Do you know why Anna Torv got a girlfriend story arc this season? Why we’ve been getting to know Lauren Glazier since the first episode? Is it to give Torv some character development? Because… there isn’t any. I mean, not enough—given how all of the characters function when they’re at work—so not enough to matter. Not enough you couldn’t have removed Glazier’s scenes from every episode and it wouldn’t be any different in the end. The end being as “Mindhunter” intensifies the Atlanta Child Murder case; see, Hoyt McCallany and Jonathan Groff are really doing the first on the ground BSU consult. It’s “Criminal Minds: Year Zero.” And, you know, actually good. And also historical, which is its own thing.
There’s time in the episode for McCallany to go home and check in on wife Stacey Roca, who’s amazing this episode, and son Zachary Scott Ross, who speaks for the first time in what seems like seven episodes. There’s a nice bit of bonding between McCallany and Ross, maybe the first fatherly bit from workaholic McCallany; hopefully it’ll lead to more someday. It works well.
And Groff gets to check in with fetching Black girl Sierra Aylina McClain, possibly sending her the signals but who knows because Groff’s so weird. The most impressive thing about “Mindhunter,” this episode anyway, is how awesome a serial killer investigation movie they make. A “true” one. But it’s very interesting how they’ve kept Groff weird but also backed up the narrative distance on him; he doesn’t get to express his internal life this season. It’s weird. And they foreshadowed it in the second episode.
Maybe it’ll be part of the inevitable season-ending cliffhanger… just one left, after all.
It’s a fantastic hour of television, even if it does turn the second season of “Mindhunter” into a preamble for an awesome serial killer two-parter.
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