Mindhunter season 2 theory

These Reddit Theories About Season 2 Of ‘Mindhunter’ Are Fascinating AF

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If you haven’t watched Season 2 of Mindhunter yet, then please reassess your life choices. If you froff all things true crime it’s a must watch and the new season has an impressive 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The new episodes focus on the Atlanta child murders that took place in the late ’70s but there’s a lot to digest happening in the background. Fresh from watching the season, Reddit users are already putting forward their own theories based on the real life events that inspired the TV series.

Many spoilers ahead, fam! Please read with caution…

Here are some Reddit theories about Mindhunter:

There’s much more to Brian’s story than meets the eye

The major takeaway from Season 2 of Mindhunter is that Bill’s adopted son Brian is all kinds of terrifying. After it was discovered that he was involved in the killing of a toddler, it would be easy to imagine him becoming some kind of serial killer in the future. But it turns out Brian’s story is based on an actual case so his fate might have already been decided.

“The murder Brian was involved in is based on a true case, the details are slightly different but the boys that committed the murder were never named,” user @montanapelletier posted on Reddit.

Reddit user @spennyjo added: “Can’t be a coincidence that the inspiration for Brian’s storyline was called the ‘Crucifixion Murder’ and one of the first shots of season 2 is Brian looking at Jesus on the cross.”

The case being referenced is the 1971 Crucifixion Murder: where a pair of brothers, 7 and 10 years old, brutally killed a 20-month-old infant and later put him on a cross in an attempt to bring him back to life, which is exactly what went down on Mindhunter.

But in real life neither of the boys grew up to be murderers or re-offend so if Brian follows this path then his parents Bill and wife Nancy can probably relax.

The actual Atlanta child killer probably hasn’t been found

This is hinted at in the series but it seems probable that Wayne Williams, the man charged with the murder of two adults in 1981, did not murder all those children. The victims’ families have long argued that the evidence doesn’t quite add up and as user @KuuPhone posted on Reddit: “They don’t have matching dog hair/fibers from his carpet on the children like the show makes it seem. They connected him to two women and charged him for them, but no children.

“The show obviously sets it up as if he’s the obvious guy, but in real life it’s far more likely he might have killed some kids (but definitely not all of them) and that there were not only probably a couple “killers” in the area, but most likely a trafficking ring that was covered up along with the case,” they wrote.

“We’ll never really know unless they somehow (they reopened the cases I believe) find DNA evidence or connect some fibers or hair or some such thing to literally any of the children. You also have to remember that these kids weren’t killed in the same ways, dumped in the same areas, and the same things didn’t happen to all of them before they died.”

Since the series dropped on Netflix, the Atlanta case has been reopened so it seems like there might be more to the story and hopefully this will be explored in Season 3.

They are teasing us with BTK but he may never be caught

While the season featured someone that was clearly a reference to BTK (serial killer Dennis Lynn Rader) it seems unlikely that this case will fully develop during the series as the timelines are at odds with one another.

“The BTK killer was caught in 2005 so I don’t think we can ever see his arrest on the show. Unless, of course, the main cast changes and we get a time jump,” wrote Reddit user @miba54.

User @dufflebag also made an interesting comparison to director David Fincher’s film Zodiac. “Think about the Zodiac movie– they never catch the guy. They do unofficially narrow it down to a most probable suspect, but he was never caught.” Sorry, fam.

Holden is a serial killer in the making

This is a widely known theory circulating since Season 1. User @thebeginningistheend posted on Reddit that they reckoned Holden was a functional psychopath because of how many boxes he ticks on the Hare Psychopath checklist. These include:

  • glib and superficial charm
  • grandiose estimation of self
  • need for stimulation
  • cunning and manipulativeness
  • lack of remorse or guilt
  • shallow affect
  • callousness and lack of empathy
  • impulsivity
  • irresponsibility

While this is kind of convincing, it’s unlikely as the character is based on a real person – former FBI agent John Douglas, who wrote the book Mindhunter – and he never became a serial killer.

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So many theories! So much time scrolling countless threads of Reddit!