Mindhunter

Season 2 (2019) (S02) 

“I’ve got Manson for you.” After spending nine hours with the second season of Mindhunter, I would need a long walk, a glass of hard alcohol or – like Holden Ford – a few Valium pills. Even though we see perhaps even less explicit violence than in the first season, the atmosphere of some scenes is unbearably intense thanks to the ability of the series’ creators to stimulate our imagination. Again, this is a perfectly anti-climactic detective show and a masterclass in directing long, claustrophobic, minutely edited interviews (the second episode offers one of the best, with an attack victim) whose dynamics change based on the knowledge and experience of the individual speakers (a black detective understands a social outcast better than the privileged Ford; Wendy Carr exploits the fact that she is a lesbian when interrogating the perpetrator of homophobic murders...). The certain mechanical nature of such dialogue is a pity, as it works repeatedly with the fact that the particular knowledge possessed by one of the interrogators due to his or her character/personal situation will change the course of the given interview’s development. ___ At the same time, the narrative gradually focuses increasingly on one specific case (for which, however, other analysed cases provide valuable “study” material), connecting several key motifs of the entire series (all of which are linked to the crimes of the Manson Family, which will also be discussed) – the permeation of violence into American households (murder of children/murderous children), racially motivated murders, the media’s creation of a mythology of serial killers and contribution to the fact that those killers then inspire others (in this respect, the series is somewhat inconsistent – on the one hand, it is as if the facts about BTK are inadvertently withheld from us and our desire to learn details about him is intentionally left unsatisfied, but at the same time, nearly the entire episode is focused on Manson and Tex Watson, who are not important for the main story. ___ The second season is compelling also thanks to the more complicated relationships between the protagonists, who find it increasingly difficult to keep their professional and personal lives separate and to carry on ordinary conversations during which they do not attempt to outsmart the other party (as in interrogations) and thus confirm their intellectual superiority. Though in the second season they move in open space and broad daylight more frequently than in cramped interiors, their possibilities of where to continue onward in life are increasingly limited. The feeling of being boxed in is deepened due to the more thorough (psycho)analysis of the central trio. ___ In terms of craft and storytelling, Mindhunter is qualitatively the most mature and balanced series of the year so far…even though you probably will not be able to listen to Peter Gabriel for a while without thinking about autoerotic asphyxiation. (18.08.2019)