First of all: This is not the show you should be watching when you’re weaning yourself off of anti-anxiety medication. The stories in Mindhunter are based on true crimes of real serial killers and are not a good pairing with brain zaps and a delicate, emotional state of mind.
I’m probably stating the obvious here but serial killers are the least relatable people in the world. I can’t even put a band-aid on someone without feeling woozy or nauseous and here we have these serial killers prancing around stabbing and choking people to death and doing weird things with their mothers’ throats.
In the series, reality is used as a skeleton for the fictional characters involved in solving the cases. It’s set in the time when behavioural studies were a new field—,probably the late seventies or early eighties. I honestly can’t be bothered to look it up.
While watching the show I found myself not invested in the fictional characters and the backstories of the FBI agents and their families and was just waiting for the next interview with a known serial killer. I felt like the people who made the show were trying hard to make me care about the fictional characters. Instead I was left feeling like a psychopath, emotionally numb and unable to empathise with other people. I just realized maybe the screenwriters are geniuses.
I guess the problem with having true crime hall of famers in the show is that when they’re measured against fictional characters, the viewer is likely to prefer the true, albeit gruesome story. It’s like the difference between your friend telling you about what happened to them yesterday as opposed to telling you about what they dreamt the night before.
I still recommend the show, it’s great and absolutely nothing like listening to someone telling you about their dreams or fantastical ideas that you couldn’t care less about.
You can watch Mindhunter on Netflix. For more TV Goddess reviews, click here.
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