There’s no hiding from it: We are currently living in the era of mass serial killer content. From Ryan Murphy’s controversial new deep-dive into the life and deaths of Jeffrey Dahmer to the macabre, Netflix-produced Ted Bundy Tapes, it seems that a new psychopath-centered show is entering the zeitgeist every second, and that all it takes for a title to sky-rocket to most-watched on any streaming service is the Holy Grail that is the true crime tag.
But not everyone is happy with this trend. True crime naysayers often accuse true crime bingers and creators of exploiting real-life pain and suffering for entertainment. And while it would be naive to deny that these films and TV shows are constructed with the intention of being uniquely captivating and bingeable (those cliffhangers don’t appear out of thin air!), it’s myopic to suggest that audiences are drawn to serial killers solely for amusement’s sake.
Indeed, true crime occupies a unique space within the horror genre because it sits so eerily close to our own reality. When watching, not only are audiences forced to confront the fact that our lives could easily be infiltrated by a killer, but we are also met with the notion that discerning how killers differ and coincide with our own psychology might help us better understand them.
Amidst the neverending barrage of true-crime content out there, Netflix’s 2017 series Mindhunter, executive produced by David Fincher, is one of the most thought-provoking examinations of that intersection between the killers we watch on screen and our own psychologies. Set in the late 1970s, the show dramatizes the genesis of the FBI’s criminal-profiling department, which theorizes that by understanding how killers’ brains work, we can stop deadly crimes from happening.
This school of thought was initially met with a lot of pushback from the bureau, as many agents were profoundly uncomfortable with the idea of humanizing people they’d rather think of as distant from themselves as possible. But doe-eyed go-getter special agent Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) convinces the FBI to give the department a shot, so with the help of cynical, seasoned agent Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) and decorated psychology professor Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), he travels across America to interview the most formidable incarcerated serial killers and hopefully gain some insight into the way their twisted minds work.
Not long after Holden embarks on his criminal profiling mission, his personal life starts to follow similar patterns as his professional one. In Episode 1, Holden meets outspoken grad student Debbie (Hannah Gross), who eventually becomes his girlfriend. Soon, Holden’s relationship with Debbie takes a similar shape to his relationship with criminal psychology — a correlation that emphasizes the notion that the only way for us to truly understand serial killers is to first look inward and understand ourselves.
The basis of this correlation is established when Holden and Debbie first meet, and Debbie encourages Holden to look at criminality from a psychological lens as opposed to simply from the perspective of the law. And once Debbie inserts herself into Holden’s work life with this suggestion, the two halves of his life start to bleed together.
After Holden meets serial killer Ed Kemper (Cameron Britton) for the first time, for example — a man who is adamant that his murderous tendencies stem from being degraded by his mother as a child — Debbie tells Holden that her mother thinks the best way to judge a man is through his relationship with his mother. Could something so human that Debbie’s mother swears by it really be the basis by which the FBI can judge Ed, too?
The realization that the mother-son relationship is a common metric by which some women judge romantic partners demonstrates to Holden that serial killers can be understood through an everyday lens. And, sure enough, Holden later manages to draw a confession out of a man for the murder of a woman — all because that suspect had earlier expressed contempt for his mother.
As Season 1 progresses, Holden’s professional and personal lives become increasingly entangled. He begins to doubt that Debbie is serious about him – a fear which develops when he interviews a man who killed a woman because she was unfaithful to him, subsequently leading Holden to detect hints that Debbie is being unfaithful, too.
Against his better judgment, though, Holden waves off his intuition. But later, he catches Debbie cheating. This revelation in his personal life gives him the confidence to trust his gut in the workplace, too. The morning after he discovers the truth about Debbie, Holden accuses Roger Wade (Marc Kudisch), an elementary school principal, of burgeoning pedophilia with little other than a hunch.
The moment that Holden gets Roger fired is perhaps Mindhunter’s most poignant illustration of the notion that, to understand evil, we must first understand ourselves. That Holden uses the same intuition that leads him to discover Debbie cheating to condemn Roger suggests that his romantic relationship is the only vehicle with which he can truly understand criminality.
Perhaps, then, the colossal degree to which audiences consume true-crime content suggests that we have more in common with Holden then we realize. The self-proclaimed “true crime expert” isn’t merely a binge-watcher of bloody content, but someone hoping to come closer to understanding the evil lurking among us (even though we often forget the fact that we are not nearly as qualified as someone like Holden).
Despite this distinction, is the true crime aficionado not also attempting to discern how someone with the same genetic makeup as us can do such monstrous things, just as Holden did in the late 1970’s? Of course, true crime is made to be entertaining. But Mindhunter reminds us that it is more than that. It is relevant — and it is terrifyingly human.
Mindhunter is streaming now on Netflix.
