Mindhunter is a TV show that crawls into your head while you are creeping into the mind of various serial killers.
The show is currently airing on Netflix and it just shows that Netflix originals have some of the best TV shows. At least in my opinion they do. The first season was about developing a behavioural science unit. Which meant that the team, that consists of special agent of the FBI Holden Ford, special agent Bill Tench and psychology professor Wendy Carr was trying to map orfigure out the psychological fingerprint by interviewing serial killers.
The Mindhunter team
The mindhunter team was not a team that was set up but came together while they were working cases. For instance Holden Ford succesfully prevented a suicide in a hostage situation and is promoted to become a teacher. He takes a special interest in delving into the minds of criminals. Bill Tench is the head of Behavioural Science at the FBI and Ford is referred to Tench for additional information. While the two cross country to teach classes to local law enforcement the use of FBI techniques, they stir up a local law enforcement in Iowa by suggesting that Charles Manson was a victim. They are then approached by local detective Frank McGraw for a brutal case of rape and murder.
Wendy Carr completes the Mindhunter team
Wendy Carr is a gay, but closeted, social sciences professor who takes an academic interest in the study of the criminal mind. While she is working to get tenure, she is approached by Holden Ford and Bill Tench.
With the team complete, they start interviewing serial killers while trying to help Frank McGraw with his case.
Is Mindhunter based on real serial killers?
Yes, the show is based on real serial killers. A lot of them pass by and some are woven into the storyline. Names like Charles Manson, Ed Kemper (The Co-Ed Killer), Jerry Brudos (The Shoe Fetish Killer) and Richard Speck among others.
With each and every interview the Mindhunter team develops new methods and gain new insight into the mind of serial killers who use sexual gratification as a motive to have killed their victims.
While they appear normal on the TV show, when you trigger them, the serial killers won’t hold back and kill whatever is in their sight. Take the horrible scene where Holden Ford uses foul languages to trigger Richard Speck. When Speck finds out that he is being played by Ford, he kills the bird he’s been feeding the past few months without blinking his eye and shows no remorse at all after the deed.
The most important one on the show, in season one, has got to be Ed Kemper, The Co-Ed Killer.
Ed Kemper, high IQ serial killer
Ed Kemper is interviewed the most by Holden Ford over the course of the first season. Ed explains how he felt and how he experienced when he killed his victims. He also tells of his past and how his mother broke him down as a kid. And not just his mother, his grandmother had a hand in his depraved behaviour too.
John Douglas, whose work with the FBI pioneered criminal profiling, said the following about Ed Kemper:
“The real Ed Kemper is even bigger than Cameron [Britton], who played an unbelievable job [sic]. Ed Kemper was 6 ft 9 and he was 300 pounds,” Douglas says.
“Even though he was a big guy, his mother just demeaned him, degraded him, broke him down as a kid so when he went to school, being as big as he was, he was the one being bullied.”
He added: “[Kemper was an] extremely bright, personable guy. What he did is horrific but, what I’m thinking as I’m doing the interview [with him], is he’s a result of this abusive early childhood by his mother. Had he been taken out of that environment, he could have made something or done something positive in his life but that was not the case.”
This is how detailed the Mindhunter TV show really is. So if you are looking for something to watch this coming fall or winter, Mindhunter is the show to watch!
What do you think of criminal profiling? And would you watch a show like Mindhunter even it creeps you out? Have you watched the show already? Just let us know in the comments!
