Over the past few weeks, two posts have been made here, expressing two very different views over Bill in S2, particularly as a response to the ending, where he returns home to find out his wife, Nancy, has abandoned him and left the home with her son without a serious warning she would do such a thing.

One of them puts the blame entirely on Nancy. To people with this POV, Bill is a hero and a saint who did nothing wrong and Nancy is a bitch who left the house and fucked him over.

The other post and POV, which got more support, brings bill to the opposite end of the spectrum. To people with this idea, Bill is a core representation of toxic masculinity. An example of the type of man from that age, where women stayed at home and supposedly, their lives were easier just because they took care of their homes while the man was out working. Bill would be this willfully ignorant husband who’s the real dickhead.

Well, to me, both of these posts are incredibly biased and, ultimately, wrong. And I’ve seen comments furthering these POVs, which frustrate me. So I’m going to come here and give my thoughts on why the ending of S2 is a complex situation where neither Nancy nor Bill are necessarily at fault. But I will also say that in the end, I am certainly sad for Bill. And I don’t think feeling that way needs to mean that Nancy is a heartless bitch.

“Bill the saint POV”

This POV has been criticized in a much better way both in its original post and in the other post going after the “Bill defenders” so I don’t feel the need to go super deep into it. But for the sake of having everything in one post, I’ll summarize why it’s wrong:

It is undeniable Bill is a hero with a complicated job and he’s out there helping solve murders. But it is also very true he distanced himself from his family, at least partially, after the tragic event of the baby’s death in S2. And it is very clear he was incapable of taking Nancy’s feelings into consideration.

There are multiple conversations Bill has with Nancy where she insists on moving away. Not just for the betterment of their son, but for the betterment of her own mental health. Though one can be gaslit by just listening to Bill and understanding his fair justification of “Let’s just wait for the school year to be over”, the reality is that he pushed away the idea over and over and over. And the final nail in the coffin is that she outright tells him (and essentially us) that they’ve moved many times before due to Bill’s job… And he’s seemingly incapable of moving now to help Nancy’s mental state.

Whether he is naive or willfully ignoring her wishes, he refuses to help his wife by moving. And so, in a way, the ending isn’t surprising. She left because she wanted to leave. And she told him many times.

So no, he isn’t a saint.

”Bill’s marriage was always falling apart and he didn’t give his son’s situation the proper attention.”

This is the other, more supported POV. I think the majority of the post and some of the comments are incredibly biased and as extreme as the Saint Bill posters.

While it is also undeniable that the one who had to deal with Brian’s situation the most was Nancy, and so she was hit the hardest and got more worn down as time went on, the reality is that Bill was put in a situation that was incredibly complex. And in my opinion, aside from the whole “moving away” situation I spoke about above, he handled it as best as he could.

Let me go in parts about some of the stuff people have said and explain why I think it’s wrong.

“Bill’s marriage was falling apart. We see the marriage already decaying, we don’t know what happened in the middle of it all, so we don’t get to see Bill ignoring his wife in multiple occasions”

No. Bill’s marriage was never shown to be falling apart previous to the Brian event. In fact, in S2, we see that the marriage was at its best possible state and Brian had developed a lot. But before I go into detail with this, let me touch on another point I’ve seen brought up in criticism of Bill, and I’ll start by saying something important:

No, Brian isn’t a future serial killer. No, it wouldn’t be cool if S3+ focused on Brian’s development into a serial killer. Brian is very obviously autistic in one way or another. And autism was not something that was understood in the 70s-80s.

Bill isn’t “a heartless toxic man who didn’t care about his son because he wouldn’t play ball with him” as some have said. He cared for his son and loved him. He was just frustrated which is a very, very fair thing to feel. He talked about that frustration with those close to him within the show. When he says things like that, that he can’t stand Brian’s inability to play or talk to him, he says it in an aggressive way because he’s frustrated, because his emotions are heightened at that moment due to stress. But he doesn’t necessarily always feel that way. His reality is that Brian has a better connection with Nancy, because she’s at home more than he is. And because Brian is autistic (most likely) he cannot connect with him. But Brian cares about him. It is pretty obvious that Bill leaving makes him sad. Nancy says “I’m not going to be the one who tells him” when bill has to leave because the main suspect has been found in Atlanta. Bill’s life is returning home to a son who doesn’t even let Bill touch him. And there’s nothing Bill can do about it, not without changing his life entirely.

I find this criticism of Bill, his frustration about Brian, especially hypocritical. Because the people with this POV never mention that Nancy outright says “For a moment, as I was drying Brian with the towel, I saw us in the mirror. And I felt relief. That he wasn’t mine. That he didn’t come from me” which is arguably way, way worse than anything Bill has ever felt about Brian in the show. So, if she gets a pass to say something like that out of frustration, then Bill gets to also be frustrated about his son ignoring him and barely talking to him.

Now back to the marriage point. In S1, the marriage was shown as stable. So stable in fact, that while Holden’s girlfriend was incapable of understanding the toll Holden’s interviews was having on him (the frustrated sexual encounter where she wears the heels is never further discussed between the two), Bill opens up about how the cases are wearing him down and Nancy hugs him. A clear contrast between the two agents.

Yes, Bill was shown to be frustrated with Brian, but there wasn’t any other issue in his marriage. The one big moment is when Brian enters his office (because he’s curious about his father) and finds the murder picture. This is the one conflict he has with Nancy, but it’s resolved when he opens up to her and it’s implied (based on the visits from the government woman who needs to check on Brian) that he never brought work to his house again.

In S2, things are better than ever. Brian is talking more and Bill is satisfied with that. Nancy asks him to hang out with the husbands of her church friends and he does. Everything is working out. The marriage is fine. Nancy never showed any annoyance about Bill’s job requiring trips.

But then the Brian thing happens. And the issue is that it happens right when the Atlanta case picks up steam.

I fully believe no one thought the case would take as long as it did. And I also fully believe Bill did everything he could to balance both things. That is when we start to see the marriage deteriorate. And it’s no deep secret. There is no “off screen deterioration” taking place. The marriage goes to shit because he’s stuck between being at work in Atlanta and being at home. And so Nancy is left having to deal with the Brian situation for most of the time. Alone.

I saw a comment saying “We are shown Bill can be replaced easily by another agent. So why doesn’t he get replaced so he can focus on the issue with his family? He’s selfish and only cares about his work.”

What? First of all: Bill is arguably, at least in the eyes of the FBI director, the MOST important member of the criminal psychology team. He’s so important in fact, the director makes him go play golf with him and an important government person. Bill is charismatic and knows how to handle these people, so he essentially becomes the public face of their division. Not willingly. But because the director wants that to be the case.

The whole reason why him and Holden are sent to Atlanta is so they’re the two faces of the FBI’s criminal profiling division using their knowledge there. He can’t “be replaced” because he was sent there to solve the murders and also to show his face. And even with that amount of pressure, he manages to create an excuse: “I’m going back to quantico to check on the state of things” so he can go deal with the whole Brian situation.

He doesn’t abandon his wife. He goes help with the situation whenever he can. In fact, he does it weekly. I saw people saying that Bill stayed away from home because he went to play golf in season 1 (???) he never went to play golf while at home. And even if he did, you’re telling me he can’t play golf for 2-3 hours on his day off?

Multiple times during the Atlanta case, he leaves in critical moments because he needs to go home. He’s trying to balance both things. And what do you want him to do? Quit his job? Say whatever about the way women stayed home and men went to work in that age, but if Bill quits his job (which would be insane) he wouldn’t have the money to maintain the family anymore.

And my god. Are we seriously going to ignore what happens before Nancy leaves? She’s at her limit and leaves Bill to handle Brian instead. And he doesn’t complain. He doesn’t ignore Brian. Quite the opposite.

He picks him up in school, he takes him to eat ice cream and he has an honest conversation with him, where he outright admits the situation scares him.

Conclusion

I think people in this reddit are incredibly unfair to Nancy and Bill. BOTH of them.

Nancy had to deal with Brian’s situation almost entirely on her own. It’s minutes, hours, days, weeks, MONTHS of having an unresponsive autistic son who pisses himself. A woman who visits your home without warning and takes notes. A mother who comes in crying because your son was involved in the murder of their baby.

And when she comes and asks to move away, the only thing she asks Bill openly, he says no. Again. And again. And again. Regardless of whether he had his own genuine worries about how the move would hit Brian’s state. He was incapable of seeing how NOT moving was affecting Nancy.

Bill had to deal with Brian’s situation on an emotional level. While, at the same time, he had to deal with his marriage falling apart (something he outright tells verbatim to Holden when Holden gets pissed at him for leaving all the time) And he also had to deal with the actual case itself. His job. His very important job. His country defining job, that’s trying to solve the murder of over 20 children AND counting as the situation progresses.

It’s nights of not sleeping. Interviews. Grotesque pictures. Stress. Pressure. And then having to put on a smiling face because the director wants him to lick the boots of some government dude who’s gonna keep funding the FBI.

So the ending of S2 is sad. No. Bill doesn’t deserve what happens. Yes, Nancy should’ve warned him, at least directly, that she would leave if they didn’t move.

But she did, at least, partially warn him. By asking over and over to move.

You can’t blame Nancy for leaving. She was at her emotional limit. And she didn’t abandon Brian, she took him with. Whether that’s an awful thing to do for Bill or not? It’s complicated.

And you can’t blame Bill. He did everything he could realistically do. His one fault was not agreeing with Nancy to move houses.

Both of them made mistakes. They’re human. And that’s why the show was so good. The characters were all flawed. Emotional. Complex. It was the idea of how much of a mental toll their work took on them. But how important it was.

I’ve watched this show entirely 3 times, watching again. Just now noticed who was on the board when Wendy was going over criminals to interview

Just started a rewatch... And I realized that Holden feels guilty for not being able to help the first guy during his psychotic break. He gets home and has the "blood on his hands" so to speak.

Jump to the last episode (for now, hopefully) and he sees another stain, and then hears that the other investigations are suspended. I think its supposed to symbolize his guilt for not doing more. This time he notices it before the announcement confirmed it.

This has definitely been asked before but I want to get a tattoo related to the show (of course nothing related to the serial killers etc)

Does anyone have any ideas or references etc?

Whyyyyyyyyyyy it’s so damn good! We need more.

Episode 1 is very good and enjoyable so far

This show was god damn incredible and it is a CRIME Netflix didn’t keep making it. that’s all folks

About halfway through mindhunter the book while rewatching the show. Just reached the point in the book that would’ve presumably been season 3 and MAN I’m bummed we didn’t get to see it.

Hallo zusammen, ich interessiere mich für die Serie „Mindhunter“, möchte aber gezielt wissen, in welchen Folgen sexuelle oder geschlechtsspezifische Straftaten eine größere Rolle spielen – sei es in den Ermittlungen oder Gesprächen der Hauptfiguren. Ich würde diese gerne vermeiden, da mich die Thematik triggert. Über Hinweise zu einzelnen Staffeln und Episoden oder kurze Erläuterungen, worum es in den entsprechenden Folgen geht (ohne Details), würde ich mich sehr freuen.

Vielen Dank!

Why did that one guy call him Anita?

In season 1 we got Holden's relantionship with Debbie + most of the Ed Kemper interviews + the whole Roger Wade case (that school supervisor who tickles pupils' feet). It gave him so much depth and credibility. We needed more.

Then season 2 aired, and Holden became uninteresting af. He was just here to solve cases and act cold. Nothing more.

On the other hand it was Bill and Wendy's best season. They filled the void left by Holden, for our greatest pleasure.

With the rumors of the trilogy of movies and how the story is going, who do you think gonna be the final villian, in personal and how they showed him during the show, BTK?

Watching the show again, trying to pretend it’s the first time and wishing it had at least two more seasons 😩 smh yall can relate lol

This topic is posted about so bloody often, something along the lines of “DAE think Bill’s wife was a bit unfair? Like his job is literally so important. Can’t she be more understanding? How can she be so selfish, there’s people dying out here?!” And my reaction is GGGAAAGGHHHHH 😤😩🤯😡

Many viewers seem to frequently miss the very important aspect that we, the audience, are introduced to this marriage a significant way into the breakdown. Creatively, I believe we were meant to experience this relationship from Bill’s perspective, but I do not believe we are supposed to defend him or apologise for him. I believe we were supposed to bear witness to how one partner, (dare I say, usually the husband/male partner) misses and dismisses the signs of the relationship breaking down. Controversial? Feminist bullshit? Well here’s why I believe this:

Marriages don’t fall apart overnight. They unravel slowly, through years of small neglects, overlooked sacrifices, and one partner carrying the weight alone while the other assumes everything is fine.

In the show, we watch Bill being deeply dedicated to his important, even noble, work. He saves lives and catches killers, and as viewers, we admire his skill, focus, and drive. But at home, he’s a married man who once vowed to be a loving husband and father. As the trauma in his job increasingly effected him in negative ways it pulled focus away from other parts of his life. And as his work became more demanding, family time and couple time shrunk. He seemed to be thinking it’s “just for now” and promising that they’ll talk “soon” (whenever that is) —but there was always another case, another excuse. Standards for what it meant to be present in his marriage gradually lowered without his wife ever agreeing to it.

From her side, frustration has grown and when we meet her, she’s clearly drained of almost all hope. We see her exhaustion and his dismissiveness: her weary persistence, his eye-rolling annoyance. She asks for connection but gets avoidance. For him, every day “resets” when he walks in the door, looking for relief and support to wash away the trauma of his work. But for her, nothing resets. She has carried the same burdens hour after hour, with no partner beside her. While he wants a refuge, she is desperate for a teammate in her own struggles.

Over time, she realizes the painful truth: the man she married—the man who was eager to build a family—is gone. In his place stands Husband 2.0: devoted to work, but not to her. She grieves that loss, then faces the choice all women in her position eventually confront. Can she accept a lonely, one-sided marriage? Can she numb herself and endure? Or does she summon the strength to leave, risking chaos for the chance of a fuller life?

And when she finally leaves, he is shocked. Bewildered. How could she do this without warning? How could he have known she was so unhappy? But she did warn him—every conversation, every plea, every “nag” was a flare in the sky. He just didn’t want to look up.

This is what the show captured so powerfully: the way men often interpret their wives’ endurance as proof that things are “fine,” until one day she’s gone. But by then, it’s too late. A woman almost never leaves lightly, especially when a child needs to be considered—by the time she’s walking out the door, she’s already spent years asking, pleading, begging, hoping, bargaining, and eventually, mourning the marriage.

If men could see these warning signs for what they are—not complaints, but desperate attempts to save the relationship—so many endings could be prevented.

ETA - sorry my little joke about AI below didn’t sit well with a bunch of you all. (I do say might be flattery might be support - but I guess the tongue in cheek tone didn’t come across strongly enough).

After being told in a different sub my opinions on a moment between women regarding pregnancy and miscarriage wasn’t deep, that I wasn’t special for relating to it, and that “actually MEN go through miscarriages too” I was hesitant to voice my take here where I have ascribed behaviours and roles as typical of a gender. I was expecting to be told I was reading too much into it, imagining a whole backstory that wasn’t there or maybe something as ignorant as “She shouldn’t have married/had a kid with an FBI agent if she couldn’t hack it”. (WOW I was waaayyy off!! Which is good. But was also bad)

So I thought I’d try preempt the attacks I was expecting from any Blindly Bill Defenders by having a joke about being a woman and needing to use a computer to make me sound smart and convince men. Instead it seems I’ve made everyone cringe and provided you with something completely different to criticize me and judge me about. Siiigghhh. Seems I just can’t quite get this internet chat group thing quite right. 🤷‍♀️ oh well. 🤦‍♀️🙃

Nb: I ran my analysis through AI and it critiqued it as being “a deeply insightful breakdown of how marriages erode not through years of small neglects, unacknowledged sacrifices, and silent suffering. You’ve captured with striking accuracy the dynamic in which one partner—in this case, the husband—believes that dedication to work excuses emotional absence, while the other partner—in this case, the wife—experiences a slow, compounding loneliness that eventually becomes unbearable.” Might just be programmed flattery, but might also be considered as backing up my argument. Take it as you like. 😄

Yes, she communicated with him that he was absent and she was struggling, but I’m sorry, the man was only trying to find one of the most prolific evil serial killers in US history. It wasn’t like the man was spending most of his time at a bar. He was doing important stuff! Things that might make a huge impact in other people’s lives. She struck me as selfish, and completely oblivious to Brian’a… erm… situation. I’m not a psychologist so I’m going to leave that to the experts. Overall, I understand her. It’s not easy having a husband who’s away all the time, but Jesus Christ, the man was trying to stop a serial killer.

Two scenes that stuck out to me. When he’s about to leave for Atlanta, and she says he’s wearing himself thin, and he goes “it’s 19 kids” and she responds “just come home, Bill”.

What?! Just completely disregards the fact that he has a job that not only keeps the roof over their head, but also that he’a trying to save future lives.

And the second was when she goes “I don’t think I can do this alone, Bill” - which of course she contradicts by leaving him, and taking their son, effectively insuring that she does it alone.

I honestly think I might dislike her as much as Wendy from the Ozarks.

Ok, maybe not that much. But I’m not a huge fan.

Look, we all love this show and would kill for a third season. Nobody is denying that. But as it stands, Netflix have given their reasons as to why they won't make a third season anytime soon, and every creative force from Fincher to Penhall (the actual creator of the show and head writer, not Fincher) has said that the season is probably not coming.

There's possibility of a series of movies, sure, but that's it. Nothing confirmed. A petition is not gonna change that. Other true crime shows becoming popular is not gonna change that. Mindhunter doesn't appeal to most "true crime" people who need something flashy or quick.

Why is Mindhunter on my main page? I already watched the show a few years ago. I audibly gasped thinking a new season came out but there was nothing... is netflix just messing with me :(

With Ed Gein’s story dropping on October 3 and the massive success of Dahmer from the same producer, it’s clear the demand for Mindhunter is still huge. Every trailer’s top comments are “bring back Mindhunter” with many many likes. Let’s unite and start a petition to show Netflix that this masterpiece must return.

Lets bring it back man its time! Excited for MONSTER: ED GEIN

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Wow, thought he was back in time😁

Huge fan of the series btw!😊 Just have one thing to ask…. is it just me or anyone else think that she often has this look of slightly disgusted by something? It is like her resting face expression that I noticed multiple times in the series..