SPOILERS again. In episode 9, as they search Williams' home, a cop wearing gloves finds a book under some clothes in a drawer and hands it to Ford, who hands it to another cop. Neither Ford nor the second cop had gloves on.
That's the sort of detail the director shouldn't have missed. Viewers are sophisticated enough now to know that could never happen in real life. What is the point of collecting evidence if you contaminate it as you collect it? If they put their own prints on the items they collect, their prints may smear or otherwise make unusable any other prints which may be on those items, perhaps prints belonging to a victim, for all they know.

I know I frequently write with criticisms about the shows I watch. That doesn't mean I don't like the shows. I like Mind Hunter a lot. But certain things in TV shows, even many of those I like, bug me.

When Holden Ford speaks to the young black lady who works at his hotel, the one who introduced him to the mothers of the missing slain children, he did a very poor job of talking to her. This scene just seemed very contrived to me. It is one of those "stupid mistakes" scenes, you know the kind where cops enter dark rooms without checking behind the door as they pursue suspects. These scenes are contrived to create tension, to produce problems, to place the lead character in a dilemma or other disadvantaged situation they must subsequently work to get out of. I am frequently quite critical of these scenes because they strain credulity to the maximum; do the writers think we don't notice? When writers resort to these obviously contrived situations, situations which are so far removed from reality that the viewer rolls his eyes, it makes the show less enjoyable, for me at least. I am jolted out of following the story. I think of how unreal the scene is as acted. What agent would stand there listening to that young lady ask him if the task force had ignored a bunch of leads and fail to deny that, or to respond at all? Holden Ford is depicted as a nerdy wonk whose sole focus is on his profile, but he isn't retarded. He knows the task force has indeed investigated the KKK, and the others who have called in leads, and even though he had not felt and still doesn't feel those leads were likely to produce useful information, he would have nevertheless assured the young lady that the task force did follow up on them.
Also, as an FBI agent working in an ongoing investigation he would not have revealed to the young lady the evidence they had on the suspect or the specifics of the profile they had worked up on him. He would have said:

"There is much I cannot tell you about this investigation as it is ongoing, and I am sure you understand we cannot reveal many things to the public during an ongoing investigation. But I can assure you that we investigate every lead to determine if it can provide information leading to the identification and capture of the killer or killers, and are continuing to do so"

or words to that effect. Instead he stands there looking defeated and sheepish, as though the young lady is right to believe the task force is ignoring leads about white men, and is instead seeking to pin the murders on a black man. Clearly that was not the case. So what agent would have acted as Holden Ford did?

I am sorry, but these ridiculously contrived scenarios just get to me sometimes.

I share your issues with it to be honest. I think you've been pretty generous just selecting these two. The series is laden with them. It wants to be more high brow than it is.

While I still envoyed it overall, I thought too there were more forced drama and less believable moments in the 2nd season.

The scene with the receptionist at the hotel, though, didn't strike me as going against the flow, mainly because the investigators are exhausted, and maybe also because Ford feels like he can't argue with her that upset and with the racial questions lurking in the background. At least that's how I read it now that you mention it.

A friend told me she took a creative writing class and she said that they always want the hero to be flawed, and they always want to create problems for him or her that the hero must then work their way through or out of. That makes sense I guess. And I have noticed those elements in many shows. But I feel like the writers often get lazy and resort to what I call the "stupid mistakes ploy" to create tension or problems for the lead characters.

A cop searching for a criminal enters a pitch dark room from a lighted area, his gun held out with a fully extended arm, & fails to check behind the door as he enters. That's a stupid mistake no real cop would make.

Or in a horror film, the terrified kids are running from the crazed, chain saw weilding, killer who is tracking them down. They see a car sitting there with keys in it, but they pass that up and instead decide to enter the barn and hide in the loft, which has one way in and one way out.

Frequently I see shows where someone is falsely accused of something, and instead of speaking up and explaining themselves, giving the facts, offering exculpatory evidence, etc., they stand there silently. This of course builds tension since the viewers are thinking "no, that's not true, why doesn't he tell them?"

Any agent knows he cannot divulge information about ongoing investigations. Once that information gets out, it can hinder the investigation in many ways. But one thing he can tell the public is that they are investigating every lead. That lady all but accused the task force and Holden himself of being racist, protecting KKK members, and attempting to frame an innocent black man, all while ignoring good leads. And Holden stood there looking sheepish. No matter how tired he may have been, the agent would have denied the inflammatory charges of favoritism and racism. and assured the lady that the task force was checking every lead.
I think the writers were lazy again. I mean, they should really be able to create problems for Holden without making him look stupid.

I liked season 2 a lot though I do agree there are some questionable moments.

I realize this is based on real life events but I would have liked a little more focus on the mothers (no fathers of course) coming to terms with the killer clearly not being a white person. Holden's logic of only someone from that neighborhood being able to abduct so many kids made total sense, however you'd think they would have figured out that many of the kids knew each other way earlier, though they do imply the local cops didn't question many people.

I totally agree Holden did a terrible job explaining his position to that hotel employee who introduced him to the mothers. They imply he would have gone into detail if she had come into his room but he could have summed things up in 2 sentences.

I also think there should have been more payoff with Carr's girlfriend. Holden or Tench should have encountered them out together and the girlfriend ends up revealing they are together, otherwise that whole subplot felt kind of unnecessary aside from fleshing her out a bit.

@cswood said:

I also think there should have been more payoff with Carr's girlfriend. Holden or Tench should have encountered them out together and the girlfriend ends up revealing they are together, otherwise that whole subplot felt kind of unnecessary aside from fleshing her out a bit.

I've been waiting for that shoe to drop, and at some point I imagine it will. Perhaps they are stretching this out to show the different attitudes prevalent during that time period, something young viewers today may not be very aware of. I don't know when state laws on homosexuality changed in different states, so maybe it was still illegal in the DC area. I imagine it was mostly illegal still in the southern states.

So I wonder how they will play this. Clearly Carr is an invaluable team member and not only for her expertise. She is one of the ones tasked with trying to prevent Holden Ford from running wild and causing problems for the FBI's BSU as he did with that school principal situation. And she is helping Ford deal with his panic disorder. I am thinking that at some point one of them will discover her lesbianism. Tench is most conservative and will initially react with some sense of shock and maybe revulsion. But Carr and Tench have a good working relationship, trust each other, so he will have conflicting feelings. Probably there will be worries over how it may affect the BSU if it were to become publicly known, or known to higher ups. I imagine Holden Ford won't be as bothered by it as some of the others. The new bald headed boss of the BSU will probably handle it alright when he finds out. What will that little rat fink, Greg Smith, do? He sent in that tape recording anonymously and hid that from the team til Holden figured it out. Did he learn his lesson or will he feel he has to squeal once again? If he does I think he is gone. Tench won't let him stay if he rats twice.

In the end I think the team members will see Dr. Carr as the same person they have always respected and relied upon. Many people during that time period had a live and let live attitude, as I recall. They will want to avoid any sort of public scandal which might affect the FBI and the BSU specifically, but I think they will concede that her personal life, her orientation, is her business and should not affect her job. There would still be the legal aspect, i.e. is homosexuality illegal in the state she resides and works in currently. But I think the team will accept that her private life is just that. That is how I am betting they will treat that issue.

While I appreciate your thoughts on the writing, I'm guessing they made many of those decisions intentionally. For instance, on the gloved hand bit, that would have been a fairly new approach, and handing that evidence to another officer who wasn't wearing gloves doesn't seem all that unbelievable. I believe this was set in the 70s-80s and in that time period forensic science wasn't all that well understood or helpful. We have been inculcated in such evidentiary procedures mostly through perfectly scripted TV shows and movies. I know plenty of officers from that day and this who would verify such errors as all-too-real and common, especially then. For me, leaving in such errors--which were very likely--made it more believable not less. I thought the same thing when all the officers were traipsing through the woods and found multiple bodies. The FBI agents quickly realize what it is and say something like "this is a crime scene...clear these men out and rope it off" only to have all the guys rush to another area when another body is found. There is something very human--and real--about those errors, but I do not think one of them is lazy writing.

For instance, on the gloved hand bit, that would have been a fairly new approach, and handing that evidence to another officer who wasn't wearing gloves doesn't seem all that unbelievable. I believe this was set in the 70s-80s and in that time period forensic science wasn't all that well understood or helpful.

Fingerprints were discovered back in the late 1890s, or at least the first book on them came out then, and police began fingerprinting criminals in one country then. The first trial in the US which used fingerprints to convict a man was in 1910. So that part of forensic science has been around for a long time, and certainly by the 1970s it was taught to all law enforcement officers. There would have been, by that time, many decades of fingerprints used as evidence in criminal cases, and procedures developed so that defense attorneys could not have the evidence thrown out because of improper handling. Using gloves to handle potential evidence wasn't a new idea at all at that time. And FBI agents would be especially familiar with such forensic procedures. I never saw Holden go "Oops, I need some gloves on", and nobody else caught the mistake either.

But you are right that it may have been intentional. Perhaps they were trying to show Holden as a flawed agent. They often make the protagonist a flawed individual because it makes the story more interesting.
But I think it is not very credible that an FBI agent would so casually make that mistake, and never even catch himself. And nobody else noticed it. In fact the crime scene investigator who found the evidence would also have seen this mistake. I wonder if he would have handed it to Holden when he saw he was not gloved. The CSI guys are religious about being gloved when handling evidence. They won't hand off evidence to someone unless they are either gloved or at least has a pair of gloves to wrap around and hold the evidence while only touching the gloves with their fingers, or unless it is in an evidence bag.

I know mistakes are made, and there are sloppy officers and agents too I suppose. But for the CSI guy and an FBI agent to so casually contaminate evidence seems a bit over the top there.