MINDHUNTER

MINDHUNTER is the best kind of surprise:  much more than an unofficial narrative non-fiction(ish) prequel to any number of (insert acronymic investigatory agency here) procedurals of varying quality from the last 20+ years,  it is an intense, relentlessly absorbing character study that subverts those cookie-cutter procedurals into a methodical drama anchored by the efforts of three human beings (not simply archetypes or vanilla wafer plot manifestations) to connect to someone beyond themselves and their work – partners domestic and professional; silent sons; mewling, unseen cats with predilections for tuna and anonymity in a basement laundry room – efforts that inevitably culminate in failure and the bitter realization that the only people to whom they can connect are the serial killers that they interview; as their subjects murder to possess souls, so too do the interrogators murder pieces of themselves to possess an understanding of true evil, an evil that, as MINDHUNTER’s 10 episodes unfold, transforms them from idealistic, driven do-gooders into obsessed, shattered-mirror reflections, abandoned cans of tuna fish in a basement laundry room.

(TW)