21 pop culture moments in 2017 that spoke to the zeitgeist

MINDHUNTER production still. Image credit: Patrick Harbron/Netflix

Mindhunter

Television is crowded with criminals (just like prisons, eh?). From traditional procedurals to anthology series and even comedies, it seems you can’t flip the channel without running into yet another show about lawbreakers and the people that pursue them. So, I had reservations about trying Mindhunter, Netflix’s latest collaboration with David Fincher. But the prospect of seeing Anna Torv and Jonathan Groff on TV again proved too tempting, and I took the risk.

What a reward I got. Mindhunter pulled me into its chilly post-Watergate hellscape right away, with a bizarre hostage negotiation that goes awry, and never let go; it’s the first streaming drama I’ve actually wanted to binge. Smartly, it shifts the focus away from the lurid crimes, keeping violence to a minimum (though we do get to hear them described in matter-of-fact, often profane detail). It instead examines the psychology behind the crimes — the “why”, rather than the “what” or “who”. Long, nail-biting set pieces unfold in nondescript rooms, as FBI agents Holden Ford (Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) interview serial killers about their motives. In terms of style, it’s more Zodiac than Se7en.

It’s also surprisingly astute as a study of misogyny. Fincher and his fellow directors arrange scenes with painstaking precision, drawing attention at each turn to the relationships between the characters. The volatile power dynamics are most stark in interactions between men and women (see the “kinky” nail file scene), but you also feel that tension when men interact with each other. During any given interview, there are at least four conflicts going on: between the interviewers and their subject; the interviewers, whose methods are often at odds; the people onscreen and the camera; and the show and the audience. In this world, conversations, even between lovers, are never just conversations; they’re also negotiations.

At the same time, Mindhunter exhibits a keen awareness of how larger cultural forces influence human behavior and vice versa. In the premiere, Holden posits that the rash of violence sweeping across the country is a reaction to the social and political tumult that defined 1960s and ‘70s America. “The world barely makes sense,” he says, “so it follows that crime doesn’t either.” No crime is truly incomprehensible, and no criminal is truly evil.

Netflix happened to release the show shortly after The New York Times broke its story about Harvey Weinstein’s history of sexual harassment. While the aftermath played out, with more and more allegations coming to light, I kept thinking about Mindhunter. It was strangely freeing to look at the subject from a clinical distance, to put aside my emotions and try to understand. For a second, the way forward seems clear. Ask the hard question: why did he do it? Extract what’s useful, and discard the rest.