Out of all the original Netflix series to be scrapped in its prime, it’s Mindhunter that hurts the most. David Fincher‘s master psychological thriller series was a true crime staple for a lot of us, so its cancellation left a lot of questions. Thankfully, Fincher has revealed how it would have ended.
Mindhunter‘s future started to look a little shaky earlier this year, after actors Jonathan Groff (Holden Fold), Holt McCallany (Bill Tench), and Anna Torv (Dr. Wendy Carr) were all released from their contracts.
Then the final nail in the coffin came last month, when Fincher basically confirmed he had put the series on ice indefinitely.
In a new interview with Variety, Fincher said he just doesn’t know if it makes sense to continue the series, which feels like the equivalent of taking a razor scooter to the ankle over and over and over again.
But alas, the numbers just weren’t where they needed to be.
“It was an expensive show. It had a very passionate audience, but we never got the numbers that justified the cost,” he said.
Fincher told Variety that Mindhunter season 2 was a nightmare to produce, it basically drained him. He apparently tossed out eight scripts, fired the first showrunner, and binned Mindhunter‘s ‘bible’ which pretty much outlined the entire show and future seasons.
When it came to outlining season 3, Fincher said he wasn’t sure if he could do it again.
“I’ll admit I was a little bit like ‘I don’t know that I’m ready to spend another two years in the crawl space.’”
In saying that, he hopes an indefinite hiatus might inspire him to continue the show. Maybe he’ll wake up one morning and just get back to it – who knows?
For what it’s worth, Fincher at least has an ending in mind.
“The hope was to get all the way up to the late ’90s, early 2000s, hopefully get all the way up to people knocking on the door at Dennis Rader‘s house,” he said.
Cast your minds back to season 1, and you might remember how Fincher opened almost every episode with a man named Dennis Rader (Sonny Valicenti).
Rader, notorious American serial killer, gave himself the title ‘BTK Killer’. It stands for bind, torture, and kill – the method he used to murder his victims.
We only really saw Rader in Mindhunter‘s cold opens, but it was suggested that all of the work being done in the Behavioural Science Unit would lead to his eventual arrest.
While we might not ever see this play out in Mindhunter, at least we know it was leading there.
Mindhunter seasons 1 and 2 are streaming now on Netflix.
