Netflix's 2-Part Psychological Thriller Series Rewrites The Rules Of The Genre

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Holt McCallany holds up a pad in Mindhunter

Published Feb 10, 2026, 4:00 PM EST

Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020.

While Netflix’s Mindhunter was a great psychological thriller in its own right, the show also ingeniously deconstructed the usual clichés associated with the genre. Based on the non-fiction book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit, Netflix’s true-crime series Mindhunter began in 2017 and lasted two seasons.

Boasting the talents of Zodiac director David Fincher and The Girl from Plainville writer/producer Liz Hannah, Mindhunter centers on a pair of mismatched FBI agents as they interview various notorious serial killers to get inside their minds. Attempting to create a theory of criminal psychology, the duo ends up establishing the FBI’s criminal psychology investigation unit.

Netflix’s Mindhunter Deconstructed Criminal Psychology Shows

Jonathan Groff as Holden Ford in Mindhunter

From this description alone, viewers might be forgiven for assuming that Mindhunter was essentially a period piece re-imagining of Criminal Minds. However, after years of that popular series, its many imitators, and countless police procedural movies treating criminal psychology as gospel, Mindhunter broke the rules of psychological thrillers by examining how “criminal psychology” itself was invented.

Ever since Psycho’s ending saw a criminal pathologist patiently explaining the source of Norman Bates’ psychotic break to a room of bemused characters and the audience alike, profilers were typically depicted as experts with unique insights into criminal pathology. Mindhunter rewrote the rules of psychological thrillers by depicting its main characters stumbling about in the dark, trying to understand inexplicable crimes.

Mindhunter’s Ingenious Premise Took Apart Psychological Thriller Tropes

Jonathan Groff looking shocked while reading in Mindhunter

In many ways, from its brooding tone to its comically mismatched protagonists, Mindhunter was inspired by the modern classic True Detective. However, the best thing the series borrowed from that earlier HBO hit was an overwhelming sense of ambiguity.

The show’s heroes are often proven wrong in their assumptions about how criminals think, debunking many of the genre’s lazy clichés along the way. In Mindhunter, the supposed experts never truly come to understand the minds of the criminals they are chasing, and they eventually end up questioning the very purpose of criminal profiling itself.

Mindhunter’s Cerebral Approach Hurt Its Renewal Changes

Dennis Rader aka BTK wearing a mask of a white face wearing red lipstick in the Mindhunter finale

Of course, Mindhunter’s deconstruction of the popular psychological thriller subgenre was not a fit for everyone. Some viewers found this meta take on criminal psychology too downbeat, and Fincher later revealed that he was effectively told to make the show more mainstream or cheaper to secure a third season.

Instead, Mindhunter’s creators opted to end the series, in a decision that perfectly complemented the show’s uncompromising view of its subjects. Instead of relying on tired psychological thriller clichés, Mindhunter upended the conventions of the genre once again by ending with a distinctly unsatisfying, unexpected, and unpredictably abrupt exit.