YMMV / Mindhunter

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• Adorkable: The normally cool and composed Wendy gets flustered and starry-eyed when flirting with an attractive bartender.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Annaliese: manipulative egotist who views Wendy as essentially a possession and actively belittles her work, or older middle-aged woman in a lesbian relationship at a time when such was strongly frowned upon who fears being left by her lover as she ages and is willing to act unpleasantly if that will prevent Wendy from leaving her? Or both?
  • Principal Wade: budding pedophile with an irresistible, irrational compulsion to tickle children who should have been fired long before he was, or innocent man with outdated and somewhat weird ideas of how to interact with kids who was just trying to do a hard job the best way he knew how? Or, again, maybe both?
• Award Snub: There was a big outcry when Cameron Britton lost the Emmy when nominated in the guest category.
• Complete Monster:
  • The unnamed ADT serviceman is actually Dennis Rader, better known as BTK ("Bind, Torture, Kill"). A sadistic, unpleasant man who enjoys belittling and making life harder for others in his day-to-day life, BTK begins killing innocent people to further fulfill his power fantasies. First killing the entire Otero family by asphyxiating some of them before hanging the youngest daughter. BTK continues his crimes by attacking a young woman and her brother, shooting the latter in the face in an attempt to kill him before stabbing his sister to death. Killing several more women over the years, BTK takes to mocking the press and reliving his crimes by dressing up in his victims' clothing, biding his time before planning to continue his killing spree.
  • Season 2: Wayne Williams is the "Atlanta Monster", a Serial Killer who targets young black boys. Luring the boys to him by promising to make them music stars, Williams murdered them by strangulation, killing possibly over a dozen this way. Taunting the police during their investigation of him, Williams kills a boy and dumps his body in a location the police had previously searched just to mock them, and plans to flee the country to escape with his crimes. Eventually caught and convicted for murdering two adult men in the area as well, Williams, despite smugly maintaining his innocence, is described by the BSU as a narcissistic psychopath, killing his victims just because he had failed in life, and wanted someone else to blame it on, choosing young children as his targets to satisfy his ego.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • The interview with William Henry Hance, with his baffling Complexity Addiction that he may well have gotten away scot-free without, and still has no idea why anyone would think it at all strange.
  • BTK's explanation to his wife after she walks in on one of his deranged masturbation rituals is that he was "just goofing around."
• Diagnosed by the Audience:
  • While the theme and tone of the show might lead the audience to suspect a less innocent explanation, many of Bill's adopted son's behaviors are reminiscent of autism, which wouldn't have yet been well-understood at the time. Alternatively, given that he spent a period in an institution at an early age, it's possible he has reactive attachment disorder instead, which is caused by early neglect.
  • The way Holden single-mindedly engrosses himself in his work, his inability to pick up sarcasm, and his occasional need to ask about obvious social behaviors may point to him being on the spectrum as well.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Cameron Britton's portrayal of Kemper has been universally lauded. Word of God is that Fincher hired him after seeing him audition for just a few minutes. Indeed, he's the only interviewee to reappear in season 2.
  • Despite only appearing in one scene, Damon Herriman's performance as Charles Manson has been praised as one of the highlights of the second season due to Herriman's frighteningly accurate performance, perfectly capturing both Manson's cold-blooded nature and chilling charisma and his surprising intellect and ability to mix devastatingly accurate insights into his ramblings and size up Bill from the moment he meets him, making you almost believe his claims that he was a scapegoat and victim and showing exactly how he was able to get people to follow him and commit such horrifying acts.
• Epileptic Trees: People not familiar with the source material have come up with the wildest, off-the-wall theories, including:
  • The ADT serviceman (actually BTK) being future Holden after he becomes a serial killer.
  • The ADT serviceman being Bill's son all grown up (and also a serial killer).
  • The cat fed by Carr being not a cat at all, but a local serial killer who is stalking her.
  • Debbie being BTK's daughter.
  • Debbie being a future victim of Ted Bundy or BTK.
  • Lee Brown being the real Atlanta Monster and Wayne Williams just his procurer.
• Genius Bonus:
  • The guy in the cold opens is only identified once as "Dennis". He does absolutely mundane, but increasingly unnerving things in his scenes. Because of the theme of the show, he must be a serial killer. To real crime buffs, it is obvious that he is Dennis Rader, A.K.A. the BTK Killer, either from the moment his location is given as Wichita, Kansas, or his image appears on screen. This also serves as a subtle underpinning of the show's story, as Rader escaped justice during his initial killing period, but when he tried to start again a few decades later, advances in technology caused him to quickly be caught when he sent a floppy disk instead of letters.
  • Debbie's beetle has to be a nod to Ted Bundy.
  • Kemper references Frances Farmer being lobotomized in the 1950s. While she was institutionalized for paranoid schizophrenia, the lobotomy was just an urban legend that sprung out of a biography called Shadowland, which her family furiously denied.
  • Brian wets the bed after crucifying a dead baby, one of three major signs of future killers which the real profilers the show is based on came up with, along with cruelty to animals and starting fires.
    • He also ticks absentee father, controlling mother, and emotional detachment from parents already.
  • When Kevin Bright worries that he might walk onto BTK at church, Bill irreflexively snips that "this guy doesn't go to church". People familiar with the case know that he was president of his church council at the time of his capture.
  • Similarly, the radio at BTK's house was stolen from the Oteros, but despite being shown prominently several times, its stolen status is never brought up, unlike with Joseph Otero's watch.
  • Holden asks Jim if he wants to eat breakfast with him and Jim declines because "the wife insists on feeding me." The real life Jim Barney was poisoned by his wife, but survived. This is mentioned in the book Mindhunters is based on.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: The book ends with the somber note that sometimes, "the dragon wins"; the BTK killer and the Green River killer were still at large at the time of the book's publication. Fortunately, both have since been apprehended.
• He Panned It, Now He Sucks!: Sean T. Collins' reviews for The AV Club drew a ton of complaints for needless nitpicking (especially the rather extreme offense he takes to some of the period music choices), casually spoiling the Dennis Rader reveal in his very first appearance, his seeming decision to hate the series prior to watching it due to his hatred for David Fincher and his inability or unwillingness to read the series at any deeper level than surface. Of particular note is his assumption that Holden's "victory" over the child killer in the final two episodes of Season 1 is indeed meant to be viewed as a "victory" even though the show heavily demonstrates how arrogant Holden is with virtually every character calling him out on his unprofessional behaviour. The comments section of Collins' reviews are littered with people hoping for a different reviewer for Season 2. They got their wish.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Holden's origin as a hostage negotiator whose main aim is to de-escalate, dissuade gun usage and understand the perp's motives to make him back down. Holden is based on John E. Douglas, whose books also inspired Criminal Minds. Half of Criminal Minds episodes these days end with the profilers deliberately escalating and shooting the suspects.
  • Mrs. Wade is played by Enid Graham, who also played Rose Van Alden, the proper, defensive wife (until she knew better) of outwardly proper, closeted freak Nelson Van Alden in Boardwalk Empire.
• Informed Wrongness: Tanya lashes out at Holden for building a profile for the Atlanta child killer that seeks out a young black male as the likely suspect, arguing that it's lazy, racially-motivated work that bolsters racial profiling from police. While it's meant to show the lesser-acknowledged collateral social damage from the FBI work, not only is it a Foregone Conclusion that Wayne Williams is accepted to be the killer in real life, the rant is undercut by the fact that there is no evidence to suggest that Holden's profile was racially motivated, his legwork is already shown to have backed up the legitimacy of his profile, and he acknowledges that Williams may not have killed all the children, and overall gives the unintentional effect that the entire city is trying to sabotage his sincere efforts to help when the audience knows the outcome of the investigation.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Frank McGraw's abrasive attitude masks the fact that he is deeply shaken by the grisly, awful nature of the Broomstick murders, and troubled by his decades of work in homicide in general.
  • Camille Bell. However undeserving Holden is of her contempt, it obviously stems of grief from having her only son ripped from her and murdered at age 9, and then receiving nothing but empty platitudes from the local authorities while the killer keeps bagging victims.
• Love to Hate: Ed Kemper is arguably the most critically acclaimed character on the show, but his deplorable atrocities keeps him from being in Draco in Leather Pants territory, thus firmly establishing him as this.
• Mind Game Ship: Holden and Kemper, on both sides. Case in point: the infamous hug scene.
• Narm: When Mrs. Wade confronts Holden about getting her husband fired, she never actually leaves the elevator and must punch the door-open button repeatedly during her lengthy monologue, seemingly so she can eventually allow the elevator to take her away at the most dramatically appropriate moment. The dramatic exit itself is an unintentionally funny moment — by this time, Debbie has joined Holden in the corridor, and Mrs. Wade melodramatically demands that Debbie reconsider what kind of man she's married. Debbie stares in bewilderment for a moment before clarifying that they are not married.
• Nausea Fuel: On top of the series' built-in Nightmare Fuel, Kemper's descriptions of the difficulty of sodomizing a severed head via the throat hole are no treat.
• Nightmare Fuel: Starting with literally the opening credits, which show loving closeups of '70s audio recording equipment intercut with almost subliminal blips of bound, mutilated corpses.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Richard Speck appears for only one real scene, but it's a hell of a scene thanks to Jack Erdie's volatile performance, the downright medieval look of the interview room and the way he goes from gently cradling an injured bird he's been feeding to impulsively killing said bird just because he feels temporarily vulnerable. He caps it all off with a chilling one-liner cropped from the real life Speck and the entire scene has ramifications for Holden's career at the FBI.
  • Charles Manson appears in Season 2 in full Large Ham glory, with the bonus of letting Damon Herriman play the incarcerated Manson that people are naturally more familiar with, after his intriguing portrayal of a pre-prison Manson in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. They weren't disappointed as Herriman perfectly captures Manson's charisma, intelligence and intimidation, making it perfectly clear how he was able to corrupt perfectly normal suburban kids and turn them into vicious murderers.
• Retroactive Recognition: In a historical figure-specific, not actor-specific variation. Several reviewers have compared Mindhunter (as a historical workplace drama exploring misogyny) to Mad Men, which features Speck's crimes prominently (but not Speck himself) in its season 5 episode "Mystery Date".
• The Scrappy:
  • Roger Wade and his wife. While the latter's shaming of Holden was seemingly meant to make them more sympathetic, fans were not convinced, as most agreed that being fired was his own fault for refusing to not touch his students' feet even in the face of fervent opposition from their parents. His arrogant refusal along with his wife's audacity to shame the man who gave him a last chance to back out made them particularly unpopular characters.
  • A lot of people disliked Debbie, regardless of whether or not they sympathized with Holden during the first season, and were glad to see her not make an appearance in the second.
• Special Effects Failure: Anna Torv's facial makeup in the second season at times becomes distractingly yellow and orange in order to reflect the show's dark color palette.
• Spiritual Sequel:
  • There are lots of stylistic similarities to Fincher's previous film Zodiac, which takes place earlier than this work and shows the challenge of catching a Serial Killer before there is a procedure or even a concept of what a Serial Killer is.
  • Owing to the theme and shared origins, the show can also be interpreted as a more cerebral prequel to Criminal Minds, if not a deconstruction of it.
• Tearjerker:
  • Bill's life completely disintegrates over the course of Season 2. Special mention goes to his heartfelt, terrified speech to Brian about the incident that's turned his entire family's life into a black hole of despair and confusion.
    • Tench’s utterly broken stare after Director Webster tells him that he knows just from seeing them that some child offenders are so antisocial that they should be locked up for life-like his son-is quieter, but no less haunting.
  • Holden's panic attack after visiting Ed Kemper in hospital.
• Trapped by Mountain Lions: As the second half of Season 2 focuses squarely on the Atlanta child murders instead of killer-of-the-week interviews, some of the characters are relegated to considerably less interesting subplots.
  • While Holden and Bill investigate the killings in Atlanta, Wendy is stuck at her desk with nothing to do. Though the focus on her personal life and romance is enlightening to her character, it's not quite as thrilling as her interviewing killers (with Smith also fading into the background during this half of the season).
  • The subplot with Brian, Bill's adopted son, witnessing the murder of a toddler and showing Troubling Unchildlike Behavior, which seriously affects his marriage. Not only does it frequently pull Bill away from the far more pressing plot of the Atlanta child killings, it occasionally veers so close to melodrama that it feels like an entirely different show, and gives the impression that the creators are determined to not let any of the main characters have a normal personal life.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • While he was clearly meant to be somewhat off-putting, the show still treats Roger Wade as receiving Disproportionate Retribution for being fired over the feet tickling incidents, with Holden being shamed by Wade's wife for ruining their family dynamic and feeling remorseful when he sees a disheveled Wade at the grocery store. However, the firing was caused because Wade got insanely defensive over tickling the children's feet and refused to stop, despite knowing full well that these actions were putting his job at risk. And while Holden may have been overstepping his official capacity somewhat, the school board had plenty of other evidence from concerned parents and teachers to justify firing Wade. With all of this in mind, Wade comes off more as a selfish, arrogant man who willingly risked his job and family's well-being over a minor action he could've easily stopped doing. As well, watching the show from a modern lens makes this appear like textbook grooming behaviour which gives it an even more nefarious lens.
  • While Camille Bell, the mother of one of the Atlanta victims, certainly has every right to be angry about how the Atlanta PD has handled the cases, she is unceasingly dismissive of Holden's attempts to help and openly hostile to practically everything he does or tries to do. Even when he does catch Williams, she dismisses the idea of him being her child's killer, insinuating that Williams was a victim of racial profiling.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The "you won't even believe there were visual effects there" kind.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Season 2 features an interview with Elmer Wayne Henley but not with Dean Corll's other known accomplice, David Owen Brooks, despite referencing him by name. The two could have been featured (perhaps in the same intercut sequence) to fill in blanks on the other's testimony. For example, while Henley got angry at insinuations of him being abused by Corll, Brooks admitted to have performed oral sex on him.
    • The problem here is that the show's writers used transcripts of real life interviews for the dialogue in the unsub interview scenes. Brooks staunchly refused to be interviewed by reporters and profilers, and hid himself away from the public eye until his death from COVID related complications in 2020. Thus, the show runners just didn't have as much material to work with in contrast to the more open Henley.
  • Douglas mentioned how awkward it was to profile a black unsub in a room full of black Atlanta police officers, which could potentially lead to a "riot" like the one in Season 1. This doesn't happen in the series: Holden only interacts with white police officers, or with individual black people who question his profile, but not an armed crowd.

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