The Lesson Is Murder

For those of you who are interested in the fast-paced, Criminal Minds, Psycho-pass, Mindhunter stuff, this is not for you.

As a social worker, I need to know and understand the motivations of my clients that I might be able to work through the sessions and case interventions.

A lot of such work isn't glitz and glamour. And I wouldn't expect a criminologist's work to be anything different, because we're all working with a segment of the population that presents with pathological tendencies toward certain behaviours. To know a person is through the available material on them, as well the processes through which information is gathered to build a profile.

It's not all about diagnoses - because a diagnosis is not fixed and usually can shift. It's after all a diagnostic tool to describe a symptoms which are currently presenting, and this show's - IMO - not supposed to be a show about prescribed approaches.

Profiling is inexact and the thing the show does is show how challenging it is to not even close to halfway understanding how psychopathy operates in different types of people because of the complexities of particular human experience in-situ.

It's pretty informative, which I found was quite decent in this documentary. Could it be improved with more elaboration on concepts and assumptions? Perhaps - but that might cause viewers to think they can replicate that without the proper training. So there's tension between viewer expectation and the professional's responsibility.

Lastly, if you watch it with pre-conceived notions about what it would be like, you probably have been captured by the pizzazz of mainstream fodder like the overly dramatised crime shows of the last 2 decades, and may be on the way to losing a sense of realism.

The discussions among the group are nothing more than a boring exchange of opinions. There's no significant mention of mental illness or any psychiatric pathophysiology. They overlook the obvious motivator - a need to feel control and/or power because the rest of his life now feels beyond his control. Just as rape is about control and power, and cutting is about feeling something other than pain and lack of control, this type of killing is rarely about money or mercy. Very disappointing dialogue. Didn't actually expect anything on par with Criminal Minds, but this seemed completely uninspired.

Wow this was just lousy. I went in thinking it was going to be like the BSU/Mindhunter John Douglas et al stuff, but holy cow it was a new level of shallow.

Almost everyone looked incredibly uncomfortable and self conscious on camera, it was overproduced within an inch of its life, it sounded horribly scripted, but all of that would be forgivable if they did any kind of deep dive into a single interesting fact. Like, really, y'all are grad students studying this stuff and your conclusion is "oh he killed because he likes to be in control of hmmmmm wow we are really breaking new ground with this one" Furious I wasted an hour and furious it made me so furious I wasted 10 more min writing this.

Some of the most profound quotes were stuff like "It just really caught me off guard...although there was that one time when he tried to drive a car into his girlfriends parents house" Or maybe "Hands up everyone here who has stress in their lives ? (everyone raises hands) "And yet none of us killed anyone right ?" Wow. A series dedicated to the mastery of the blatantly obvious. Clearly designed for the mainly illiterate American market, a place where 20% of Americans can't locate the US on a world map, and 12% think that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. Another triumph for total mediocrapy.

I watch a lot of things about murder, and victims.

Thought I'd give this one a shot.

First episode, it seemed okay. Was moving along and they interviewed the killer.

Next the group is hypothesising about whether the killer was telling the truth, being legitimate, how many they'd killed, emotional credibility & motive.

This, i found a bit tedious. Certainly, they're no guarantees a murderer is going to be honest with an interviewer, tell them how many they've killed and why, yet the suppositions this group were stuck on, i found quite tedious.

It was at this point, the Lecturer In charge starts making some very ignorant and dangerous commentary regarding medical conditions.

She claimed "For some people who feel like they have a lack of control in their life, they feel like they have to do things like, use substances, or have eating disorders, or have anxiety, or depression."

This is one of the most irresponsible comments regarding medical disorders i have ever heard. The woman used to work for the FBI and states she's profiled murderers.

One would think she'd be able to discern medical conditions, from a desire for control.

Depression, for example, is a complexed medical condition, which often has multiple factors. There can be chemical imbalances in the brain, issues in the persons environment, trauma, genetics, and other factors.

Depression is not about "control".

People ignorant of the facts regarding the serious medical issues the woman has claimed are all about control, may actually believe it. Misinforming people can lead to harm. Depression is a very serious medical condition that has absolutely nothing to do with control.

I'm disappointed networks are streaming this series. It's not okay to misinform the public. It's irresponsible and wrong to do so.

I really hope everyone who watched this first episode, had enough basic knowledge of the issues mentioned ie Depression, they were able to scoff at the comment, instead of taking it onboard as fact.

I wonder how many watched, believed what the woman said, and then believed anyone with depression is self inflicted due to a desire for control, instead of the multi factor medical condition it is.

No one who has depression is needing some random to incorrectly tell them they have control issues.

To me, the moment the Lecturer woman said this sentence, was the moment the whole show and series lost its credibility. Including the Lecturer.

Very disappointed in this one. There's so much poor information out in the world as it is, we don't need any more of it. Especially when it can give people the wrong impression and information regarding very serious medical conditions.

I would give a 0 or -10 if possible.

Personally, i couldn't tolerate the circle **** of pondering, and assuming that went on.

I would rather clean my toilet.