David Fincher plans to keep Mindhunter going for five seasons

If David Fincher gets his way then the critically acclaimed Netflix series Mindhunter won’t end until at least five seasons.

John Douglas, the man whose work became the inspiration for the Netflix series Mindhunter and who Holden Ford is based on, worked as a criminal profiler for the FBI until 1996, when he retired. Since then, Douglas has become an internationally famous author, writing textbooks for criminal profiling classes and exposés about serial killers.

Although I’m sure the series will alter the timeline to its advantage, it doesn’t have much time left before it gets to that point. Season 2 ended in the early 80s, and it seemed like Season 3 would hit the 90s, but apparently, the writers are looking to stretch it out for a while.

Netflix has yet to officially announce Mindhunter‘s renewal, but I think everyone pretty much knows that Holden Ford, Bill Tench, and Dr. Wendy Carr at the BSU are guaranteed to return for an additional season. However, thanks to a revelation made by Holt McCallany, the actor that plays Bill, we might have even more to look forward too. McCallany recently revealed that producer and director David Fincher wants to keep the show going for at least five seasons.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter McCallany said that in one of his very first meetings with Fincher, the director discussed his intention to end the series after five seasons.

"“He said ‘Listen, are you ready to do this for five seasons? Because even if I f**k it up, it’s gonna go five seasons, and I don’t intend to f**k it up.’ So I’d like to think that we will continue, for as long as David is intrigued by telling this particular story.”More from NetflixBridgerton season 3: All the details to know about Penelope and Colin’s love storyIt’s a slow week on Netflix with only three new releases (Nov. 20)Exploding Kittens: From card game to Netflix animated series starring Tom EllisThe Crown and more Netflix shows and movies to stream this week (November 13)Escaping Twin Flames and more harrowing love-centered documentaries to watch on Netflix"

With the news of there being five seasons, I assume that Season 3 will remain in the 80s and transition into the next decade, while Seasons 4 and 5 take place somewhere among the late 90s and early 2000s.

The series will likely conclude with the arrest of Dennis Rader, who has remained a constant in the show since the very beginning. Early in Season 1, we were shown brief serials featuring Rader while he was at large as the BTK killer in Wichita, Kansas. These continued in Season 2, going even further into the story but as history goes, Rader wouldn’t be arrested until 2005.

I can’t see Mindhunter putting so much detail into the BTK case if they weren’t going to follow through and show its conclusion with Rader’s arrest and conviction. So, there isn’t much doubt that the final season will focus on that, but in the meantime, there’s plenty of other killers they can dissect.

According to John Douglas, Ted Bundy (executed in 1989), Gary Ridgway “Green River Killer” (arrested in 2001), and Robert Handson “The Butcher Baker” (arrested in 1983) are all likely to pop up at some point. Speaking with Collider, Douglas said,

"“There’s a lot more they could do. A good one would be the Hanson case up in Alaska. Robert Hanson. He’s the one who hunted down women, flew them up into the wilderness in his airplane that he owned, and then he’d strip ’em down naked and hunt them down like wild animals. That’s going to be a big one.And Green River is going to be a big one. The BTK, they’re doing it now. I don’t know if they’ll come to a resolution… There are some other cases, and some cases are not well known, but they’re interesting cases. We were involved, my partner and I, in the John Gacy case. And of course you’ve got Ted Bundy. That was another agent in my unit who I sent down to spend time with Ted Bundy. That has to be one as well.”"

As far as we know, Mindhunter Season 3 has not started production nor has it been confirmed by Netflix. It’s reportedly been delayed while Fincher finishes filming his newest movie. It’s estimated to premiere on Netflix in 2020.