Kemper, the coed killer, features heavily in season one. Fincher has supposedly cast for season two the same actor Quentin Tarantino has cast as Manson for Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. I truly binged it by basically watching all episodes back to back over a nine hour period. Really looking forward to season two.

Rating: 4/5