S02.E09: Episode 9

[shrewd.buddha]

Why only 9 episodes for season 2? That seemed odd and somewhat abrupt when I was expecting some followup to some of the stories.

Mindhunter is a good show .. but a weird combination of true criminals and fictionalized FBI agents. Since we only get small glimpses of the characters and cases, many of them seem open to different interpretations. The Atlanta mothers, Tench's wife and son, Wendy's girlfriend, Holden's girlfriend - they all feel compromised by having just a few defining moments of screen time. 
Sometimes it is hard to tell if the showrunners have some method to their madness or if it is unintentional sloppiness that leads to misinterpretations by the audience. 
 

[mledawn]

9 hours ago, Roseanna said:

I can't understand what's wrong in being calm? The best thing that a parent can do is to keep calm during the crisis for only then he can support his or her child.

It must have been very frightening to Brian when Bill lost his nerves with him in the restaurant. 

My comment was not about Bill and Brian, it was about Bill and Nancy, and Nancy's decision to leave Bill.

[Roseanna]

2 hours ago, mledawn said:

My comment was not about Bill and Brian, it was about Bill and Nancy, and Nancy's decision to leave Bill.

Ok. Sorry.

[Pixel]

On 8/23/2019 at 4:54 PM, Enigma X said:

I know many dislike Holden, but I have the unpopular opinion of liking him. I recognize his faults but think his heart is ultimately in the right place.

I don’t know. I think it easy to be in disbelief that the vast majority of black people in the south can’t conceive that anyone other than a white person committed these crimes when you have never grown up as a black person in the Deep South, especially at that time. I personally think Williams committed most of the crimes, but I understand why most black Atlantans think it was the klan.

I think one of the biggest reasons I don’t doubt that Williams was the killer is that after he was caught, the killings stopped. 

[Scout Finch]

On 8/28/2019 at 8:11 PM, HunterHunted said:

some people might be fascinated by what Bill does just because he worked for the FBI.

I know I would! I'd have a million questions!

[Calamity Jane]

I didn't enjoy this season as much as last, again feeling that I couldn't care less about the main characters' "homelife," which we saw much more of this time around. Tench's kid being part of a terrible killing?  Ugh, just not good.  Nancy was always a most unappealing character as far as I was concerned, and her one-note behavior (performance?) sure didn't help.  

Brian is supposed to be on the autism spectrum, right?  I know that was not a diagnosis that people were aware of at that time, and certainly there were no special programs or schools for those kids; they just got labeled as odd and shuffled on through the system.  Poor little Brian, I wonder what his future would be.

The Atlanta child murders have always been puzzling and infuriating, and I wished  hadn't been drawn out so long in the show, but they did get the profilers attention and acceptance by law enforcement, so I guess we have to say okay.  At the time, it was hard to watch those moms venting and not feel they were over the top, but in retrospect they were right about most of what they said, other than the KKK being behind the killings.

As others have pointed out, I think BTK is shown to demonstrate to us that although profiling had some successes, it also had some blind spots, and we can sort of chuckle at "This guy doesn't go to church" and so on.

Nonetheless, this show was better than almost everything else on TV, so I watched it and enjoyed it, and I look forward to a third season.  I hope it comes more quickly than it took for season 2.

[Clanstarling]

35 minutes ago, Calamity Jane said:

I didn't enjoy this season as much as last, again feeling that I couldn't care less about the main characters' "homelife," which we saw much more of this time around. Tench's kid being part of a terrible killing?  Ugh, just not good.  Nancy was always a most unappealing character as far as I was concerned, and her one-note behavior (performance?) sure didn't help.  

Brian is supposed to be on the autism spectrum, right?  I know that was not a diagnosis that people were aware of at that time, and certainly there were no special programs or schools for those kids; they just got labeled as odd and shuffled on through the system.  Poor little Brian, I wonder what his future would be.

The Atlanta child murders have always been puzzling and infuriating, and I wished  hadn't been drawn out so long in the show, but they did get the profilers attention and acceptance by law enforcement, so I guess we have to say okay.  At the time, it was hard to watch those moms venting and not feel they were over the top, but in retrospect they were right about most of what they said, other than the KKK being behind the killings.

As others have pointed out, I think BTK is shown to demonstrate to us that although profiling had some successes, it also had some blind spots, and we can sort of chuckle at "This guy doesn't go to church" and so on.

Nonetheless, this show was better than almost everything else on TV, so I watched it and enjoyed it, and I look forward to a third season.  I hope it comes more quickly than it took for season 2.

I think Brian's supposed to have a reactive detachment disorder, probably related to his life before being with the Tench family. I don't think it's on the spectrum. One of my co-worker's adopted children has the disorder, and is being treated for it (though I'm not clear what the treatment is, as I don't want to pry).

[Calamity Jane]

4 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

I think Brian's supposed to have a reactive detachment disorder, probably related to his life before being with the Tench family. I don't think it's on the spectrum. One of my co-worker's adopted children has the disorder, and is being treated for it (though I'm not clear what the treatment is, as I don't want to pry).

That makes sense. I don’t think there was enough known about that disorder, either. Poor kid. 

[Blakeston]

I've finally watched the finale, and I have to say, I'm pretty disappointed with how the whole Brian storyline was handled.

It's pretty clear that the writers' only concern with that plotline was, "How would Bill and Nancy react to having a spooky, Damien-esque son?" Brian wasn't a character - he was  a prop. They might as well have put a creepy ventriloquist's dummy in his place, to get around the child labor laws.

They teased us with the prospect that we might learn something about Brian's psychology, but no. He was being analyzed by professionals left and right, but never got to hear what any of them had to say about him. We only heard him say a handful of words throughout the whole season. (And if we were supposed to be chilled by his sudden refusal to speak, it didn't work - it just felt like the status quo, because he's always been basically silent.)

It would have been really interesting if he actually had a discernible personality, and we got to watch Bill try to use his tools to analyze him (something more than just his, "Please speak, because you're scaring me" moment in the ice cream shop). There are a lot of interesting places they could have gone, and didn't.

[Clanstarling]

12 hours ago, Blakeston said:

I've finally watched the finale, and I have to say, I'm pretty disappointed with how the whole Brian storyline was handled.

It's pretty clear that the writers' only concern with that plotline was, "How would Bill and Nancy react to having a spooky, Damien-esque son?" Brian wasn't a character - he was  a prop. They might as well have put a creepy ventriloquist's dummy in his place, to get around the child labor laws.

They teased us with the prospect that we might learn something about Brian's psychology, but no. He was being analyzed by professionals left and right, but never got to hear what any of them had to say about him. We only heard him say a handful of words throughout the whole season. (And if we were supposed to be chilled by his sudden refusal to speak, it didn't work - it just felt like the status quo, because he's always been basically silent.)

It would have been really interesting if he actually had a discernible personality, and we got to watch Bill try to use his tools to analyze him (something more than just his, "Please speak, because you're scaring me" moment in the ice cream shop). There are a lot of interesting places they could have gone, and didn't.

You captured everything that I was bothered by (but wasn't fully aware of). You're right that he was basically silent the entire series, so using his silence as a marker for being disturbed had no emotional impact.

[heatherchandler]

On 8/17/2019 at 11:11 AM, Penman61 said:

Also, wtf with the dark dark dark cinematography? I have a blacked out dedicated home theatre, and, man, there was so much I just could not see...I know the subject matter is "dark," but, like...I can't see the actors, lol.

The dark dark cinematography is Fincher - it's like his trademark and it drives me crazy!!  The movie Seven was dark like this, it is annoying - I like to SEE what I am watching!

On 8/17/2019 at 12:37 PM, Enigma X said:

I really think whoever is casting the serial killers/murderers is getting their physical look down pat. (Although they fell short with the physical appearance of Atlanta’s mayor.) 

Wayne is so perfectly cast!  All the killers are, but he is perfect.

On 8/22/2019 at 2:18 AM, swanpride said:

I was looking at the Atlanta case because I always match up what is seen on TV with what happened in reality in order to not get a too distorted view on history. And I have gotten the impression that not all the victims were killed by the same guy. I mean, that confused me about the show, they said "this guy killed because of some drug related thing, and here we have this one who doesn't match the others" and I was just thinking "yeah, okay, but isn't it possible that one or two of the murders were done for other reasons/by another attacker, but there was also a serial killer which did most of them?" I mean, all those bodies which were found pretty much at the same places or as some sort of answer to the police, they are most likely connected, but I would sort out every victim which did not vanish from the street, which was not a boy and which was killed in an usual ways, and consider that they were killed by someone else and for some other reason. They point out again and again that the only thing the victims had in common was the sociological environment, but once you consider the possibility that there was one main killer and a few killings which just happened around the same time or happened in reaction to the murder spree, and you can actually narrow it down a little bit more.

I don't know if I believe the "more than one killer" theory because it would be really weird to happen to have children murdered while a serial killer is murdering children.  All black little boys.  Unless it is a copycat, I just don't see that.  I just don't think child murder (when it is NOT a parent) is that common.  I could be wrong!

[swanpride]

Well, there are a few murders in the line up which are still unsolved and haven't been attributed to him...mainly the first victim (because he was shot), the two girls (because they were girls and one of them was kidnapped out of her home instead of plucked from the street), and the boy who was never found. In addition, there are a few which have been attributed to him but don't really seem to fit the pattern. The victims they could proof were his died of Asphyxiation. I get the logic that the ones which were strangulated might also be his victims, but two of the victims attributed to him were bludgeoned to death and one died of multiple stab wounds. I don't really see why they were considered victims of the same attacker. And remember, there WERE other murders happen around the same time which were not attributed to the case at all. All this makes the conclusion of the case very dissatisfying. Yeah, they got A murderer, but they don't really know how many victims were his and who killed the other victims.

[Blakeston]

I think the ending of the Atlanta plot would have worked better for me if the grieving mother who called Holden out at the end had been the mother of one of the girls who was killed, rather than the mother of Yusef Bell.

Then she would have had far more of a justification for saying, "I still don't think you've found the person who killed my child." That would made it much harder for Holden to defend how the situation was resolved.

The more I think about the Brian stuff, the less I like it. In addition to my other complaints, I really think they ended up reinforcing the misguided notion that autism = danger to society. I get that the character isn't necessarily supposed to have autism, but that's how a character like this is bound to be perceived.

[Clanstarling]

17 minutes ago, Blakeston said:

I think the ending of the Atlanta plot would have worked better for me if the grieving mother who called Holden out at the end had been the mother of one of the girls who was killed, rather than the mother of Yusef Bell.

Then she would have had far more of a justification for saying, "I still don't think you've found the person who killed my child." That would made it much harder for Holden to defend how the situation was resolved.

The more I think about the Brian stuff, the less I like it. In addition to my other complaints, I really think they ended up reinforcing the misguided notion that autism = danger to society. I get that the character isn't necessarily supposed to have autism, but that's how a character like this is bound to be perceived.

Never even thought of having a mother of one of the girls at that point, but once I read your post, I thought that made perfect sense, and a much more powerful moment.

You're also right about Brian's disorder. It's a real disorder, but with as little attention and weight it's given (literally one line in the entire series, I think), most would read it as autism. If he'd been a relatively talkative, but not warm and loving, child, that might have been dispelled.

[swanpride]

Yeah, at the very least they should have shown the children who actually did the killing at one point. I mean, they were apparently not socially awkward, right?

[sistermagpie]

10 hours ago, swanpride said:

Yeah, at the very least they should have shown the children who actually did the killing at one point. I mean, they were apparently not socially awkward, right?

Yeah, I think the kids from the actual case lived in a rough neighborhood and said they'd witnessed a lot of violent and gotten beaten up by bigger kids, so there was some logical connection to them being violent themselves without knowing how far they could go. These kids seem to be living in a nice suburban neighborhood with nothing particularly violent in their lives before this. 

Was this wrong and they had abusive situations at home? Because without knowing anything besides the basic fact that they murdered someone it's hard not to feel like the contributing factor here is Brian himself since he's the one with the slightest history with violence (taking the picture from his father) and since his behavior now doesn't seem any different to the viewer.

Plus we've got a season where there's a focus on killers who didn't kill themselves. Is supposed to be like Dean Corll's sidekick? Is he Charles Manson or Tex Watson? And if he's Tex, did Manson make him a murderer or just bring that out in him? I'm fine with the show leaving it as open questions because there really shouldn't yet be a clear answer, but with the way Brian's portrayed you can't even begin to think about it because we don't know enough about him to actually discuss it. All we have are adults projecting their own narratives onto him and Brian himself silently standing there looking like Damien.

[swanpride]

The problem is I have no idea what the show is going for...considering how afraid Brian is of male adults, how difficult it is for him to interact with other children and that started to wet his bed again, I have a hard time to see him as manipulator. But then, why did the older boys do what he wanted? Maybe only in the hope that he wouldn't tell on them in exchange? In addition, I keep seeing a child in dire need of help, but I am not sure if the show runners want me to see that and not want me to be freaked out by him.

We don't even know what happened. I mean, the reason why everyone in the community was so freaked out by the murder was the binding to the cross, NOT because the murder itself was particularly brutal. For all we know, this wasn't even a planned murder, but a bunch of macho boys "playing" rough with a toddler. and going to far with their sadistic game.  We know what Brian did - showing them how to get to the key and telling them to bind the victim to the cross - but not even the police seems to think that he did more. On the other hand, they might not even consider or believe the notion that a primary schooler would be able to influence older boys into being killers….

[sistermagpie]

9 minutes ago, swanpride said:

The problem is I have no idea what the show is going for...considering how afraid Brian is of male adults, how difficult it is for him to interact with other children and that started to wet his bed again, I have a hard time to see him as manipulator. But then, why did the older boys do what he wanted? Maybe only in the hope that he wouldn't tell on them in exchange? In addition, I keep seeing a child in dire need of help, but I am not sure if the show runners want me to see that and not want me to be freaked out by him.

Is he afraid of male adults? I don't remember that being a thing but maybe I'm forgetting.

We don't even know, as far as I remember, how old these other boys are. We know they're older than Brian, who's 7, but I'm not clear exactly how old they are. Older enough that he's being protected because of his age and they aren't, but I'm not even clear what's happening to them. The real kids were 7 and 10 I think and they both went to institutions. It's hard to imagine a 7 year old playing with kids as old as, say, 12.

Edited September 12, 2019 by sistermagpie

[DangerousMinds]

6 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

Is he afraid of male adults? I don't remember that being a thing but maybe I'm forgetting.

We don't even know, as far as I remember, how old these other boys are. We know they're older than Brian, who's 7, but I'm not clear exactly how old they are. Older enough that he's being protected because of his age and they aren't, but I'm not even clear what's happening to them. The real kids were 7 and 10 I think and they both went to institutions. It's hard to imagine a 7 year old playing with kids as old as, say, 12.

What real case are you referencing?

[sistermagpie]

1 minute ago, DangerousMinds said:

What real case are you referencing?

The "Crucifixion Murder of 1971. Two brothers killed a toddler and tied him to a crucifix. Presumably this is what inspired the storyline in the show.

I didn't know about it either, myself, but someone else on the group posted a link to information about it:

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/little/readings/crucifixion.html

[MJS]

On 8/28/2019 at 1:00 PM, Roseanna said:

If Holden really succeeded to compartmentalize, why did become impotent when his girlfriend had highheels and, before all, why did he then blame her. His comment "it's not you" could be interpreted meaning "you behave like a slut and I don't like it".

They were the shoes he was looking at that he brought to interrogation of the killer who had a shoe fetish. That’s why he was creeped out- she thought he liked them and he was thinking of the serial killer. 

[shrewd.buddha]

9 hours ago, MJS said:

They were the shoes he was looking at that he brought to interrogation of the killer who had a shoe fetish. That’s why he was creeped out- she thought he liked them and he was thinking of the serial killer. 

Exactly. And Holden had seen the serial killer 'pleasure himself' with the shoes. 
Holden was correct in saying "it's not you", but he was wrong by not offering more of an explanation. The girlfriend was with him when he bought the shoes. Had she seen his interest in them and gotten the wrong impression? 

I wonder if anyone who has to investigate violent murder cases involving sex or fetishes gone too far ever manages to successfully compartmentalize that stuff. 

Edited September 13, 2019 by shrewd.buddha

[Clanstarling]

49 minutes ago, shrewd.buddha said:

10 hours ago, MJS said:

They were the shoes he was looking at that he brought to interrogation of the killer who had a shoe fetish. That’s why he was creeped out- she thought he liked them and he was thinking of the serial killer. 

Exactly. And Holden had seen the serial killer 'pleasure himself' with the shoes. 
Holden was correct in saying "it's not you", but he was wrong by not offering more of an explanation. The girlfriend was with him when he bought the shoes. Had she seen his interest in them and gotten the wrong impression? 

I wonder if anyone who has to investigate violent murder cases involving sex or fetishes gone too far ever manages to successfully compartmentalize that stuff. 

It does seem like it would be really difficult to compartmentalize that kind of stuff.

The "It's not you" quote has been on the forum since the episode it was in, but that's not exactly what Holden said.  Here's a post I made last month after I went back and watched the scene again because I wondered why I'd reacted differently to the scene than some others.

On 8/30/2019 at 7:18 AM, Clanstarling said:

I re-watched the scene because I remember that my response was that Holden was clearly saying his problem was Debbie. So this is the dialogue that happens after they've had some foreplay, Holden's been stopped by the shoes, clearly isn't getting aroused, and they sit up:

Debbie: "You okay?"

Holden shakes his head, pauses,

"This..." he pauses again "It's just not you."

With the "just" in there, I don't see that there's any room to interpret that as Holden telling her his impotence wasn't related to her. The "just" makes it accusatory, at least for me. And Debbie's response of "Yeah, Holden, that's the point," seems a totally justified interpretation.

Edited September 13, 2019 by Clanstarling

[rubinia]

He was saying that her dressing in the lingerie and shoes wasn't how she normally looked, hence the "That's the point." She was trying to spice things up and thought he was into the heels when in fact he'd bought them for Broudos. Holden saying "It's just not you" was probably an attempt at an excuse for why her sexy look wasn't turning him on, when in reality he was creeped out by seeing the same kind of heels that Broudos had JO'd with.

[Blakeston]

On 9/11/2019 at 7:31 PM, Clanstarling said:

You're also right about Brian's disorder. It's a real disorder, but with as little attention and weight it's given (literally one line in the entire series, I think), most would read it as autism. If he'd been a relatively talkative, but not warm and loving, child, that might have been dispelled.

They mentioned an actual disorder that Brian has? I missed that.

[Clanstarling]

48 minutes ago, Blakeston said:

They mentioned an actual disorder that Brian has? I missed that.

I believe they said it was reactive attachment disorder. Easy to miss - I think it was a single throw away line.

[Blakeston]

7 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

I believe they said it was reactive attachment disorder. Easy to miss - I think it was a single throw away line.

That rings a bell. Thanks!

i have to wonder how much the writing for Brian (or lack thereof) was influenced by the makers of the show just wanting to avoid the hassle of working with a very young child actor.

Even talented, mature kids in that age range are likely to have issues with maintaining focus while shooting. (Especially with Fincher insisting on a gazillion takes of most scenes). And it would be very awkward to have to explain this subject matter to a very young kid. Throw in the rules about providing tutors, and limited work hours - and the horrors of stage parents - and I'm sure it's much more pleasant for production to just give the actor no lines.

[Ottis]

It felt like this season ended with a whimper. There was a lot of build up, and then meh.... they arrested a guy and people still wanted to blame the Klan. Personally I also feel he did it.... carpet plus dog hair plus behavior plus circumstantial... and the killings fitting the same MO stopped (and while more kids have died, if there was any reason at all to suspect a serial killer people would have been on it). 

I don’t know what the hell Wendy’s story has to do with anything. It’s kind of annoying. 

Brian’s story at least allows us to think about things like whether and people are born that way. I like those parallels. Tench has the patience of a Saint with his wife. So she left him? Or just found a new house? 

i really enjoyed the season. Hope the show continues. 

[SpecialKay]

On 8/18/2019 at 4:37 PM, Enigma X said:

I was hoping to hear from someone from Atlanta concerning the killings. Honestly, I have only heard about the real case in the last five years. I particularly wonder if people from there think Williams is really guilty.

I am glad this case was showcased.

I live in Atlanta too and the fiber evidence was overwhelming. I was in college at Ga State when it was happening and, on occasion, went with a friend to go pickup our tuba player who lived in south Atlanta. My friend drove a Mustang Cobra and every eye in the neighborhood was on us when we went to pick up Marcus. (We are both white.) My friend Greg's license plate number was written down multiple times, which was fine with us. White drivers coming into those neighborhoods were under a lot of scrutiny.

The FBI profile came out as soon as they were involved and it was incredibly accurate. It was a scary time in Atlanta. And, there were no more murders after Wayne Williams was arrested.   

Edited December 28, 2019 by SpecialKay
Typo

[Epeolatrix]

Depends on what you read. There was reportage at the time that murders consistent with the ATKID series did happen after Williams’s arrest. Didn’t mean that Williams was innocent, just that there were problems with the list criteria and also that the focus on Williams was too narrow.

[raven]

On 9/9/2019 at 9:23 PM, Blakeston said:

They teased us with the prospect that we might learn something about Brian's psychology, but no. He was being analyzed by professionals left and right, but never got to hear what any of them had to say about him.

I binged both seasons over the weekend and am quoting this because I found this storyline frustrating.  We never see Brian communicate with anyone.  It was hard for me to decide if he was just a sad kid with a disorder or Damien.  It would have helped to have seen him talk to the therapist without his parents, or the social worker.  I feel the same about Nancy, I character I ended up having sympathy for.   There was a scene with her and Holden's GF in S1 where they talk about Brian and Nancy talks about being unsure if they're right for him and Debbie assures her that Brian is lucky to have them.  It's one of the few scenes where Debbie doesn't come off as sarcastic and condescending. 

Nancy's character would have been better served if we had seen her talk to anyone about Brian with anyone other than Bill.  A friend, the therapist - the murdered child's family doesn't count.  I was actually interested in the Bill/Nancy dynamic in S2 because I thought the push-pull was portrayed well.   I love Bill and all, but his decision to leave over the holiday weekend was not the right one.  Bill has an important job that he derives a lot of personal satisfaction from.  He interacts with other adults and has other things to do than obsess over his child.  Nancy apparently does not have these things and Bill, though not unsympathetic to her, is definitely brushing aside her concerns because he's either thinking about and/or exhausted by his job.    It was fascinating to me to watch the unavoidable train wreck coming.    I ended up being sympathetic towards Nancy because I could feel that she felt like a prisoner in the home, ostracized by everyone along with Brian, with her only adult companion leaving for days on the spur of the moment.  Yes, that's his job and she's been through it, but circumstances are different after your minor child has been involved in a murder.

It is too bad about S3 because I'm interested in how the show would have handled it going forward. 

I did think S2 was missing something because the team wasn't together as much.  Of course the buddy road trips of S1 were great and I missed those.  I wish we had seen more of Wendy interrogating the serial killers - I felt more badly for her when the boss basically told her that she had to step back from that than I did when her girlfriend told the ex-husband "no one important".    There was a lot of good stuff to mine there with Wendy, a character I really liked, that wasn't done.

I think Holden is sympathetic to victims, maybe not as much as he is fascinated by the killers, but those feelings are there.  He is easily frustrated with bureaucracy and just wants to get shit done, which is one of the reasons the boss wants Bill baby sitting him.  I don't think the show did enough in S2 to show us Holden's "genius" - it seemed they were going for "he's the guy who knows the right questions to ask, but is a maverick in all other ways" but didn't quite get there.  He's still very buttoned up in a lot of ways - he is actually ironing his tie in once scene and then during a stake out, takes it off but hangs it carefully over the mirror, even smoothing it out. 

I did like the stake out montage - we got to see some fun being had with the characters though it conveyed the tediousness of it all very well.

I agree that interviews with the killers were really well done, well acted and tense.   The actors playing Kemper, Berkowitz and Henley stood out for me, with Berkowitz's switch from hearing demon voices to admitting he didn't, particularly chilling. 

[Cheezwiz]

2 hours ago, raven said:

It is too bad about S3 because I'm interested in how the show would have handled it going forward. 

Has the show been cancelled? I hadn't seen anything in the media. While I'm a fan of David Fincher's work, the show didn't really wow me that much. The Bill Tench character, who wasn't set up as the lead, was the character who interested me the most, and I would have followed him into further seasons.

[raven]

11 minutes ago, Cheezwiz said:

Has the show been cancelled?

There's a link in the media thread about it - the show's on indefinite hold.

[Cara]

On 8/18/2019 at 2:20 PM, atlantaloves said:

 I live in Atlanta and was an adult when all the killings took place, and let me tell you, they had solid fiber evidence on him for 23 of those murders.  He probably did them all. 

I’m sorry I’m so late to the discussion. I just finished watching it last night. 
I was a teenager in metro Atlanta during the murders. It almost completely dominated the news for a very long time. I remember it quite clearly. 

A few of observations: the way the mothers were portrayed was exactly how I remember them coming across every time they appeared on TV. The show alluded to it briefly. There were benefits to having your murdered child put on “the list”. Some parents lobbied to get their children added. I remember it was commonly thought at the time that several children were included who probably weren’t connected. I think many people still think that today.

While he was only convicted of 2 murders  in his trial evidence related to some of the other cases was permitted. The fiber evidence is very strong, even with 1980’s technology. It is just one of the many pieces that fit together, too many to just be a coincidence.

 I would recommend the Atlanta Monster podcast. It’s 16 parts long. It has contemporary (2018) interviews as well as archival clips from key people in the investigation. Including WW from prison. The host starts out being at least somewhat skeptical of WW’s guilt but by the end seems pretty convinced he did most of the murders.

I would also recommend this podcast. It's an interview with the man who was the SAC (Special Agent In Charge) of the Atlanta FBI office at the time. It answers a lot of questions and clears up a number of things I've see discussed on this thread.

https://jerriwilliams.com/episode-187-john-glover-atlanta-child-murders-wayne-williams/

 

BTW @atlantaloves do you remember those 2 sick DJ’s in Atlanta who were fired? The morning after another body had been found they came on and said we want to dedicate this next song to the missing and murdered children. They then played Another One Bites The Dust.  

 

 

Edited January 21, 2020 by Cara

[Clanstarling]

8 hours ago, Cara said:

BTW @atlantaloves do you remember those 2 sick DJ’s in Atlanta who were fired? The morning after another body had been found they came on and said we want to dedicate this next song to the missing and murdered children. They then played Another One Bites The Dust. 

Oh my God. I never heard about that. It turns my stomach.

[Taryn74]

Hubby and I finished binge watching tonight.

Now that I know it isn't further addressed, bringing over a post I made in the episode thread from a couple of episodes ago -

Quote

 

I find myself going over and over the (poor) dead toddler whose death the Tench's son was involved with. Out of all of the plot lines, that one makes the least sense to me.

I immediately caught on to the detective telling Tench that there were several kids' footprints in the house and told hubby the older kids that Brian had been playing with were probably involved. (Do we ever find out how much older they are? 12-ish? Younger? Older?) My first inclination was that they were using Brian to get sick ideas since he had access to his dad's crime scene photos (remember the babysitter found one of the photos under his bed back in S1) and had probably overheard Tench talking about some of the crime scene details from time to time. But none of the later discussions about the toddler's death make it sound like anyone suspects there was anything particularly deviant about the way he died other than he was laid out on a cross afterward (which we get a reasonable explanation for, IMO).

What I can't understand is why nobody seems to think it was strange that a bunch of older kids were "playing" alone with a toddler, in an empty house, a good distance away from the park he disappeared from, not to mention that his death seemed to happen inside the house and was intentional. (It's not as if the kid was someone's little brother that had tagged along and they were literally just playing too rough with him, or he fell down the stairs, or something else that could be explained as accidental. The detective said he'd been strangled and dragged down the stairs, hitting his head several times as he went down, based on the bruising and trauma to the head and neck. Why is no one extremely disturbed by this?! Nobody in the neighborhood even seems to be discussing it other than the initial meeting they had at the church, and the mom coming over to tell Mrs. Tench that she forgives Brian for his involvement. This makes no sense whatsoever to me. I know times were different 40 years ago, but this is not a normal reaction, not even back then.

 

I think when Tench went off on Holden about having to be gone every weekend he specifically said there were three older boys who had killed the toddler, but I think that's about the most further clarification we got on this storyline. It's going to drive me crazy, LOL, especially if there's not another season we can get more insight from.

So here's what I'm fanwanking may have happened, just so I can make sense of it in my head. (Note - I have not gone back to rewatch anything other than to verify the "lots of footprints" were found in a different room of the house than the baby's body, so I'm piecing this together by memory, and it is totally my take of the situation.)

I think the older boys were letting Brian hang out with them (at church, at the park, probably playing in each other's yards, etc) because Brian had finally started speaking, and had eavesdropped when his dad talked about work enough (not to mention looking at crime scene photos) that he could tell them grisly stories, so that made him cool enough to hang with the older kids. (It's a nice comparison to the neighbors and fellow agents/cops gathering around when Tench told them stories about their cases and interviews, btw.) Brian was still too young and socially inept to realize this wasn't entirely appropriate, so he probably really played it up in order to be accepted, maybe even making up stuff as he went along. Nancy and Bill were just relieved that he finally seemed to be coming out of his shell and making friends so they didn't try to stop him from hanging out with these kids or question it too much.

The house for sale was the first one Nancy had ever listed (she said so at one point). Brian probably overheard her giving the code to the key box to someone, so he knew how to get into the house. The older kids used the house as a kind of hang out spot, possibly not even doing anything "bad" there but just because that's the kind of things kids did back then. Maybe they lured the toddler from the park into the house that day, maybe they just went there and he followed, who knows. I like to think they didn't intend to kill him (especially since we never heard a single thing about the neighborhood having a freaked out reaction to the manner in which he died) -- perhaps he started crying or yelling for his mom and they were trying to shut him up to keep from getting caught somewhere they weren't supposed to be. At any rate, they strangled him, whether they intended to or not.

I really think they probably took off at this point, running out the back door leaving it wide open, and leaving Brian there with the baby. They may have dragged the baby to the basement while they were trying to get him quiet, or Brian may have done that after they took off. (I'm leaning toward the latter, actually. Brian was a small-built child and would have had trouble carrying even a 2 yo down the stairs. Dragging him by the feet and banging his little head on every step would make sense.) Brian, having already been shown as being fascinated with the story of Jesus rising from the dead while looking at the crucifix hanging in the church, had the idea that putting the baby on a cross might bring him back to life, so he assembled a cross from materials found in the basement. (This would explain why the baby's mom mentioned she knew Brian thought he was helping him by putting him on a cross -- that's the kind of detail that the boys would not have known anything about if they left before it happened, so the cops would have questioned Brian specifically, and the way the mom said it made it sound to me like she had heard it from the cops, it wasn't just Nancy projecting.) Brian then found a rag to cover the baby's face with (out of some semblance of respect, probably) and left the house, locking the front door behind him but keeping the key. That night he started majorly regressing back into silence and bedwetting and the older kids were back to ignoring him and/or making fun of him.

So, that's that.

BTW, if finding it amusing that Williams, knowing full well he was being tailed, bought Tench and Holden lunch and brought it to their car is wrong, I don't want to be right. I legit LOL'd at that scene. "I think we've been made" - ha! Never change, Tench.

[scrb]

Really enjoyed the series, left you wanting more.

Would have been entertaining if they went back and interviewed Williams in prison as part of their project.

I don't mind the private live plots at all, though they dropped Holden's life outside the office in favor of showing more of Tench and Wendy's lives.

It's too bad it's on hiatus.