Mindhunter

Penhall and Fincher diligently avoided romanticizing or mythologizing [the serial killers], instead exposing the mundane grotesqueries of their pathetic, broken natures—the petty resentments, the self-deception, the delusional narcissism, the sexual and social impotence. Season 2 carries on in the same vein, but with a breathtaking urgency largely missing from the more ambling first season.

The long-awaited second season of David Fincher’s “Mindhunter” affirms the program as Netflix’s strongest drama. Even more ambitious and mesmerizing than the first season.

“Mindhunter” is deeper, richer, and more affecting this go round, even as it steers away from studying proven killers.

Atmospheric and chilling as ever – generally without being gory beyond clinical crime scene still photos – “Mindhunter” remains one of the current era’s best series. ... Season two widens its lens to give each of the three lead characters more equal footing.

Mindhunter gets out of sleuth-cliche jail through our fascination with the real cases it dramatises: those who have devoured the BTK and Atlanta cases via true-crime podcasts and Wikipedia binges ought to appreciate the lurid creepiness of the former and the elusive oddness of the latter. It’s all a quality guilty thrill.

The show’s narrative is more cohesive this season, too. The team is driven to collect more data from the killers because the so-called Atlanta Child Murders are unfolding and they want to help out with their newfangled profiling. It’s all very, very dark, which for me is very, very intriguing.

Despite that nearly two-year gap, David Fincher’s drama about FBI agents probing the psychology of serial killers immediately and skillfully manages to worm its way back into our heads, practically commanding us to binge all nine episodes in a sitting or two.

The soul-crushing dread that comes from looking into an abyss and realizing that you may never comprehend its nature is vividly felt in the performances of Groff, Torv and especially McCallany, who is phenomenal as a morally upright man struggling to maintain his composure, and sanity, in the face of unspeakable inequity. It’s an endeavor that, in season two, only grows more difficult, as threats emerge around every corner—and outside every unlocked back door.

It's a confident and tantalizing return.

When it finally gets going — and that would be Episode 3 — Season 2 of the Netflix series “Mindhunter” finds some resonance by delving into one of the most notorious 20th-century serial killer cases — the Atlanta child murders of 1979-81. At least 28 children, adolescents, and adults were killed.