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Mindhunter: Explaining the season 1 ending

By Julie L

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Cameron Britton, Jonathan Groff in MINDHUNTER Photo: Merrick Morton/Netflix via Netflix Media Center

Mindhunter started by asking what the makings of a serial killer are and left us feeling unsettled. If you’re confused about the ending, we break it down for you!

In all likelihood you’re here for one of three reasons:

  1. You just finished Netflix’s serial killer procedural Mindhunter and are looking for answers and a place to confirm your suspicions.
  2. You couldn’t get past the first few minutes of the David Fincher series, but you’re still curious about what happens because, even though you’re not invested, people you know might be and you at least want to be well informed when you speak of the “pretentious” and “boring” show with contempt.
  3. You calculated your options and decided to look at spoilers before you watch or don’t watch, you haven’t decided yet.

Some of these choices are organized, some are disorganized, but the good news is I’m not here to profile you, even if you are a serial spoiler. Whatever your reasons, I can promise we have the answers. To that end, hopefully you don’t need an actual spoiler warning but there’s one anyway.

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So whether you finished Mindhunter and loved it (or hated it for a multitude of reasons that I can definitely understand) but were a bit confused — perhaps you’re just looking for a place to vent the way the series made you feel or you just don’t understand what all the fuss is about and aren’t sure the series is worth the 10 hour commitment, I’m not here to judge you.

For the record I found MIndhunter a compellingly solid update to the procedural that used to over populate the TV landscape. I’m fairly confident the series will gain some major award buzz come next year’s nominations. And although we’ve already established what you’re here for, there is the question of why? For one thing we knew exactly how things were going to end. Aside from the fact that it’s all based on a true story, the ending is also in the synopsis on Netflix:

"They’ll journey inside the deviant minds of maximum security inmates and formulate a frightening new term: serial killer."

Knowing that Mindhunter was going to end with the invention of the term serial killer should make the ending pretty obvious because we knew where the profiles from the interviews would yield a fascinating conclusion. The transparency of the series forced our perspective (Fincher loves a forced perspective) but it’s because we weren’t really watching the serial killers. Sure their MO was significant to the FBI’s research. But the real story was about special agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany).

And that’s why you finished the series, shouted, “Dammit, Fincher!” and then found yourself writing a ton of notes and Googling allegories just be to sure the director wasn’t pulling some kind of crap like Aronofsky’s Mother! — No just me then?

Well to be fair I finished American Vandal (the Netflix Dateline parody about a serial dick drawer) and immediately started Mindhunter so I was sort of primed to be messed with. I also have tremendous trust issues when it comes to white male directors but I also much prefer Fincher’s pretentious style of mindf—ery. It just works so well episodically like the way his influence set a precedence with House of Cards. He also did justice to (one of my all time favorite book-to-film adaptations) Gone Girl. So while we had all the information laid out for us, I also knew there would be larger ambiguity to it all. And therein lies the crux of why you’re here.

Jonathan Groff in MINDHUNTER Photo: Patrick Harbron/Netflix via Netflix Media Center

MIndhunter‘s ending was utter chaos. So viscerally challenging that I could hear my own heart racing in only the kind of way a mounting panic attack could accelerate. When Ed Kemper (Cameron Britton) got out of the hospital bed I knew he would not kill Holden. The overeager FBI agent wasn’t his “type”. But I still, it felt like the series was heading into its darkest moments yet. And in a way it was. However, the ending wasn’t really as ambiguous as it seemed.

The entirety of the final episode was meant to draw comparisons to the beginning of the series (and it’s no coincidence that Fincher directed the first two episodes and the last two), most notably the reversal of Ed Kemper’s line in episode two about going for young girls before they turn into mom (if I write the actual quote here my editors might have a conniption and I don’t want to ruin the integrity of it so I paraphrased). The filming choices in that moment were calculated and I could definitely talk about the framing of the interrogation room in particular but the important takeaway is actually all that talk about Goffman’s front stage and backstage from a few episodes earlier. It plays a role in the way the room itself was shot but it’s larger purpose comes later in subtle way of trying to draw focus.

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This is what made Ford’s panic attack so significant. There are a few ways to unpack his show spiral to that point but the significance is Ford’s realization that he was very close to not just losing himself but his entire identity. Tench warned him that these interviews should be affecting him and if they weren’t, then he had bigger problems. But Ford chose to ignore that signs that he  was not as equipped to handle the “friendships” of these men from the beginning.

Holden’s transformation from curious researcher to serial killer hunter was extremely nuanced. And yet, he was never anything but an FBI agent. Always wearing the suit. Actually always wanting to wear the suit. There was no backstage for him. He was always meticulously on. And his work went from passion project to essentially a sexual conquest, which was reenforced by his explanation of his “rock” aka the thing that makes him tell the truth — the question from his mom if he’d had sex when he came home from college.

It’s super interesting to take a deeper dive into the subversion of the whole sex aspect. From the beginning the series establishes that assault and rape is a power thing. Most of these killers wanted revenge against their mothers (very Freud). Holden, for his part was on a similar power trip. There’s the obvious resentment he had toward Debbie (Hannah Gross) when she wasn’t willing to dote on his every word (not that she ever did but he still brings it up that she’s always thinking, essentially blaming her for the very thing he never stopped doing – working). He went from a researcher, anxious to learn how to talk to these men, how to learn about the way they think, to using those tactics in his own perverse way. Dr. Wendy Carr (Anna Torv) even accuses Ford and Tench of coercion at one point.

Jonathan Groff in MINDHUNTER Season 1, episode 2 Photo: Patrick Harbron/Netflix via Netflix Media Center

Which is why series ending with Holden’s panic attack provided a fascinating portrayal of the denial that he  was — and by extension the men he was researching were — exhibiting. Where Tench felt accountability in his home life, Ford felt none.

For all intents and purposes Mindhunter wasn’t asking what makes a serial killer? It was asking, what kind of man is Holden Ford turning into? And we were meant to feel unsettled by what we were seeing. But the moment that particular question is really considered the series simultaneously offers us an answer. It seemed like perhaps the final shot of the ADT serviceman could be some kind of hint at the future as if this was all some twisted origin story. So was it the future Holden was headed for (such a Fincher thing to do)?

No. That man in Kansas was Dennis Rader the BTK Killer. And now that Holden has had a revelation about how he hasn’t really been coping well with the interviews since they started, there’s hope for him because there’s also no one better suited to stop this guy!

Mindhunter is currently streaming on Netflix.

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