It’s a little weird to see “Mindhunter” doing race stuff—and this episode does a lot, not just with it turning out Albert Jones’s Black Southern FBI agent gets on better with other Southerners—Black and white—than Jonathan Groff’s preppy white liberal—but also with Groff thinking he’s getting picked up by the beautiful (Black) hotel clerk only to find she’s bringing him to talk to three (Black) mothers of dead children. I’d heard “Mindhunter” was doing the Atlanta Child Murders this season, so I was expecting all of it, but expecting it didn’t make the scenes any less effective. Especially since Jones barely gets any close-ups—David Fincher, directing again (so three hours of “Mindhunter” so far this season; no wonder he hasn’t been directing features?) usually goes with Groff and the interviewee for the two interview scenes. Jones is sitting in with Groff because Holt McCallany is dealing with a murder in his town (and lying to both Groff and Anna Torv about it).
So the ostensible A plot is Groff going to Atlanta to do the interviews, only the obvious soon-to-be A plot is the dead children, McCallany’s the B plot, with Torv going and asking out the lady bartender the decided C plot. Though Torv gets the best music in the episode (The Pretenders), even though here’s a weird cut at the end with the song volume.
Both of the serial killer interviewees are fine, but other than the white one looking so much like Jeremy Irons I kind of hope they CG’ed him young and it really is Jeremy Irons playing a hillbilly serial killer. Nate Corddry is back again—he first appeared last episode—and he’s got a couple good moments. The episode’s definitely not an actors’ showcase, however. McCallany gets less to do this episode than in either of the previous two, Groff gets overshadowed by everyone (it’s fine but it’s a thing), and Torv’s got two and a half scenes. It’s interesting to see Corddry in such a dramatic part—overwhelmed small town detective on a terrible case. It’s nice to see Corddry again.
“Mindhunter” is being real careful with the race stuff—Groff hasn’t quite grokked the reality for the Black people living in the South yet, especially not in the burgeoning Atlanta metropolis (which comes up). I’m just hoping they can handle it all. It’ll be interesting to see how “Mindhunter” scales, as it’s apparently about to go full procedural.
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