Mindhunter, layman's Terms and Some Other Things.

The past four years of studying criminology have taught me so many things about human behavior. How the littlest of details of human expressions, actions, speech, and body movement can tell you so many things if you have the eye to see. And reading about criminals, especially criminals with insanity and mental disorder are the most fascinating thing to me. Like how they can be so vicious and violent with a mind so complex yet having the behavioral properties of kids. Like how they act on pure impulses.

I have a slight bipolar disorder myself. I’ve been diagnosed by a prominent psychiatrist to have a mood disorder. Now the patients of bipolar disorder do two things, they either became hyper-aggressive and overly enthusiastic about doing things of only a little importance or they became depressed like crazy and lose all hopes about life. This makes them suicidal or dependent on explosive impulses and drugs. But the thing is not all the other mental disorders have the same outcomes. Being mentally ill does not inherently make someone a criminal. Circumstance does.

There has been a great many research especially about psychological or behavioral profiling about criminals. And this is a very important feat to achieve. For example, you are an investigator trying to catch a serial killer. He is very cunning and leaves no traces. So you can’t track him down using DNA matching, fingerprint or trackable evidence. But if you can visualize the pattern of how the killer chooses its victims, the work will be much easier for you. Just correspondent the pattern with the killers’ victims demographic, geography and mode of operation, you’ll have a real shot at catching the criminal. And that's what BSU does. Sound easy but the process is very complex and time-consuming. The investigator has to be very efficient and expert in researching with no apparent manual.

The Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) is the original name of a unit within the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Training Division at Quantico, Virginia, formed in response to the rise of sexual assault and homicide in the 1970s.

But if there’s no step-by-step process or insight into similar incidents, the process will be so lengthy that it will cost and risk everything. And that is the story of Mindhunter. To meet John Douglas, an FBI investigator and the pioneer of criminal psychology. His book “Crime Classification Manual: A Standard System for Investigating and Classifying Violent Crimes” was an astonishingly helpful work that helped to catch a great many criminally insane.

Now, to talk about Mindhunter. It’s the classiest crime drama I’ve ever seen. It too is based on another work of John Douglas-Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit. The show slightly differs from the original book as it has been a little dramatized.

The story in the series revolves around two FBI officers, Bill Tench and Holden Ford. They are put on work as the developer of the FBI’s behavioral science unit. To put on perspective, about how criminals operate, they move around from jail to jail and interview serial killers. Writing a manual about how the killer’s work, think and convey the killings. The two seasons that have been aired are quite trippy.

With an original background score, masterful set design to mimic the reality in prisons and Inside The FBI of ’80s and David Fincher’s (Seven, Zodiac, Fight Club, Should I name some more!! XDXD) altruistic tone of dark thrillers, this will provide you with thoughts for quite some time.

To give you a taste test, there’s this serial killer named Ed Kemper. A big guy. Like a really big and heavy guy, “if ever grabbed you will surely rip you apart with his bare hands” type guy. He’s also a genius. Has an IQ of 145. So he murdered 10 people in cold blood. Including his grandparents from his father’s side and his mother too. But the shocking thing is he’s a necrophiliac. Mind you that he is a real person. A real living serial killer. Most of his victims were CO-EDS and so he was named the CO-ED killer. It was guessed that in his childhoods he was molested sexually and abused by his mom. This traumatized him for the better portion of his life and motivated him to kill his grandparents only at the age of 15.

Necrophilia, also known as necrophilism, necrolagnia, necrocoitus, necrochlesis, and thanatophilia, is sexual attraction towards or a sexual act involving corpses

This show delivers some real insights into the minds of criminally insane repeat offenders. Like Ed Kemper and some more killers, some even more vicious.

This is not a review about Mindhunter, I’m just trying to introduce you, the readers to an opportunity, to something of quality to watch. Like your grandma’s chocolate cookies which you always liked and will like, even at the age of 50.

This will hunt your mind as the name suggests. So go watch it Robots.