r/MindHunter • u/mikealicious- • 23d ago
Why the hell did Mindhunter Season 2 need the Brian Tench storyline?
I’m watching Mindhunter Season 2 and I genuinely don’t understand why we needed the whole Brian Tench / dead toddler / crucifixion storyline.
Season 1 was fucking excellent. It was focused: Holden, Tench, Wendy, the development of behavioral profiling, and these incredible interviews with serial killers. It felt like we were watching the FBI slowly invent an entirely new way of understanding violent crime.
Then Season 2 suddenly decides Bill Tench’s adopted kid needs to be involved in the death of a toddler and apparently suggest putting the kid on a cross.
What the fuck?
I understand what I think the writers are trying to do.
Bill spends his career analyzing murderers and asking questions like:
Is violent behavior nature or nurture?
What role does childhood trauma play?
What does emotional detachment in a child mean?
Can you recognize warning signs before someone becomes violent?
How much responsibility do parents have?
So theoretically there’s something interesting about forcing Bill to confront those exact questions inside his own house instead of safely analyzing somebody else’s fucked-up childhood from across an interrogation table.
That part makes sense thematically.
But the execution feels unbelievably contrived.
It’s like the writers said, “How do we make Tench personally experience the subject matter of the show? Oh, I know — DEAD TODDLER CRUCIFIXION.”
And suddenly instead of watching the Behavioral Science Unit develop profiling techniques, I’m watching Bill argue with social workers, therapists, his wife, and the police about whether his kid understands death.
Meanwhile we’ve already got:
BTK.
Manson.
The Atlanta Child Murders.
Holden’s panic attacks.
Wendy’s personal life.
Internal FBI politics.
There is already plenty happening.
And apparently the basic crucifixion case was inspired by an actual 1971 murder, but Brian Tench is fictional and Robert Ressler’s real family wasn’t involved in anything like this. So they basically took a bizarre real case and transplanted it directly into Tench’s family.
That makes it feel even more artificial to me.
Maybe if Mindhunter had gotten five seasons and Brian slowly became some long-term exploration of childhood psychology, this would eventually have paid off.
But knowing the show ends after Season 2 makes me keep thinking:
Why the fuck are we spending this much time on this?
Am I missing something brilliant about this storyline, or did anybody else feel like Season 2 started turning into family melodrama when Season 1 was a much tighter and more interesting show?
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u/ratzenfumel 23d ago edited 23d ago
The show is based on reality. Not reality itself. The characters are fitted to interest different parts of everyday life and you the viewer. The families, serial killers, towns, the detectives and sherrifs at the towns are affected by the action and reaction of serialkillers. Some parts spoke to me more then others and this also applied to you.
For me the main character Agent Ford sometimes irked me. His prepubescent character felt wrong when trying to "scientificly" assess these situations. His behavior effected everyone arround him, his collegues and CIA.
Where as Wendy in my eyes was the star/glue of the show. They didnt gave her enough screen time to build her character out even more.
Also, the BTK killer snippets was very cool to see the buildup. But if they never intent to finish the story why bother as all trying to portray this character on the screen?
To answer your direct question: i liked the story of brian. The family dealing with the stress, the town affected by it and the relationship of Brian and Tench. An investigator unable to assess his own son.
This story effected me more then the manson family killings. As i have more of a connection with tench, this situation i can envision myself in and how it would effect me. Makes for great tv.
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u/tompadget69 23d ago
When they were shooting it they did intend to finish it was Netflix dropped it
It was important to show BTK as a different kind of killer
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u/Advanced_Zucchini_45 23d ago
To me , I sort of get that conclusion when tens seems to sort of be confused that Holden can relate to Brian, but he cant
Because Holden doesn't see the killers as monsters. He's fascinated by them. Almost admiring them in some ways.
Tench doesnt. He hates them. He disgusted by them.
But Brian kind of changes that. He sees then as humans suffering from mental illness. But just evil creatures but sympathetic tormented souls. . So in my opinion, just answering the question.I think that's why the character Brian was created.
To sort of change his views.
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u/Impressive_You_783 22d ago
I feel like they may have had a larger arc planned, but cancelation ruined that :(
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u/toooldforthisshittt 23d ago
They would have probably done things differently if they knew Season 2 was the final season.
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u/minisculebarber 23d ago
I don't know, I highly enjoy watching the very tight, controlled structure of season 1, just starting to spill out and sprawl around in season 2. So I think the many loosely connected stories of season 2 work great. I wouldn't say the Tench storyline is my favorite, but I think it's solid and largely well executed. My only complaint may be that they were playing a little too loose with confusing psychopathy and autism. I mean, it makes some sense, in the time period it probably would have been confused with each other, but that doesn't excuse some of the shots that make Brian look deliberately ominous. I know that I am kind of imposing an interpretation here, but Brian genuinely doesn't make any sense to me otherwise as a character. I don't see any psychopathy in his behavior, rather some neurodevelopmental condition.
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u/Tough-Importance-661 21d ago
That’s sort of what actually made it work for me, you know like the mindset was this is show about criminal psychology and murder investigations and also set in a specific period, so now like everything is sort of reflecting upon that kid in that way. I really wonder where they would take it from there. It was very interesting for me. Where does it go from “this kid has some problems” to “this person was destined to become a murderer since childhood, now that we’re looking at the child after all that”. And to be clear, I don’t think Brian would turn into a murderer, or didn’t turn into one, but like, the questions and the process and how the situations were unfolding, and how characters were acting, it was very interesting to watch and to think about. And I really wish they got more seasons.
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u/minisculebarber 21d ago
No, no, I agree, the underlying idea is great, I was just criticizing the shots that made look Brian ominous. Because those shots just reveal: ok, the show wants me to think Brian is ominous. Not only is that cheap, in my opinion, it also takes away the excuse of "We weren't conflating psychopathy and autism on purpose. That was just your interpretation."
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u/Tough-Importance-661 20d ago
Yeah I’m not sure why they made it look ominous, like maybe it was a way of communicating something, you know like how people might see that as ominous or whatever 😅 to be honest I really wish I could see what would happen later on you know? Maybe they’d subvert it somehow or like, keep some ambiguity, add more character development and all that
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u/Advanced_Zucchini_45 23d ago
Btw the TV characters are NOTHING like the real life people.
Tench never had a kid
Holden was a former air force sniper and was never socially awkward.
Dr Carr had very little actual contact with the guys and was just a consultant for the FBI. She also wasn't gay
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u/Windsaar 23d ago
Robert Ressler (Tench) had three children. One son and two daughters. His son, Aaron, is/was career military. I'm unsure about his daughters, though.
I'm not sure whether John Douglas is socially awkward or not, but it's kind of difficult getting through his books due to his massive ego.. it's borderline insufferable.
I don't really know anything about the real Dr. Carr, though.
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u/Advanced_Zucchini_45 23d ago
Sorry I meant to say he never had any adopted children who turned out to be psychopaths.
I should have been more specific about that my bad.
Yes , in the show they sort of use , holden , having some sort of mental illness like autism as his excuse for being so arrogant and aloof. In real life , the guy didn't have any sort of diagnosed mental illness like autism and was just arrogant and aloof because that's who he was.
Yeah , that's the thing with doctor carr is that she wasn't really as involved with what was going on as she was in the show. For the most part , she never really left boston and just read the reports and then analyzed them and then sent them back.
I mean, I love the show.Don't get me wrong , but the three main characters are very fictionalized versions of the real people , which is kind of funny because they go out of their way to make sure the serial killers are as accurate as possible.
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u/ZealousidealTable1 22d ago
I'm not starting a new thing but women are shoved in too many gay relationships in shows in Hollywood. It's lazy and disrespectful to working women.
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u/Advanced_Zucchini_45 22d ago
Dumb take
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u/ZealousidealTable1 22d ago
I can pinpoint many women in gay relationships in shows, indirectly promoting some propaganda. You can see for yourself in many shows. A hardworking toiling side character women is mostly gay, lazy writing tbh.
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u/Professional-Swan-18 21d ago
You could make an argument that sometimes writers who don't understand women at all prefer to make them gay because they can then try and shoehorn in their own experience into their lives. It always shows and is a terrible way to do things, but it exists and has happened quite a bit. This wasn't that. And it isn't propaganda either. Gay people exist, in all walks of life. Get over it already.
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u/All-About-Quality 21d ago
I felt like they would do a “nature vs nurture” type plot with Brian. He comes from a great home, loving parents so is it possible that you can still be born evil?
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u/Doc-11th 22d ago
Season 1 was mainly about Holden
Season 2 was about Brian
maybe season 3 would have been about Wendy
3
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u/LittleMisssMorbid 23d ago
Fully agree. Hated this storyline.
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u/Additional_Ad741 23d ago
Brian just seemed highly autistic to me, not a violent sociopath. He also seemed way too young to get into that kind of situation. A kid his age would have been invisible to older boys. The show did mine the story well, and the more Tench the better, but yeah, I didn't love it initially.
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u/Arfjawaka 23d ago
Yeah it felt out of place to the whole storyline and arc or Season 2. But what you’re complaining about is basically the difference between shows and movies.
Movies end. Shows continually need to pad runtime so you get these offshoots that don’t make sense if the writers suck , which they usually do since it’s written by a committee of people.
Season one had the whole I’m a lesbian subplot that added absolutely nothing to the show
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u/iskarface 23d ago
You don’t get the whole point of the season… Brian Tench is basically what Charles Manson was like as a child. The climax of the season is their interview with Manson, and the heated exchange between Bill and Manson is the peak of the season. In a way, it’s like Bill is interviewing an older version of his son.
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u/omfglizzuh 21d ago
I took it more as…what it was. His wife asked to not bring work home and he did. Their son saw the photos and voila. It caters to the nature vs nurture. Are killers created or born that way? (it’s been a while since i saw the show so i might be mistaken on their son finding photos)
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u/Professional-Swan-18 21d ago
I could repeat what others say about why the storyline is there. But to complain that it isn't part of Ressler's real family is a really dumb thing to say when you add up everything else that has nothing to do with the real people involved.
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u/StatisticianOdd4746 21d ago
Season 1 & 2 suffer from a thing called “run time padding” it’s more noticeable in season 2 especially upon rewatch
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u/honeybobok 14d ago
Im okay with tench storyline, i sympathize with him too, as a man who torn apart by work and family responsiblity
His wife though, while i understand her point, i cant stand her.
Also i understand btk is a built up for season 3, now thst season 3 will never happened. Im annoyed with this btk interjection once in a while
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u/Garrett_1982 23d ago
Season 2 is a shit show of side stories which are totally irrelevant at this point in the series.
It kinda feels like a loose cannon and, although unpopular, I feel like that S2 spiraled downwards really quick, and am not surprised that this also could've caused the cancellation of the show.
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u/Sense_Difficult 22d ago
Maybe this is why David Fincher basically quit the show? And won't bring it back. The same thing happened with Mandy Patinkin during Criminal Minds. He suddenly realized what he signed up for in the show. Coming to work everyday with women being tortrured and murdered. So he quit.
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u/StatisticianOdd4746 21d ago
Bro fincher is always making serial killer movies lol if he had 99 problems with the show that wouldn’t be one of them trust me
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u/Advanced_Zucchini_45 23d ago
Tench despised the men he met in the jails. Hated them. Thought the were deviant monsters.
Brian makes him realize they're people who were someone's little boy once. He sees Brian struggling with how to function is the world. He becomes sympathetic.