This Was The Original Plan For Mindhunter Season 3
When "Mindhunter" premiered in 2017, it was an instant hit. Based on the 1995 book "Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit" by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker, the series takes a look at the burgeoning field of criminal profiling in the late 1970s.
Frequent director and de facto showrunner David Fincher brings his noir-ish, stylized realism to the series, which tracks the establishment of the Behavioral Science Unit in the Training Division at Quantico's FBI Academy. At the center of the series are FBI special agent Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and his hard-boiled partner Bill Tench (Holt McCallany), as well as Professor Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), who interview incarcerated serial killers in order to apply their motivations and psychological backgrounds to ongoing criminal investigations.
As viewers quickly learned, being a "Mindhunter" fan is a labor of love. Following the critically acclaimed first season, audiences had to endure a two-year hiatus before the Season 2 premiere in 2019 — but the results were worth the wait. Following Ford's Season 1 breakdown, Season 2 delved into the Atlanta Child Murders that took place between 1979 and 1981 and cracked into the psyches of Son of Sam and Charles Manson.
Unfortunately, audiences received more bad news in 2020, when Fincher announced that the show was going on indefinite hiatus and was unlikely to return. Now, the creative minds behind "Mindhunter" have teased titillating information about the would-be third season.
Mindhunter Season 3 would have taken place in Hollywood
Even though David Fincher has effectively put the kibosh on "Mindhunter" Season 3, an interview with Season 2 director Andrew Dominik indicates that the team had begun stringing together potential plotlines. Speaking with Collider, Dominik revealed that Season 3 would have seen the agents heading to Hollywood. There, they were set to link up with directors Jonathan Demme and Michael Mann, showing how criminal psychology was beginning to influence pop culture. Dominik explained, "[Season 3] was all going to be about profiling making it into the... zeitgeist, the public consciousness."
Since Season 2 takes place up until 1981, we can glean that Season 3 of "Mindhunter" would have engaged fully with 1980s Hollywood. Specifically, Demme directed "Married to the Mob" in 1988, which features an undercover FBI agent. Mann's 1986 film "Manhunter" hews even more closely to the world of "Mindhunter," as it follows on the psychological effects of FBI agents who study killers.
Given Season 3's would-be focus on Hollywood and celebrity, it stands to reason that the once-anticipated "Mindhunter" episodes would require a big budget — one of the apparent reasons behind Fincher's self-imposed hiatus. "For the viewership that it had, it was an expensive show, he told Vulture in 2020. "I honestly don't think we're going to be able to do it for less than I did season two."
For grieving "Mindhunter" fans, the teased details for Season 3 are merely salt in the wound. Perhaps more optimistic viewers will heed the news as a sign of a potential return.