Serial killers of all stripes are frolicking in the streets of America tonight, as Deadline announced that Netflix has allowed its options on the cast of David Fincher’s Mindhunter to expire—at least, for now. Killer clowns and black widows alike will rest easy in their beds this evening, confident in the knowledge that neither Holt McCallany nor Jonathan Groff are currently under contract to hunt their sick and twisted minds, and that Anna Torv is now formally off the clock.
None of this means the two-season Netflix series is canceled, exactly; both the service, and cast, are reportedly enthusiastic about getting a third season of huntin’ minds on the books. It’s just that Fincher (who directs roughly half its episodes and serves as showrunner) is currently pretty busy, working on other projects like his long-gestating movie about Citizen Kane writer Herman J. Mankiewicz. But as much as Netflix likes Mindhunter and all, it’s not going to keep paying performers to sit around not catching serial killers while Fincher is working on other stuff.
It’s always possible that the Mindhunter team might one day reassemble, although it’ll get less and less likely as the show’s busy cast finds roles on other series or films that do not involve the bagging and tagging of persistent murderfolks.. But even if we never get back in touch with the BSU, we’ll always know that the true pleasures were the minds we hunted along the way, a sentiment captured so poignantly in the show’s Paul F. Tompkins-penned theme song once upon a time.