Second season of Mindhunter may be even better than the first - a rarity!

Season 2 of the Netflix series Mindhunter is that rarity, as good as or even better than the intriguing Season 1. The first season, which aired a few years back, stayed I imagine pretty close to the nonfiction book on which it was based: We watch as a team of agents (Ford and Tench) introduce to the reluctant FBI the concept of building psychological profiles of particular kinds of criminals (in this case, serial killers) to help identify suspects; the agents are in the process of developing methods for predicting the type of person who might be behind a series of crimes - using interviews w/ convicted killers to get insight into the mind of likely suspects. This methodology represented a severe shift in criminology, which till then had been based only on physical evidence and witness accounts. IN the second season we move beyond the establishment of profiling (fewer interviews w/ convicted killers) and we see the application of the principle in relation to a major killing spree, the Atlanta child abductions in the 1980s. The FBI agents, Ford in particular, insist that their data reveals a certain profile of the killer; the forces on the ground will have none of this and seek only physical evidence. The profiling is particularly troublesome to Atlantans because Agent Ford is sure that the perpetrator must be a young black man - which on the surface looks and sounds like racism. Aside from the political battles and the complex, unfolding search for the likely killer, there's a good back story developing, as Agent Tench's young, troubled son is involved in a brutal killing of a child - a plot line that strains credibility a little but leads to some powerful scenes and really builds our sympathies for the ramrod-straight agent Tench. Another secondary plot line involving the love life of Wendy, the academic expert who's an outside consultant to the team, feels peripheral and forced, but that's a minor matter. Overall, the 9-part series will hold interest and attention throughout and promises more developments if there ever is to be a Season 3.

Mindhunter gets better as it goes along; looking forward to Season 2

The Netflix series Mindhunter is a classic example of a series that grows on you or perhaps just gets better as it moves along and the team finds its footing. What seemed like a slow and awkward start as the young FBI agent Holden begins - inspired by his new girlfriend - to get interested in the psychological makeup and social background of the most heinous criminals. In the first episodes, as he tussles w/ various conservative elements in the FBI bureaucracy trying to get the OK to move ahead w/ his research, the series seemed a little unfocused (so many different antagonists) and low-key (did we really care so much about his research?). But as the plot settles in the the small team of agents and outside experts begin interviewing some of the most notorious killers in custody - are they all based on real people? at least one - Richard Speck - obviously is - the series picks up in intensity and the stakes are raised. The interviews - in which Holden really pushes the subjects to the breaking point - are incredibly intense and highly consequential, as the team is gradually learning more about how to use the info they're gathering in order to solve on-going cases - not all of which turn out perfectly, to the great credit of the series (we're so used to seeing everything solved and tied up neatly in 60 minutes). There is some back story on each of the characters (troubled marriages, "secret" life as a lesbian, paranoia and anxiety attacks) - just the right amount, I think, to keep us engaged w/ them and to build tensions w/in the team, without overwhelming the plot and submerging into personal psychodramas. Looking forward to Season 2.

A series that lets us in on the ambiguity of crime investigations - cases aren't always solved in 60 minutes or less

We're about halfway through the new Netflix series Mindhunters, and after a slow start the series does build in intensity and hold our attention. At first, the series seemed terribly meandering: focused on a 29-year-old FBI agent, Holden, who gets transferred out of his first assignment - hostage negotiating - and assigned to training of agents and police officers. Partly because of a young woman, a sociology grad student, whom he meets and begins dating, he becomes increasingly interested in learning about the psychology of pathological criminals, esp serial killers (those who attack women in particular). What's troubling about the first several episodes is that Holden has no real antagonist: there are passing efforts to make it seem that the FBI was resistant to pursing this new line of research, that there would be conflicts between H and various traditional forensic agents who focus on physical evidence, not mental states of being. But these antagonisms seem to vanish in thin air, and by episode 4 or so Holden and his somewhat crusty, older partner, Bill, seem to have the go-ahead to pursue their research (they are soon joined by a BU criminology professor, a woman, who seems at first a potential love interest but has her own back story). By this point, we're in for the ride and what this troika take on a few cases: interviewing a confessed serial killer to learn his story and his pathology, getting involved in a couple of local investigations of brutal murders. Although it's hard to accept that, even in the setting of this series (1977) the idea of looking at a killer's mental make-up was such a radical idea, what's good about the series is its ambiguity: In most such shows, and there are thousands, the cops/agents/specialists step in and solve the case (in 60 minutes or less). Here, the resolutions of the case are not always so clear, and may even end in failure or in a truculent DA refusing to recognize the "psychological" evidence and working out a plea deal w/ the wrong guy. So there's a lot of potential here, as we watch the 3 investigators in the inchoate stages of their work and watch them get better over time.