If you watch only one episode ofMindhunter, watch episode 8.
Its the weirdest episode of the delightful first season, an hour of television I cant stop thinking about.
Manson, Son of Sam: Where do such creatures come from, and how do we stop them?
Credit: Netflix
Its a tantalizing question and an entertaining story structure.
Holdens a fictional character, but his quest leads him to real-life imprisoned maniacs, chatty and demonic.
Can they help him catchotherkillers?
Netflix
You recognize the setup, because so much other popular fiction derived fromMindhunters source material.
And there is no obvious cultural boundary demarcating which viewers enjoy maniac-murder stories.
It crosses all demographics.
Netflix
Serial Killer Pop feels like a uniquely American genre.
People with secret lives, abnormal humans among us.
(Coming soon:The Punisher, superhero serial killer, two for the price of one!)
Viewed in that lineage,Mindhunteris a clever and cerebral riff on a well-trodden genre.
Their interrogations feel choreographed, thrilling and almost dancerly.
They catch bad guys, eventually.
Episode 8 is something else.
Holdens visiting a local elementary school for career week, trying to explain early intervention to kids.
Principal Roger Wade (Marc Kudisch) is excited that Holden is there.
But the principal has a problem with Holdens language.
He cant have someone talking about hurting animals.
The kids will have nightmares, the parents will complain!
Cant Holden moderate his language?
Holden has a problem with moderation.
And, as were starting to see, hes dismissive of anyone who tries to limit him.
Isnt the point, Holden asks, to teach these children how to defend themselves?
We need to prepare them for the world, yes, the principal tells Holden.
But we also need to protect them.
Holden so badly wants to teach the children about the lofty concepts hes been sorting through.
(Holden likes Dostoevsky.)
But Wade knows his audience, or maybe he knows the power of symbols.
Show them your badge, he advises.
Holden does his best with the kids.
But they get confused.
Maybe its because the principals censorship has rendered Holdens advice meaningless.
But Holden shows the kids his badge; theylovethat.
Principal Wade congratulates him on a job well done.
What do you make of it?
A middle-aged man holding a little girls hands, maybe too tightly?
He is an authority figure, clearly, almost twice her size.
Is she scared of him, or just respectful?
The teacher tells her story.
Principal Wade, it seems, is a tickler.
So we watch Wade with his glasses and his cluck-clucking over bad words and his very normality reads freakish.
Full credit to Kudisch, whose performance makes this episode.
(I am teaching happiness, the principal says.
What a nice man!
What a monster!)
The episode that flows from this conversation is an explicit departure from what appears to beMindhunters mission.
Holdens partners keep on telling him to focus, almost biding their time until this episode ends.
You wonder if these conversations are winking reflections of writers room chatter.
But Holden sees their mission as much broader, almost existential.
Our goal is to bepreventative, he says.
Absolutely no one in this episode thinks that the principal has actually crossed a line.
If the principal was slapping kids wrists with a ruler, there might be no concern at all.
Couldhe cross the line, though?
Is his behavior the beginning of something?
Brudos is playing a little game with Holden.
They get to talking about power, the FBI man and the convict.
They discuss the allure of an escape from the drudgery of the everyday.
Maybe hisreallife was out of control, Brudos says, musing about the killer but really describing himself.
Holden returns to the school, again and again.
He speaks to another teacher, who thinks Wade is smug.
Another teacher likes him, though.
He turns punishment into play, she explains, which sounds nice but reads Clive Barker-y.
Their son was fighting, says the wife.
He waskicking mud, notfighting, corrects the husband.
The woman is concerned about the basic perversion: A middle-aged man touching your childs feet!
The man seems fixated on the nickel.
Was their kid traumatized?
Quite the opposite, says the husband, before further noting that they considered a lawsuit.
Set aside the whole central ambiguity of the episode, and theres an obvious problem.
The parents have told the principal to stop tickling, and he will not.
My covenant is not with you, he told the parents.
Its with your son.
Holden feels powerless, but his new colleague Gregg (Joe Tuttle) has an easy solution.
Why dontwetell him to stop?
Were the fing FBI, Gregg deadpans.
The key scene of the episode is as grand a showdown asMindhunterhas conjured up in its first season.
Holden asks the principal to stop tickling.
Its a trivial activity, he explains.
Simply stopping will satisfy everyone.
It isnottrivial, says the principal.
Dont make me sound like some stranger in a raincoat.
And he turns this whole strange, passionate investigation back onto the investigator.
You are uncomfortable, Agent Ford.
That isyourworld, and it has made you paranoid.
A lawman comes too close to evil, becomes like the criminals he is chasing.
Thats the simplest read on the show, I think, and the least interesting.
Holden could be patient zero for the experience of serial killer entertainment.
In one season, he experiences, like, fourSe7ens and half a weird-book-ending-of-Hannibal.
He seems toenjoytalking to the murderers; or anyhow, hes less affected than his partner.
Liking murderers is weird in fact, but a basic element of fiction.
Nobody watchesCriminal Mindsbecause they enjoy when cops investigate securities fraud.
Does this knowledge make Holden sharper, more alive to the hidden grotesque possibilities of the everyday?
Or does it blind him, making the normal seem abnormal?
Why is his awful know-nothing authority figure quoting1984tohim?
Another colleague, learned psych professor Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), expresses outright confusion.
So Holden is having trouble at work.
And his girlfriend is growing distant.
His real life is out of control.
Does he have a fantasy life to escape to?
Soon enough, Holden is throwing out the c-word, describing one madmans victims as eight ripe cs.
Is he trying to get the killer to open up?
Does he get a little thrill out of saying something so awful?
You wonder how Holden would react to comment boards.
Is Holden punching up against a nasty authority figure, or punching down from his lofty perch?
Is he crazy for theorizing Wade could become a molester?
Is it crazy to theorize that Holden could become a serial killer?
The school board seeks his insight: Could this man who has only done good become an evil man?
Holden cant say, but he cantnotsay.
He has no evidence, but he has his intuition, and wars have been started with less.
