Mindhunter Season 3 Would've Sent The Team To Hollywood

Oh, what could have been. Upon its arrival on Netflix in October of 2017 and especially after its follow-up season 2 years later, "Mindhunter" became one of the streaming service's most talked-about (online, at least) new series. Starring Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany as two of the most obsessive individuals spearheading the FBI's program to study the uniquely deranged minds of serial killers throughout the world, the dark thriller benefited from some phenomenal performances across the board (Anna Torv and Cameron Britton chief among them), the alternately frightening and strangely compelling subject matter, and the addition of David Fincher as one of the main directors behind several technically proficient episodes.

Alas, despite some flickers of false hope that briefly set the internet aflame last year, it would seem that progress on greenlighting a third season of the hit show has ground to a halt. It's a shame, really, given just how utterly and addictively watchable so many viewers found the psychological thriller to be. Maybe decisions like this are the reason why Netflix has ended up in a place where it has to fend off some seriously bad press lately, eh? In any case, now that most of us have moved on from the early stages of grief and finally reached the elusive point of "acceptance," some new information has come to light regarding the subject matter that season 3 would have covered.

Honestly, I can't think of a better or easier way to undo all the progress we've made in recent years than to read this following story, so I urge any sadomasochists (though hopefully not the serial killing kind) to tread lightly and keep reading this tantalizing possibility at your own risk!

Yup, Kevin Garnett summed it up perfectly in that one highly meme-able scene from "Uncut Gems." Any new revelations about what we could've potentially enjoyed in season 3 of "Mindhunter," almost certainly in a much less bleak alternate universe than our own, feels like nothing except unmanageable torture. If that sounds like hyperbole, then at least it's the kind of hyperbole that Holden Ford would've appreciated (Bill Tench, meanwhile, likely would grumpily roll his eyes or something). As fate would have it (or, uh, not), the next chapter of "Mindhunter" would've involved our favorite buddy comedy duo heading out to the sunny landscape of Hollywood, California.

The news comes courtesy of Collider, who talked to "This Much I Know to Be True" and upcoming "Blonde" director Andrew Dominik (who also directed a pair of episodes from "Mindhunter" season 2) about what we could've looked forward to in a sadly hypothetical season 3. The elevator pitch that Dominik describes sounds like one of the most fun storylines ever tackled in the show — and one that would've been right up Film Twitter's alley. As the filmmaker put it,

"What they were going to do with Season 3 was they were going to go [to] Hollywood. So one of them was going to be hooking up with Jonathan Demme and the other one was going to be hooking up with Michael Mann. And it was all going to be about profiling making it into the sort of zeitgeist, the public consciousness. It would've been ... that was the season everyone was really waiting for to do, with when they sort of get out of the basement and start."

As the saying goes, my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined. Our pair of unlikely protagonists, Holden and Tench, rubbing shoulders with acclaimed directors Jonathan Demme and Michael Mann as their attempts to figure out the workings of the most dangerous criminal minds finally hit the mainstream? Yeah, I'll go out on a limb and say I probably would've binged that season in less than a day.

The cast and crew of "Mindhunter" have since gone on to bigger things, making a reunion down the line feel that much less likely. But hey, at least we have this frustratingly fun new info to cry ourselves to sleep with now?