Mindhunter Season 2 gets out of sleuth-cliche jail as its remains TV's classiest guilty pleasure

The Guardian

"If you’re going to indulge in a nasty crime drama, at least make it the classiest one on TV," says Jack Seale, adding: "When it debuted, Mindhunter skeptics found that, for all the bravura acting and precise direction that had others hailing a masterpiece, the series was as much of a precious prodigy as (Jonathan Groff's Holden) Ford himself. During season one, they argued, it was prone to aggravatingly knowing dialogue – such as the scenes where the FBI workshop the invention of now-familiar terms such as 'serial killer' – and to allowing those extended two-handers to drag on beyond endurance. Series two tackles that criticism by sending its characters further out into the real world. Last year’s loose case-of-the-week format is replaced by an arc dealing with the Atlanta child murders of 1979-81, underpinned by police officers’ frustrated efforts to catch the soi-disant 'BTK strangler.' Decamping to Atlanta, a city that has just elected its first black mayor but is riven by racial schisms and reeling from the violent deaths of so many black children, offers a significant shift of tone."

ALSO:

• It's hard to imagine any network giving a blessing to scripts this conversation-packed without a name like David Fincher attached
• Mindhunter is more interested in the investigators than the serial killers, especially in Season 2
• Season 2 goes further into the heart of darkness
• Things are a little too good to be true in the season premiere
• Jonathan Groff really did a lot of homework trying to get in the mindset of the Atlanta Child Murders eras
• Holt McCallany visited with real-life killers in prison to prepare for Season 2
• What if Rami Malek was on Mindhunter?
• Meet the real-life murderers of Season 2