This is a crime series from Netflix that tells the story of two agents from the Behavioral Science Group, who pioneered a new mode of prisoner profiling in the conservative 70s, identifying the most vicious serial killers in the middle of nowhere. Their pioneering work has made "serial killers" a new term in the world, and in the process of learning from demons, they find that the dark side of their hearts is gradually budding, and the original group of evil beings is not so far away from our imagination...
Unlike other detective albums that focus on solving sensational crimes, it very profoundly restores the difficulties and doubts encountered by the FBI behavioral science team when it led the times, starting from two detectives who are obsessed with the study of "random killings", they team up to tour the United States to study sensational murderers of the modern era, and develop a methodology that is close to the Sherlock Holmes deduction method. Director David Fincher has perfected the technique of adapting the text, and the original protagonist himself wrote "Mind Hunter" The narrative is a detailed autobiography-like record, David Fincher uses their road tour as the backbone, each killer interview as a trigger point, the protagonists apply new cases after the interview, or find similarities with demons in their own private lives, each side story makes people reflect on how lucky they are not to touch the wrong switch of fate, and the cold and oppressive atmosphere quietly shrouds the audience in gloomy fear.
The series is very much like a long-form road movie, and in addition to researching the case, the interaction between the protagonist Horton Ford and Biltan is also quite interesting, Horton Ford is a new star detective, and after dealing with a tricky hostage incident, he becomes fascinated by the study of these deviant perpetrators, their way of seeing the world is different, and now the national police community has rules of thumb that don't work for this new group, you can't coerce them into submission, and it's hard to predict whether he'll go on a killing spree or kill himself. Horton's instinct was that they had to empathize with the psychology of the madmen, so he approached Biltan, who was lecturing the behavioral science group, and the two interviewed the killers without the knowledge of the FBI director to find out their real motives.
The biggest difference between Horton and his partner Bill is that Horton is young and has no baggage, and he has not experienced the regrets and pain in Bill's life, so when Horton is figuring out the murderer, he can always substitute the role of the prisoner in a way that is detached from himself, he is like an efficient analysis program, imitating these people, communicating with the devil in the language of the devil, and looking at those cases in the way of objectifying life. On the contrary, Bill is a middle-aged man in a family crisis, and his marriage is tested by the deviant behavior of adopting his son, and when they conclude that the deviant personality is caused by an unhappy childhood, Bill's psychological pressure increases, and he begins to fear whether he will create the next indiscriminate murderer. So the prisoner's every move is a bloody mirror of real life for him, he seems to have a glimpse of his son's future appearance, but at the same time he is helpless, such a contradiction makes him gradually lose motivation.
The side effects of Horton's gradual fusion with the demon are gradually reflected in his relationship with his girlfriend, which should have been a cloud-turning and exciting sex, but because of the high heels on his girlfriend's feet and the killer collection he visited, Horton finds that the way he sees things has been polluted, and he can no longer look at these mundane objects normally, they are all the keys to arouse a desire to slaughter domination. The director also cleverly used Horton's later conflict with his girlfriend to reflect his previous sex-related crimes, whether he felt that he was weak in the relationship or could not fully dominate his partner's sexuality, it would become the fuse of violent crimes, and Horton, who saw his girlfriend befriending other male friends, and those who committed impulsive crimes were only a thin line called calm.
Edmund Kempey was the most important of all the interviewees, who regarded Horton as his most important friend, opening up about how his childhood experience of being despised and abused by his mother influenced his later views on women. The two major thinking patterns that Horton learned from Kempe helped him to arrest the suspect who killed his girlfriend and the rapist who attacked the schoolgirl after class, and the constraints of childhood experience and the imbalance of sexual desire became the first step in Horton's effective analysis of the murderer.
However, when Horton was confident that his research could solve most realities, his last meeting with Kempey broke him, and Kempey used self-harm to force the avoidable Horton to appear, but at this time, Horton could not guess what the two-meter-tall giant with an IQ of more than 136 was thinking, and Kempey completely played with Horton's fears, as Bill warned in the first interview: "This demon can do anything he wants by what you want to hear." Under Kempe's giant palm, Horton deeply realized his own vulnerability and helplessness for the first time, and seeing that he was in control of the whole situation was just an illusion, and the first season ended in Horton's comatose life marquee.
Wendy, a female professor who later joined the FBI as a consultant, is a representative of the ideal school of thought, and she is ruthless and efficient, trying to turn Horton and Bill's research into real theories in a more systematic way that can be applied to broader behavioral science analysis. Wendy can always hear clues in the recordings, find a breakthrough point when the prisoner deliberately doesn't say it, or find out the real idea from different narrative methods, and her subtle observations help Horton's improvisation be sharper.
The hidden thread in the first ten episodes of the first season is BTK (Bind-Torture-Kill) killer Dennis Red, who appears in the opening credits of each episode as one of the most rampant murderers of our time, committing crimes in Sedgwick County, Kansas, and showing off his accomplishments to the police after each episode. The journey of watching "Mind Hunter" is meticulous and profound, and the audience seems to sit in their back seat and listen to the analysis of every detail, the step by step of the confrontation against the high-IQ murderer, and the sublimation of the dialogue in prison into a mental war against the high-level chess players. The indistinguishable narrative of internal research and the rampant crime frenzy on the outside add to the mission of this road tour, as they search for a way to fight the demons in the dark, as is the line that best represents the album: "If you want to get truffles, you have to follow the pigs into the mud." ”
At the end of the plot, we enjoy Horton's maturing and wonderful layout even more, and he is more addicted to the thrill of mastering the mind of the prisoner, and those of us who have read the inspired story of "Hannibal" and the demon know that when you go too deep into the demon's head, it is easier to lose the original self.
The second season is under the pondering of the famous director David Fincher for two years, bringing the story to the "Atlanta mad child murder case" that shook the United States in the 1980s, nearly 30 black boys were killed in more than two years, and the police had almost no clues or clues, until the FBI rising star Horton Ford used his psychological portrayal skills to find the subtle correlation and launched a fierce wit hunt!
The main story of the second season of "Mind Hunter" is no longer an in-depth interview with each murderer, but focuses on using psychological portrayal techniques to solve major cases that have attracted national attention, and the protagonists chosen are "Atlanta Demon Child Murder Case" and "Torture and Murder Demon", which has been laid out for two seasons. After the "Atlanta Demon Child Murder Case" attracted national attention, Ford and Tanku were sent to Atlanta for long-term support, and they realized that although they had perfect theoretical guidance, they still could not hunt the enemy smoothly without good tactics and strategies. When Ford visits his old friend Ed Kempei from Season 1, Ed points out a blind spot they have never faced head-on: "The theories you get from your interviews are all based on the murderers who have already been caught, so they don't necessarily apply to people who haven't been caught yet. ”
In order to make the story line advance reasonably, and at the same time take into account the themes of solving crimes and murder demon research, the protagonists are divided into the Forttan District duo who go to Atlanta for field research and Wendy who is responsible for interview analysis. The Atlanta storyline becomes more like the style of HBO's True Detective, faithfully portraying the face of a crime investigation, and in a seemingly simple hunt, there is also the political wrangling, the battle for jurisdiction, the FBI's exploitation of Washington, D.C., and the most difficult of all: the conflict between what the victim wants to see and what the truth is.
The entangled relationship between Ford and the families of the victims in Atlanta is reminiscent of many of the issues discussed in "The Distance Between Us and Evil," in which the pursuit of the public outside of the concerned people may end up suppressing justice or pushing real long-term peace and stability further and further. While the families of the dead children pleaded with Ford to try to solve the case, they still questioned that his psychological profile was only the conclusion reached by white people who discriminated against black people, and that public opinion in the black community affected the decision-making of the mayor who was black, and that Horton could not use all his resources to hunt down the most likely suspect from the psychological profile at the beginning. The investigation into the Ku Klux Klan reflects the unresolved conflict of that era, and the persecution of the South residents by the white supremacy Ku Klux Klan for a long time, so that when dozens of black boys were brutally murdered in a row, everyone's reasonable inference was the hand of the Ku Klux Klan.
From the bait of the cross in the mourning procession, to the volunteer lure plan for the bait of the bait at the bazaar, to the final riverbank hunt, Ford's tactics are disrupted by red tape and political struggles, making him lament that he is like Xerxiphus, eternally punished, but the murderer is at large. Among them, the scene where Ford runs all the way to the mourning procession with a cross on his back looks particularly sad and dignified, and the picture is a metaphor for him, as a "prophet" who can save everyone, but he is not trusted and can only carry a heavy burden alone. Ford's performance in the second season is still as strong as the first season, although he experienced Ed Kempe's panic attack, he still maintains a sharp and manipulative strategy during the interrogation, and watching him go toe-to-toe with the last murderer little by little to dig out signs of insecurity and contradiction is really the climax of "Mindhunter".
The two "signature interviews" of the second season of "Mindhunter" feature the sons of Charles Manson and Sam, two characters who were already notorious super-felons before Ford and Tann developed behavioral science, a hierarchy that was completely deeply embedded in the hippie pop culture of the time and became a symbol of danger. Because Ford's interview technique has been laid out for a long time in the first season, this season's criminal interview is more like revealing the true face of the two world-sensational madmen, rather than going as deep or even making friends as the interview with Ed in the first season, focusing on the Atlanta child murder case.
The BTK killer who appeared in the opening credits of each episode in the first season of "Mind Hunter" also occupied all the opening pages in the second season, this time there are more crime scenes and background descriptions, Horton and Tando are finally actively using the interview at hand to summarize his appearance, David Fincher's unique photography style that is almost paranoid runs through the whole play, with the details of the slow-fire cooking case, and the oppressive and uneasy soundtrack, this is definitely an exquisite style drama that you can't stop watching!