Principal Wade’s Disturbing Grooming Behavior

Mindhunter featured some of the most disturbing TV characters of all time, but while most of these were serial killers, another character was even creepier. Mindhunter told a fictionalized account of the birth of criminal profiling, based on the book of the same name. The interviews in the show were based on real events, and Mindhunter‘s interesting serial killers were based on real people.

While the show mostly focused on killers that had been caught, a sneak peek at the BTK Killer set up Mindhunter season 3. While Mindhunter was canceled for budgetary reasons before this storyline could be resolved, it left another case open-ended. This case was arguably more frightening than some of the killers, as few people on Holden’s team seemed to realize the danger.

Mindhunter’s Most Disturbing Character Was Principal Wade

During Mindhunter season 1, Holden visited a school to talk to the pupils about disturbing behavior, and he instantly found himself struggling to work with the mild-mannered Principal Wade. After the painfully awkward talk, a teacher pulled Holden aside to report disturbing behavior that she had seen from the principal, who wouldn’t stop tickling the pupils, despite being reported.

The teacher’s explanation — “he has a thing for tickling” — was ominous enough, and her clarification that it was on the pupils’ feet drew an instant parallel with killer Jerry Brudos. The shot framing Wade in the hall holding a little girl’s hands was one of the most chilling in the show for its implications, and the episode grew creepier from then on.

Principal Wade was paying the children to allow him to tickle their bare feet, individually or in pairs. While some of the teachers and parents saw his activity as turning punishment into play, many people, including Debbie, found it disturbing. Debbie’s own insight was a window into the way that abuse is allowed to continue when nobody speaks up.

The episode was one of Mindhunter‘s best for the way that it contrasted its characters. Unlike Brudos, Wade was at large, refused to stop, and appeared to be escalating. The fact that so few people saw the principal’s behavior for what it was made the character arguably more disturbing than many of the serial killers featured on the show.

Was Mindhunter’s Principal Wade Based On A Real Person?

Like most of the characters in Mindhunter, Principal Wade was based on a real person whom one of the authors of the book, John Douglas, encountered. While Principal Wade (whose name was likely changed for TV) was given a bigger role in the show, the book detailed how he paid the children if they could withstand the tickling for a set length of time.

The book documented Douglas’ discussion with the school board, which was altered slightly for the show, with Holden being consulted earlier. While Mindhunter occasionally took some creative liberties with its scenes and characters, the school board conversations appeared to be largely true to the author’s experience. That said, Principal Wade’s creepy assertion that he was “teaching happiness” was not mentioned.

Times have changed significantly since the 1970s, and at the time, there was far less common knowledge about predators, with many seeing the principal’s behavior as odd rather than fetishistic. Mindhunter‘s source material touched on the fact that parents in the district were furious about the principal’s firing, as he was a respectable and charming man with a steady girlfriend.

The Tickling Storyline Pits Us Against Holden’s Team For The First Time

Some of the most frustrating scenes in the show involved Holden, the parents, and other teachers trying to put their discomfort with the tickling into words. At the time Mindhunter was set, there was a misconception that predators were easily spotted. The word “grooming” was not part of regular language, while modern viewers can instantly recognize Principal Wade’s behavior as textbook grooming.

One of the main reasons that Mindhunter is one of the greatest detective TV shows of all time is that it gave a masterclass in subtle storytelling. The show highlighted how little we knew about why killers act in the ways they do. It highlighted the fact that Holden’s team was overlooking a far more common occurrence, something incredibly obvious to the modern viewer.

Mindhunter‘s tickling storyline marked a turning point in the series. Previously, we supported Holden and his team in their work, even while Holden’s headstrong attitude worked against him, and Bill stuck his head in the sand. However, this was the first time that we disagreed with a main character on something so serious, as Bill did not see anything wrong.

Many of the studies and conclusions shown in Mindhunter are still used today, so the fact that the team missed something much more common but hidden in plain sight was extremely hard to watch. When Holden finally pushed Bill to admit that he would not be comfortable with Wade tickling his own son, it became easy to understand the way many people ignore danger until it affects them personally.

Unlike The Other Mindhunter Cases, Principal Wade’s Story Is Left Ominously Open-Ended

Principal Wade’s refusal to stop the tickling raised alarm bells for Holden, who wondered if he truly could not stop or just would not. The scene in which Wade told Holden that he isn’t “some stranger in a raincoat” showed just how misinformed people were at the time. Wade avoided arrest by appearing outraged, but he lost his job.

One of Mindhunter‘s most underrated scenes was when Wade’s wife confronted Holden, as the entire interaction was extremely tense and unpredictable. Her saying that Wade could not sleep appeared to make Holden doubt his earlier words regarding Wade’s future. At the same time, true crime viewers were familiar with predators’ unsuspecting families and still likely to agree that Wade deserved to be fired.

Principal Wade losing his job still did not give us the closure that one might expect. While seeing him wandering around town and being ostracized might be cathartic, this set him up as the kind of social pariah that people, including Holden, associated with violent crimes. With his marriage under stress too, this was an ominous ending to the tickling storyline.

In the 1970s, it was easier for disgraced people to begin a new life, and the ending to Wade’s story left the door open for him to do so. As Wade seemed incapable of leaving children alone, it was almost certain that he would look for new victims. This extremely disturbing ending was a stark reminder that Mindhunter is not for the faint of heart.

Release Date

2017 – 2019

Showrunner

Joe Penhall

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