Over the last few days, we've done nothing but watch and obsess over Netflix's new true crime dramatization Monster: The Ed Gein Story, and now it turns out there was a major Easter egg hint to another Netflix drama we've been obsessed with—Mindhunter—during the series.
Monster: The Ed Gein Story is a limited series by Ryan Murphy, starring Charlie Hunnam, and tells the dramatized story of serial killer Ed Gein, as well the movies inspired by his crimes and the other serial killers who were active during Gein's lifetime.
During the final episode of Monster is when we get to see the Mindhunter link. At the start of the episode FBI agents John Douglas (Sean Carrigan) and Robert Ressler (Caleb Ruminer) are in pursuit of serial killer Ted Bundy.
They go to interview another serial killer already behind bars, Jerry Brudos. During the conversation the agents record the conversation on tapes and reveal they are part of the new Behavioral Sciences Division at the FBI. During the conversation, while Jerry is able to help them directly, he does send them Ed Gein's way to help more with their Bundy investigation.
The moment is a direct nod to Mindhunter, which was a Netflix drama about the early days of the Behavioral Science Unit and starred Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, and Anna Torv as FBI agents. During their investigations they would often interview serial killers on tape, including Jerry Brudos, who in both series is played by Happy Anderson.
And the link between the two series is completely intentional, as Monster showrunner Ian Brennan confirmed to Tudum.
“We wanted to underline the last thing tonally that through Silence of the Lambs, he really influenced Mindhunter as well,” he explained. “That would be a fun way to put a cap on it, to use this other filmic vocabulary and then talk about the ways that he was part of those early days of FBI profiling.”
While Ed Gein never appeared in Mindhunter as a character, we can totally see the sit down between Gein (Hunnam) and the two agents Douglas and Ressler being a scene that would not look out of place in the show.
Mindhunter ran for two seasons from 2017 to 2019 and has long been top of the list of viewers for Netflix to bring back.
While we might not be seeing it on our screens anytime soon, this little nod was a nice way to get a bit of that Mindhunter feel in our lives.
Monster: The Ed Gein Story and Mindhunter are available on Netflix now.
