Warning: this article contains spoilers for Mindhunter season two.
Special agent Bill Tench actor Holt McCallany has discussed a heart-wrenching moment for his character from the Mindhunter season 2 finale.
Consisting of nine gripping episodes, this season saw the gradual breakdown of Bill's home life due to the unsettling behaviour of his young son Brian, who attached a dead boy's corpse to a crucifix in one unseen scene.
Regularly working away from home on the Atlanta Child Murders put a visible strain on Bill's marriage, leaving his wife Nancy pleading for him to take some time off and help out with their son's disintegrating mental state.
In the last few minutes of the finale, he returns home to find Nancy and Brian (and all of their possessions) gone.
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This moment echoes the actor's own life, as McCallany's late father had a similar experience.
"I based those scenes on my own dad," McCallany revealed to The Wrap. "He was a man of that era. In some of the ways [he] was an absent father in the way Bill is an absent father."
His father (Michael McAloney) was a Tony Award winner who produced the 1970 Broadway version of Borstal Boy, but according to McCallany, Michael's life mirrored Bill's in that he was always pulled in two separate directions.
"He spent years working for the Tony. My father was hanging out in Irish bars with guys like [Tench] and people from the IRA. It was something that my mother didn't understand and didn't have any appreciation of," McCallany added.
"She eventually left him without a word."
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Filming the empty house scene, McCallany applied his father's emotions to his own acting, noting how "you're not even given the courtesy of a goodbye".
Mindhunter season one and two are now available to stream on Netflix.
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Dan is a freelance entertainment journalist. Beginning his writing career in 2014, Dan's work first graced the pages of cult publications Starburst magazine and Little White Lies before moving onto Total Film, Digital Spy, NME and Yahoo Entertainment.
In the film and TV universe, he kneels at the altar of Jim Carrey, Daniel Plainview, Mike Ehrmantraut and Paulie Walnuts.
