For over 20 years, David Fincher has been deconstructing Americas fascination with serial killers.
Heres a word you dont expect to use when describing a Fincher project: charming.
Ford meets a professor (Jordan Gelber) who sums up the problem in national-historic terms.
Credit: Patrick Harbron/Netflix
Now we have extreme violence between strangers, the professor muses.
Where do we go when motive becomes elusive?
Given recent events, the answer to that question could be America circa 2017.
So Fords quest to understand murderous motivations is also a check-up on the national mood.
But the show takes time getting there.
Hes G-Man but a babyfaced square, shes a hip sociology student with pre-medical marijuana.
So what do you think about Durkheims labeling theory on deviancy?
is a thing Debbie actually says, that memorable nerdflirt subtitled under the noise of a loud rock show.
There are a lot of scenes like that.
(This review is only based on those two episodes, which certainly dont represent the full season.
But they are the best two hours Finchers directed sinceThe Social connection.)
Its a bum road-tripping gig, motels and Nowheresville PDs, but something sparks in Ford.
Soon, hes lecturing Iowa cops about Shakespeare and Dostoevsky.
When the odd couple head to California, Ford gets a disruptive idea.
To understand the murderers mind, why not start a conversation with the ones behind bars?
And the Golden State isfullof imprisoned maniacs.
Like, say, Ed Kemper, known to history as the Co-Ed Killer.
Kempers played by Cameron Britton in one of the years standout performances, malevolent yet convivial.
Kemper calls killing a vocation, describes his own decapitory-necrophiliac trademark as an oeuvre.
you’re free to spell oeuvre, cant you, Holden?
he asks, sounding for all the world like Bacall asking Bogart if he knows how to whistle.
The Kemper-Ford interrogations dominate episode 2.
More recognizable historical figures loom on the shows horizon.
Series regular Anna Torv wont even appear until the third episode.
So its a slow start, sprawling through cross-country locations.
It can feel unfocused.
Here at the supernova-birth of modern evil, David Fincher has chilled out.
Check back early next week for a full review ofMindhunters first season.
