Mindhunter

Shit, you liked it that much?

This show is basically the spiritual successor to True Detective s1, to me. It scratches the smart-cop drama itch.

Adebisi said:

The portrayal of Manson in this series is so scary good.

Click to expand...

The same guy played Manson in this AND Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. Pretty neat. I was disappointed it wasn't Will Forte like I had hoped though.

All of them are. Hell the fact that they made Son of Sam look like his potato man real life self was impressive. Loved the second season, barring the stupid lesbian shit, but I still think Kemper is the gold standard for nailing the actual man.

Kemper can't be beat. His 2 minutes of screen time was the best part of season 2.

I think season 2 was great, but it wasn't as good as season 1.

They neutered Ford, and made everyone either hate him or not trust him. They made professor Carr's character pretty one dimensional with the, "it ain't easy being a lesbian" story. The Tench story went a bit bat-shit crazy with a couple heaping scoops of bitchy-wife & the kid in boot camp for Future Serial Killers of America.

All of that leaves a bit of a sour taste in your mouth... but, it is all so well done and acted, that it is still better than anything else out there right now.

I'm choosing to interpret the kid thing as them trying to hammer home the uncertainty around what produces those types of killers, since the kid doesn't fit the profile that they keep harping on even a little. But yeah, that whole part of the show was dumb. And yeah, they kind of dropped the panic attack thing. And yeah, I wish they had more to do with Dr Carr than "lovestory subplot for the entire fucking season". What happened to the whole clash between her and the new boss, with him sidelining her? If they'd kept the lovestory but trimmed it and maybe not made it so goddamn cliche, and focused more on her trying to reestablish her position within the BSU, that would have been better. Hey Finch, if you read this call me, I'm available.

Lanx said:

did they abandon the whole panic attack thing after the former director called him a pussy and he was hiding under the car?

Click to expand...

I'd completely forgot that happened - what a nothingburger.

Lanx said:

did they abandon the whole panic attack thing after the former director called him a pussy and he was hiding under the car?

Click to expand...

Forgot about this plot thread.

This second season is disappointing.

This show has a great idea and setting. Great direction too. BUT I honestly don't give a fuck about the lesbian's fumbling relationship, Tench's schizo kid, nor the politics of missing black kids (this one because it's not exactly telling us something new... go watch The Wire).

I'd disagree about the kids, I think that's actually one of the areas the show gave too little attention. The whole thing was nuts. And The Wire never dealt with anything like that. There are some themes that cross over, but this is dozens of children going missing in a major American city and to this day no one has been held accountable, either for the crimes themselves or for the shoddy police work that allowed the perpetrator to run wild all over Atlanta or the politics that interfered with the investigations. The closest parallel you can draw from The Wire is the bodies being discovered in the row houses, but it's different, drug related violence vs a predator snatching kids and murdering them, and the Atlanta thing really actually happened. And the show barely addressed the citizens group themselves, the controversy around them, or even explored the idea of what it must be like as a parent of a brutally murdered child to lose faith in the system and take matters into your own hands. I'd be able to forgive all that if the rest of the story had actually been compelling, but they dropped the ball with the Atlanta story and then replaced it with "Dr. Carr's paint by numbers romance" and the dumb stuff with the kid.

And at this point I'm just kind of ranting, but they are determined to ruin Tench's character. The juxtaposition of Tench with an autistic kid and his job etc was really interesting, and his relationship with Holden being maintained while being given the mission of keeping him from fucking everything up with his mouth. Remember that? It was even explicitly mentioned by the new BSU director. He never even attempted to do it though. And the kid stuff, he went from an autistic kid in a time when people didn't really understand that with this grizzled cop trying to relate to him, to Damien from The Omen trying to mindkill kids on the playground. Very annoyed.