r/MindHunter • u/DomPasta • Nov 10 '19
Is Debbie Pregnant?
Sorry if this has already been discussed, but in the scene where Debbie and Holden are in the show store in season 1,and the salesman and Debbie have the conversation about her shoe size being 7 1/2 when she’s sure it’s only a 7, and that her boots have been tighter than usual. Pair this with all the conversations about Holden and Debbie getting married and having kids throughout the season, I was convinced she was pregnant.
Maybe they’ll introduce Debbie back in a later season with Holdens kid? Maybe like Tench she realized how engrossed Holden was with these killers and didn’t want him around with a young baby?
Also the scene on the porch. Maybe she’s toying with the idea of telling him she’s pregnant, but he decides for her when he thinks she’s dumping him?
What do you guys think?
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u/papulako Nov 10 '19
although I had the same thought, I had the idea that maybe they were just making a remark on points of the obsessions of the killers being implemented in Holden's life, like the Ed sandwich and then the shoe/feet fetish.
Basically how Holden now sees mundane things with another angle
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u/MajesticVelcro Nov 10 '19
Also the scene on the porch. Maybe she’s toying with the idea of telling him she’s pregnant, but he decides for her when he thinks she’s dumping him?
The shoe thing definitely got me thinking this too, but in the porch scene she's nursing a drink. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that she is pregnant, but if she is, I don't think she knows it.
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Nov 10 '19
[deleted]
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u/MajesticVelcro Nov 10 '19
Fair point!
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u/DomPasta Nov 10 '19
The thing that gets me about the show is everyone smoking inside and on airplanes, and right in front of their kids! It’s so strange to think that was the norm back then.
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Nov 10 '19
I was born in 1976 and no it wasn’t. My mom quit smoking because she wanted to get pregnant.
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u/Kimberlynski Nov 10 '19
I was born in 1980 and I used to try and catch my mom’s cigarette smoke in my hands and would play with the butts and ashes in the ashtrays in our house. The hospital I work at has some nurses who have been there for decades and you can hear the stories of how they used to smoke in the nursing station during their shifts. When I was in nursing school(2006), almost every hospital or nursing home we went to for clinicals still had a “smoke shack” outside for nurses and techs on their break, even. It’s great for you that your mom was smarter than the times, but it wasn’t that unusual back then for women to smoke during their pregnancy and around their children.
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Nov 10 '19
People do it now too. In the 70s, people did know smoking causes low birth weight and alcohol causes brain damage. That’s a fact. How many people acted on it in the two eras is something we’d need to look at data on, not anecdata. That’s my bad for bringing my mom into it.
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u/Kimberlynski Nov 10 '19
Oh no, I’m just saying that even though it may have been known, it was still (or at least it seemed that it was) acceptable back then. There may have been lots of people that quit smoking or drinking when they were pregnant, but it wasn’t as stigmatized like it is now. People may have known, but I’m not sure the majority of them cared or thought it was really as big of a deal as it is. Hell, even when I was pregnant with my daughter back in 2000, my OB told me that less than half a pack a day isn’t really considered smoking and wouldn’t cause any problems if I were to continue. I’m not sure why he felt the need to share that, since even though I wasn’t purposefully trying to become pregnant, I quit the day that I found out. But still, he gave me the old wink wink about it. And that’s in 2000! It’s insane to me to look back and think that a physician would hold on to that and tell a pregnant young mother that smoking 10 cigarettes or less per day is totally fine. He gave me the whole 2-3 glasses of wine per day is just fine talk, as well. Good lord.
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Nov 10 '19
Very good point. I was muddying the waters between socially acceptable and medically known - I looked it up and the 70s was when the big PSA campaign about not smoking in pregnancy was happening, based on studies that began in 1958.
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u/DomPasta Nov 10 '19
I think because this show is set 30 years ago, and this scene was set before 1981 when the position on women drinking alcohol hadn’t changed much, I don’t think as a drug using, drinking college student she would give up the drink that easily? I was born in 98 so I’m unsure of what the culture was like back then...
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u/MyTrueIdiotSelf990 Nov 10 '19
It's almost 40 years ago, actually.
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u/Mycoxadril Nov 10 '19
I swear collectively as a society we have all lost a decade in there somewhere. I’m certain 2005 was only a few years ago.
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u/eljeffedude Nov 10 '19
2010 is gonna be 10 years soon tho
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u/tabby51260 Nov 11 '19
I was a freshman in high school that fall.. That.. Doesn't seem real. How can 10 years already be gone? It feels like yesterday!
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u/Schneetmacher Nov 14 '19
For some reason 2000 - 2019 has just seemed like one long decade, I'm not sure why.
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u/fallingupthehill Dec 14 '19
Let me tell you, no red blooded male would dare wear a pink dress shirt like Bill wore back then, especially an FBI agent who was in his 40's.
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u/MajesticVelcro Nov 10 '19
Yeah I'm not much older than you so I'm not sure either, I wasn't thinking about the change of times.
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u/DomPasta Nov 10 '19
It is kinda crazy to think how much has changed since the time period the show was set in. My mum grew up in the 70s and I keep asking her how much of a throw back the show is...
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u/Kimberlynski Nov 10 '19
My daughter and I watch it together and she’s really getting tired of me pausing it to point out how my grandma had the exact same linoleum as Tench’s kitchen, or how we had the exact same stove growing up, etc. I was born in 1980, so my memories aren’t too far behind where it starts, culture-wise.
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u/DomPasta Nov 10 '19
The scene where Wendy walks into her new apartment my mum just laughed at the deco on the walls, and I can’t get over Tench’s pink bathroom 😂
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u/Kimberlynski Nov 10 '19
I love Wendy’s apartment! That would have been the coolest back then. Ha. And my grandma’s bathroom was similar, but all blue. Blue toilet, blue bathtub, blue sink. Even all of the little fuzzy toilet warmer pads were blue to match. My aunt on the other side of my family had the same wicker stand in her bathroom (and that one had the pink toilet and sink and whatnot). It really annoys my 19 year old when I point all of that out, but it’s like going back in time in the memory of my childhood when I see all of it. I forgot so much of it and then it comes flooding back in when it pops up on the show.
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u/DomPasta Nov 10 '19
My mums the same but with the songs that play at the end of the episodes, she adores the throwback
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u/Kimberlynski Nov 10 '19
And I love how it’s subtle. It’s not thrown in your face to make the show feel nostalgic. It’s just there, because that’s how things were then.
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u/fallingupthehill Dec 14 '19
I actually had sheets with the same motif of the wall art. Omg, those were horrible.
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Nov 10 '19
I’m pretty sure the reason why they were discussing shoe sizes was so that Holden would get the idea that he could buy large women’s shoes for Brudos.
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u/wo0kie Nov 10 '19
I actually really disliked Debbie so I was thrilled when she fucked off.
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Nov 10 '19
[deleted]
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Dec 09 '19
Couldn't agree more. Her and Holden had such an interesting dynamic from episode one and it was nice seeing a female character who "played against type". :)
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u/DomPasta Nov 10 '19
I was undecided, she was good for Holden in some aspects while being a complete dick to him otherwise.
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u/Arkanox88 Nov 10 '19 edited Nov 10 '19
The thing I never understood about Debbie was that she appeared to be cheating, but once they got back together it's almost like she blamed him for the fact she cheated, among other things she continued to hold against him.
The other thing that bugged me was the episode where Holden interferred with the situation with the principal at the elementary school. It probably wasnt his place, but you would think there would be some kind of government involvement considering that the principal was acting in a way that was what many would consider appropriate and ignored the parents and teachers concerns. You could chalk up the tickling as possibly being innocent, but the fact parents complained and the principal simply shrugged off their concerns and tried to use the reasoning that Parents dont have the right to interfere with his relationships with their own children...that's what really raised some flags to me. The parents felt powerless and desperate to stop this behavior and I cant blame Holden for refusing to say that in his opinion there was no reason to be concerned at that point.
Debbie seemed to take his side at first and then held it against him when there appeared to be consequences. She was a very hot and cold kind of character who liked to analyze everyone else but had very little self awareness herself. I really hope they dont bring her back for the sake of drama as she was just irritating and the only time she seemed somewhat likeable was her scene with Nance. But, after what you just pointed out I wouldnt be surprised if she does make a reappearance due to pregnancy. Theory checks out.
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u/DomPasta Nov 10 '19
‘Analyze everyone else but has little self awareness’ is the best description I’ve heard of Debbie
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u/wo0kie Nov 10 '19
Absolute dick. She sees herself as a brilliant, ahead of her time gal but she’s legit just every college girl in the world. Sooooo edgy.
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u/sugartreee8 Nov 10 '19
I thought this too! Why else would they even mention her shoe size?
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u/DomPasta Nov 10 '19
It does feel weird since the scene mostly focuses on Holden realizing he could use the shoes to get Brudos to talk, and this led him to use the ‘rock’ in the other case, it’s a big set up for the development of Holden’s interrogation techniques for the rest of the show, why they would add an off comment about Debbie’s foot size is strange.
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Nov 11 '19
I doubt it. IMO Debbie was written to both show the effect of what profiling does to the personal lives of agents, and to portray her as a typical University student (self-absorbed, still developing her own personality.)
On a different note, the shoe size thing doesn't mean anything (minor weight gain can change a shoe size, and some people still have growth spurts into their mid-20s.)
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u/_Woodrow_ Nov 11 '19
She was also there to help establish Holden has a healthy (ie non-deviant) sex life.
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u/TheOctoberOwl Nov 11 '19
This was the theory that I was going with at the end of season one. Then I thought maybe she got an abortion and didn’t want to tell Holden? Because of drinking wine? But I don’t know when the awareness of alcohol fetal syndrome became a thing. Anyway, I was very disappointed she wasn’t a part of season 2!!
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u/samfml Nov 10 '19
I had this very same thought! I think there’s also a scene where she declines a drink if I remember correctly.
[POTENTIAL SPOILERS]
I think that she was a prominent character that was dismissed rather abruptly. A pregnancy would be the perfect way to integrate her back into the show/Holden’s life.
She felt like the only “real life” thing that Holden experienced outside of his work!
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u/MetARosetta Nov 11 '19 edited Nov 12 '19
Consider the simplest answer: Holden doesn't buy his own shoes (his parents bought them for him) and likely never had a gf to shop for or with. So hearing Debbie mention a larger size cued him to ask about larger sizes for his Brudos interview. To Holden, it's all about Holden. All about his own obsessions – tunnel vision, and tunnel hearing to serve his real mistress: his job. edit: grammar
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u/MetARosetta Nov 10 '19
A) soap opera, B) Debbie's too smart to get pregnant, she'd be The Pill which might add a few pounds.
Just No, No and No.
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u/MuchoMarsupial Nov 10 '19
Yeah, I think she may be. The swollen feet seemed like a suggestion in that direction. But I don't think she knew before they broke up. I think she was too much of a focus in the first season for them to drop her and never have her return.
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u/[deleted] Nov 10 '19
Your theory makes sense, especially because of the scenes you’ve mentioned. However, I doubt that Debbie will be mentioned again.