42
The Observer
25.08.19CriticsCritics
What makes an American psycho tick
Don’t judge me, but I wolfed
down the entire second series of
Mindhunter ( in two sittings, mind
- I’m not an animal). It was bound
to happen. I loved the fi rst series
( adapted by Joe Penhall from John
E Douglas’s 1995 book, with David
Fincher as executive producer ),
which detailed the creation of the
FBI’s Behavio ral Science Unit , where
the gifted but stiff Holden Ford
(Jonathan Groff) , his gruff partner,
Bill Tench (Holt McCallany ), and
icily astute Wendy Carr (Anna Torv)
probed real-life serial killers such
as the monstrous and monstrously
articulate “Co-ed Killer”, Ed Kemper
( Cameron Britton ), in the hope of
catching more.
The new series opened with
Ford ( whose character is based
on Douglas) recovering from a
breakdown provoked by a close
encounter with Kemper. The team,
now housed in a larger, swankier
basement (still a metaphor for the
depths of the human psyche), have a
supportive but sly, ladder-climbing
new boss ( Michael Cerveris ), and
the task of solving the Atlanta child
murders (28 black people, mainly
children, killed between 1979 and
1981 ) in a climate of heightened
racial tension.
Elsewhere, there are serial killer
“star turns” from the likes of “Son
of Sam” David Berkowitz (Oliver
Cooper) and Charles Manson
(Damon Herriman , who also plays
the venal, drivel-spouting hippy
in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon
a Time in Hollywood ). Mindhunter
has always been as much about the
troubled hunters as the hunted ,
and this second series features a
ABOVE
Jonathan
Groff, left, and
Holt McCallany
in Mindhunter.LEFT
Joe Gilgun, Ryan
Sampson and
Damien Molony
in the ‘funny,
scratchy,
surprising’
Brassic.
Netfl ix; Sky( Hunter Schafer ) , and many more
who seem to rather too easily get
away with cavorting about like a
cross between Hunter S Thompson
and Linda Lovelace in the
supposedly “normal” suburban US.
At its hyper real worst, Euphoria
reeks of over indulgence, with
extended blurred footage of zonked,
grooving (intensely irritating)
adolescents who, like all teens
since time immemorial, just, hey,
want to be different – like all their
friends. However, if you stay with it
( all episodes are available), there’s
a miracle – Euphoria calms its crap
down. At which point it starts to
truly encapsulate the chaos and
anxiety of modern youth, where
online fantasy crashes into real-
life misery, causing the kind of
inner bruising that only deep
connections (in love and friendship)
could ever hope to heal. As with
genuine adolescence, if you can
stick it out until the end, it gets
kinda interesting.
Brassic is a new comedy
from Shameless writer Danny
Brocklehurst and actor Jo e Gilgun
(Woody in This Is England ). Vinnie
(Gilgun) , sharp, witty, bipolar, is fi rst
seen wanting to jump off a bridge
in the fi ctional northern town of
Hawley , then launching into a
Trainspotting-esque spiel (“Fuck the
middle class, fuck the Guardian ”,
etc). Vinnie thinks that life is “about
having your mates, having a laugh,
just fi nding a way to survive”. Duly,Netfl ix serial killer
drama Mindhunter
makes a bingeworthy
return, Euphoria offers
explicit teen angst,
and British comedy
runs from dark to
delightfully daft
Television
th is week’s opening two episodes
involved him, his best mate, Dylan
(Damien Molony) , and their gang
becoming embroiled in hectic,
caper-strewn plots encompassing
everything from the kidnapping of
Shetland ponies via dealing with
underground fatbergs to hostile
crime bosses.
Deeper themes lurk in Brassic,
not least Vinnie’s condition (Gilgun
has bipolar disorder in real life), and
Dylan’s partner, young mum, Erin
(Michelle Keegan) , refusing to go
along with the culture of extended
adolescence, at one point acidly
remarking to Vinnie that there
appeared to be “three of them” in
her and Dylan’s relationship. “If it
is, I’m the one getting the least sex”,
quipped Vinnie. On this showing,
Brassic is funny, scratchy, surprising
( Dominic West shows up as a
useless, self-absorbed doctor), and
promises to get darker.
The Bafta-nominated letting
agent comedy Stath Lets Flats
returned, as unapologetically daft
as ever. It’s co-created by siblings
Jamie and Natas ia Demetriou , who
play another pair of siblings, idiotic
Stath and dopey Sophie (it took me a
while to recognise Natas ia as Nadja ,
the minxish vampire from What We
Do in the Shadows ).
Stath Lets Flats sticks to a retro
sitcom format, with plenty of
gags and physical comedy from
the desperate, delusional Stath.
He yearns to impress his fatherdisturbing back story for Tench
( his adopted son gets caught up in
a child-murder), Carr embarking
upon a doomed lesbian love affair
and becoming side lined in the
workplace, and Ford’s mental
health continuing to fray like pulled
threads on an expensive suit.
Once again, the series boasts
stellar performances , the Ford/
Tench odd-couple dynamic grating
and sparking at the centre , with
stylish adventurous shooting from
the moody grey-blue palette of the
FBI offi ces, to the cheesy cop-show
graphics heralding new locations.
The “BTK” (“ bind, torture, kill”)-
strangler plot from the fi rst series is
still there, as a teasing background
hum. Needless to say I’ve already
booked the sofa for the season
three binge. While Mindhunter
exploits society’s obsession withMindhunter Netfl ix
Euphoria Sky Atlantic/Now TV
Brassic Sky One/ Now TV
Stath Lets Flats Channel 4
The Day Mountbatten Died
BBC Two
Barbara
Ellenscary monsters – that indefensible
yet commonplace notion of serial
killers as celebrities – it manages
to remain rooted in history and
research, and thus in exploration
rather than celebration.
It’s easy to see how Sam
Levinson ’s explicit teen drama
Euphoria (originally an Israeli
show) caused mass parental panic
in the States. With its depictions of
sex, porn, drugs, dick pic s, casual
violence and more, it’s the ultimate
in what could be termed teen
angst ertainment , making Skins look
about as edgy as Dawson’s Creek ,
and fi nishing what fi lms such as
Larry Clark’s Kids and Catherine
Hardwicke’s Thirteen started.
The characters include struggling
drug addict Rue (Zendaya) , American
Pyscho -esque ultra-jock Nate (Jacob
Elordi) , mysterious newcomer Jules