Culture Fiend

Investigating The Killing: Episode 13

In which we are blatantly robbed of a satisfying ending.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jun 20, 2011 at 09:51AM 8 Comments

Hello Beau Soleil? Yeah, it’s Orpheus. Can I get a pale brunette delivered to cell 33 at [insert fake Seattle prison name]? Yup, charge it to the Darren Richmond campaign like usual.

When an audience engages with a suspense drama, an unspoken agreement is formed. In exchange for allowing the plot to send us in lots of misleading directions, an experience that requires patience and head-scratching guesswork, we know (or hope) that we will wind up with some unforeseen, yet elegantly crafted, conclusion. That’s the payoff.

In the best possible scenario, Chinatown, say, or The Usual Suspects, this payoff is extremely satisfying, so much so that you want to watch it all over again right away, just to see how they did it. “My sister, my daughter,” “Keyser Söze:” these are words that have a permanent place in our collective imagination because they made our neural pathways fizz with delight. We entered into an agreement, albeit a tacitly understood one, and for our patience and focus we were richly rewarded.

If there were a small lawyer who lived inside my head, he/she would be filing the paperwork to sue The Killing for breach of contract. TV these days is good enough that we have a lot to choose from. (The prosecution presents Treme, Damages, and Game of Thrones. ) And in this current age of small screen excellence, a television season is expected to be a work unto itself, like one book in a series. When your show has one central question, and you blatantly postpone answering that question in order to give yourself something to do with a second season, well, that feels about as sad and dated as Detective Linden’s sweater choices.

That said: Wow. Mitch Larson leaves the family. Holder turns out to be corrupt…maybe? Belko is all set to off the brunette-fetishising Orpheus (a very poor boyfriend candidate, as Gwen knows well, but almost certainly innocent of Rosie’s murder). Linden and Jack actually made it on to an airplane. But then, of course, Linden receives the phone call that will change everything. The evidence that led to Darren Richmond’s “do-we-have-to-do-this-here?” arrest at the rally was almost certainly fabricated, and no way can Linden just let that go. Characters develop slowly on this show, but this much, at least, we know about her.

And so we all know where she’ll be, the moment that 747 lands in Oakland. She’ll be at the ticket booth, buying her way back to Seattle. Putting her life on hold once again for the Rosie Larsen case. And as much as we might try to convince ourselves otherwise, we’ll be right there with her.

Most ridiculous Seattle thing: Desolation Bridge, is that like Deception Pass? How hard would it be to use real geography?

Current murder suspect: I don’t want to talk about it.

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Tags: Recap: AMC's The Killing

Investigating The Killing: Episode 12

A mystery email account supplies a new set of clues—just in time for next week’s finale.

Posted by: James Ross Gardner on Jun 13, 2011 at 03:00PM 0 Comments

“I like big trunks and I cannot lie.”

A lot happened on the penultimate episode of the rainiest show on television. A construction crew dug up a Native American skull on the waterfront, stalling the revitalization project—and robbing Mayor Adams of his only campaign issue. It rained. Stan and Mitch glowered at each other through the glass at the county jail. It rained some more. Detectives Linden and Holder bullied a bunch of clues out of people to discover that— a little more rain —Rosie may have moonlighted as a call girl for a fancy-pants escort service called Beau Soleil.

Also: Billionaire human Care Bear Tom Drexler is a Beau Soleil client. Mitch shitcanned Belko Royce. And Holder is really bad at interrogating prostitutes.

But of course the big theory detonator The Killing dropped on us last night involved Darren Richmond. Thanks to a secret email account, Linden learned that Richmond probably is, at best, a politician with a hooker habit—and could be guilty of much ghastlier deeds.

But cheer up, Richmond. Worse flubs could happen with email. For example, you could have emailed your campaign manager something along the lines of…

Hi Jamie. This is embarrassing, but I was with a 17-year-old call girl last night. Can you do me a solid and abduct her, tie her up in the trunk of a campaign car, and drown her in Discovery Park? I’d really appreciate it.

P.S. What are you bringing to the office potluck tomorrow? I’m thinking bagels.

…and then accidentally sent that email to every city employee! Now that would be awkward. As it is, you just have a lot of questions to answer from that meddling Detective Linden.

Frankly, Richmond, I’d be more worried about your new competition. Turns out you’re not the only laconic, gravel-voiced guy we’re going to meet on The Killing. No, Linden’s ex-husband, like you, doesn’t so much speak as clear his throat in a semi-articulate fashion.

(Quick aside: Did everyone catch who’s playing Linden’s ex? It’s Helo from Battlestar Galactica fame. By my count that makes three BSG alums on The Killing, though some have bigger roles than others. )

Most ridiculous fake Seattle thing: For Seattleites, these people seem awfully inept at email.

Current murder suspect: The question now is whether Richmond leans more Eliot Spitzer or more Ted Bundy. The writers want us thinking the latter for now. But we’ve been down that hole with them many times at this point. I bet next week’s finale will reveal that someone—Gwen? Jamie?—whacked Rosie to protect the candidate.

The season finale of The Killing airs Sunday, June 19, at 10pm on AMC.

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Investigating The Killing: Episode 11

Take a break from your regularly scheduled murder show.

Posted by: Allison Williams on Jun 06, 2011 at 04:35PM 0 Comments

“I don’t see you solving any murders either, Chuckles.”

Photo by Carole Segal/AMC.

Well, that was a weird episode of The Killing. After ten episodes of tracking Rosie around town like Jeffy in a Family Circus cartoon, we took a break from the murder storyline. This kind of standalone episode is a standard TV trope, but in most shows the gang runs off to Hawaii or gets locked in a mall overnight. In The Killing, our recess was a little less goofy.

First, our only taste of the Rosie case: We saw inside the Wapi Eagle casino, where the Native American owner blocks Linden’s investigation. As the cops confiscate the casino’s ATMs, we abruptly switch to an hour focused on Linden’s crisis and, more amusingly, Holder’s quips. This week the shaggy ex-undercover doled out as many quotable stoner lines as he has all season. (Exhibit A: “Wisdom’s all around, Linden. It’s like air, you just gotta breathe it.”) To honor the wealth of Holder aphorisms, we inhaled his best wisdom from last night:

“Pork rinds are junk food. They don’t count.”—Holder on exceptions to the rule
This episode was the pork rinds of The Killing: fatty, indulgent, and not a very good idea in hindsight. But it’s easy to scarf down the singular storyline: Linden’s tween Jack goes missing, having played hooky for the past few days. (That the middle school didn’t alert Linden until day three suggests that the attendance office is as pissed as anyone about her Sonoma waffling.) Linden panics, and we’re off.

“Damn, Linden, is there one or two days a month you’re not PMSing?”— Holder on partner relations
As Linden and Holder search the hotel, the local bad-kid hangout, and Jack’s favorite park, we got a boatload of their repartee. They’re cliched opposites: She’s serious, and he isn’t! She’s reserved, and he over-shares! Someone cranked the banter dial up to 11, because it’s getting awfully Moonlighting in this joint. While entertaining, the back-and-forth merely showed off the chemistry between Mireille Enos and Joel Kinnaman that’s been evident all season.

“Who wouldn’t wait for this slice of heaven?”—Holder on Holder
While chauffeuring Linden around town, Holder pretends that he isn’t missing a visit with his nephew. Rather, he says, his “date” will wait for him. Holder’s compassion is so sweetly telegraphed, it was practically the Isn’t Holder Awesome Hour. (The man cracked a cell-phone password with Funyons, for chrissakes!) Using The Killing logic, it all means that Holder must be taking a turn for the bad, right? He’ll either turn out to be the murderer (doubt it), or, more likely, be sacrificed to solve the Rosie Larsen investigation.

“Everything makes sense depending on how you perceive it.”—Holder on detective work
Holder’s form of self-control is to noodle around the facts until the situation is palatable. He doesn’t want a newly discovered dead body to be Jack; whattya know, it isn’t. Linden, on the other hand, has been working off the assumption that hard truths can be dismissed as long as you refuse to perceive them. Her breakdown at this new murder scene shows us that she’s seeing the flaws to that system. Shit still happens, even if you insist it can’t. Later, it turns out that Jack was off with his father all day, a possibility she’d dismissed earlier (is the dad married, or maybe an old foster parent?). Stubbornness doesn’t change things, Linden.

How does this tie into the Rosie murder? We didn’t really need proof that Linden can empathize with the Larsens’ loss. I sense that this episode was about her starting to face facts. In the final two episodes, it’s time to revisit something she had consciously overlooked—Richmond, perhaps?

“I love meth.”—Holder on, well, meth
No comment, but good on AMC for its continued support of the methamphetamine industry.

Most ridiculous fake Seattle thing While directing Holder, Linden references traffic in front of the Dunkin Donuts. No such thing!

Current murder suspect We’re awfully close to the end of the series for the casino to be another dead end. Mayor Adams, he of the shady development deals and young mistress, seems ripe to appear next to Rosie in the Wapi Eagle ATM video.

The Killing airs Sundays at 10pm on AMC.

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Investigating The Killing: Episode 10

Good joggers, bad mothers, and a boat called Adela.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on May 30, 2011 at 08:48AM 3 Comments

“No seriously, Rick. I am at the airport buying my ticket even as we speak. Jack’s here, too. He just asked if he could call you dad! Should I tell him you said yes? Ha ha, we’re a family, right? I’ll see you in three hours.”

Photo: AMC

We all struggle with the work-life balance thing, and detective Sarah Linden is hardly an exception. Finding time to mother her son, for instance, seems to be a challenge. Jogging, however, she manages to squeeze in. And it’s a good thing, too. Because Linden (finally) got a major break in the case this week, and it’s all thanks to the fact that she prioritizes cardio over sleep, parenthood, marriage, friendship, or updating a sweater collection that appears to have been sourced from Dress Barn circa 1997.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. At the top of episode 10, “I’ll Let You Know When I Get There,” a bloody-fisted Stan returns home to Mitch. She ruins his night—and let’s face it, it wasn’t the best to begin with—by producing Rosie’s pink T-shirt, pretty much eliminating the only reason to believe Bennet was the killer. (Belko’s boulder remains a plausible suspect.) Stan turns himself in, and the whole thing sends Linden into a shame spiral. Maybe. It’s hard to tell, since all she really does is stare implacably into the distance. Shame spiral or contemplation of last week’s The Voice results? You decide.

Richmond, meanwhile, takes advantage of the opportunity created by Bennet’s now-obvious innocence, regaining his campaign mojo and announcing to his aides Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Jamie and Gwen that he’s going to call for a pay cut for all Seattle City Council members. Apparently he’s forgotten that Rosie Larsen died in one of his campaign cars and maybe this isn’t the best time to be making enemies. Something else he’s apparently forgotten: despite his claims to the contrary, Richmond has met Rosie Larsen. Footage of him shaking hands with our victim is uncovered by an enterprising campaign worker. Upon seeing it, Rosencrantz instructs the staffer to keep her precocious little trap shut. Later, we see Guildenstern reviewing the footage and we are meant to understand by the squintiness of her eyes that she is doubting her candidate/lover. Either that or she’s just reliving Tje’s untimely departure on last week’s The Voice. You decide.

Rick flies all the way from California to sorta break up with Linden, which is boring. Then Linden and Holder, using footage from a taxicab Rosie took home on the night of the murder, figure out someone had been inside the house when she returned. This turns out to be Belko, and Belko turns out to have a supercreepy obsession with family Larsen. He keeps a collage of their photos above his bed in the seedy apartment he shares with his mother, a chain-smoker with a Ms. Hannigan–style affection for silky lingerie. If you hadn’t noticed, bad mothers are epidemic on The Killing.

It all looks bad for Belko, but he is cleared under questioning when he remembers overhearing a phone call Rosie made at the house. He says she mentioned meeting “Adela,” the same name written on a note found among Rosie’s possessions.

Finally: the jog. Cantering past a fleet of ferry boats, Linden discovers the word Adela painted on one of them. Adela isn’t a person at all! She’s a boat! The end of the episode finds Linden riding Adela toward an island. We see a sign on that island that reads Wapi Eagle Casino, with a symbol that matches a key chain believed to belong to Rosie.

Boats and island casinos? For the first time since episode one I was reminded of Twin Peaks. But I have a feeling Wapi Eagle is no One Eyed Jack’s.

Most ridiculous fake Seattle thing Did you hear me? I said Wapi Eagle Casino.

Current murder suspect Thank goodness the two obvios—Bennet and Belko—are out of the way. That was so never going to happen. Now that we’re back out on the islands, Rosie’s ex-BF Jasper Ames reemerges as a possible suspect, and let’s not forget about his Dad, Mr. Slappy, and his apparent dalliance with Aunt Terry. Yeah, I’m thinking Autie T is mixed up in this thing somewhere.

The Killing airs Sundays at 10pm on AMC.

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Tags: Recap: AMC's The Killing

Investigating The Killing: Episode Nine

Day nine, the day AMC’s gloomiest show declared war on boulders.

Posted by: James Ross Gardner on May 23, 2011 at 12:10PM 0 Comments

“I just called to say… Do you feel lucky punk? I’ll be back. You had me at ‘hello.’ And you can’t handle the truth.”

If it wasn’t for the scene at the end where Stan and Belko turn Bennet into a punching bag (more on that in a moment) I’d declare last night’s The Killing (“Undertow”) as the episode when the show finally caved in to what it’s flirted with since the pilot: Becoming a standard police procedural that would make Dick Wolf grin.

Last night, right from the top, we got the gruff lieutenant barking at his blundering detectives for not playing by the book. We had the de rigueur chase scene through a crowded market. We even had the aloof powerbroker—in this case Councilmember McSulky, aka Darren Richmond—sipping whisky in a dimly lit bar as a jazz standard wailed on the juke box. And the one liners. Oh sweet Jesus did this episode have one liners.

Now, I’m not complaining about those lines. There’s something satisfying about watching Detective Holder glumly add levity to the whole heavy plot. Two episodes ago we thought he might be, at best, a junkie who takes bribes. Now he’s a heroin-chic Bruce Willis, delivering nuggets of comic relief out the side of his mouth. Let’s take a moment to enjoy Detective Stephen Holder: An Appreciation…

On questioning fish mongers in the Market: “I got nothing from these Deadliest Catch fools.”

Complaining about his superiors: “Maybe I’ll get a job teaching algebra. If Oakes has his head 3-and-a-half feet up his ass, and Judge Elliott has his head 18 inches up his ass, how many total feet of ass do you get? It’s like 5 feet, I think.”

Threatening to turn a Muslim suspect over to the FBI: “Those Virginia farm boys, they’re going to pull some crazy Guantanamo rendition shit on your ass.”

Okay, now for that scene at the end. Stan, through a series of miscues, is convinced that teacher Bennet Ahmed killed Rosie. He and his sloppily bearded employee Belko Royce kidnap Bennet, drive him out to a boulder-strewn dirt road, and bludgeon him with their fists. Stan does most of the beating, but did you see what Belko was doing in the meantime in the background? No? Watch it again. In the upper-left corner of the screen, everyone’s least favorite moving company employee is beating the crap out of… a rock. That’s right, a big boulder. He’s flaying away at it. Never seen that on Law & Order. What does this tell us about Belko? Masochist? Sadist? Both? With just four episodes left in the season, it looks like the writers are finally ready to reveal just how cuckoo Belko is.

Most ridiculous fake Seattle thing: Take your pick. Not only does Pike Place Market—or as supposed longtime local Detective Linden calls it, “the downtown market”—not have escalators, it’s nowhere near Union and 5th Avenue. Moneybags Drexler sports a T-shirt for a basketball team called the “Seabirds.” And you can tell those officers to radio Seattle General hospital all you want, Linden, but they’re not going to get a response any more than they would if they radioed Seattle Grace.

Current murder suspect: Marquis de Belko, enemy of boulders and finely groomed facial hair everywhere.

The Killing airs Sundays at 10pm on AMC.

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Investigating The Killing: Episode Eight

Forgive me, but isn’t this show about a murder?

Posted by: Allison Williams on May 16, 2011 at 03:00PM 0 Comments

Detective Linden, slowly pissing off everyone around her.

When I imagine the writer’s room on the set of The Killing, I picture a big blackboard, upon which they scrawl inspirational phrases like “moody” and “downpour” and “Seattle=hoodies.” While this week’s episode was being assembled, I’m pretty sure the word FORGIVENESS was written in big block letters on that blackboard. We heard the buzzword all night.

Forgiveness: It’s what Holder wants for stealing drug money from his nephew (or so he told a meeting of Narcotics Anonymous). Forgiveness: It’s what Linden wants from her fiance in Sonoma for standing him up about six times, but he’s not taking her calls. Forgiveness: It’s what the drunk driver who killed Richmond’s wife asks for during her parole hearing (“I wonder if it’s against our nature to forgive,” she says, which seems like a counterproductive line of thought for a PAROLE HEARING). Forgiveness is like a night with George Clooney: No one feels like they deserve it, but everyone wants it anyway.

We get it, everyone’s sorry. I’m starting to feel like poor traumatized Mitch, who snapped at Detective Linden and told her to shove it with the apologies. Sing it, Mitch.

We didn’t really get a new red herring suspect this week, so even The Killing is sorry for stringing us along. Our plot developments were few: The FBI barge in and reveal that the mysterious Mohammad is a terrorist suspect (along with teacher Ahmed?), meaning this once small-scale mystery got even more bloated. And candidate Richmond, whose turn from moral superiority was inevitable but kind of abrupt, leaked the news that Mayor Adams kept a staffer as a mistress in a Seattle apartment. (Not for nothing, but this exact same mistress-apartment plot point was used on the last season of The West Wing. We’ll forgive you for stealing from the best.)

The reason we can forgive the messiness of this week is that we’re finally seeing everyone’s nastier sides. Linden has been mostly competent, but when her case stalls she gets sloppy with evidence and breaks the rules by sneaking into an FBI evidence van. For her trouble she gets a healthy dose of cop clichés from her boss. (I think it went something like, “Grumble, grumble, that was some stunt you just pulled! Go mentor the rookie! Grumble grumble.”)

We need Linden to unravel, if only because she’s the only one whose firm grasp on things holds any tension. I don’t think she’s gonna earn much forgiveness from her son or fiance Rick, but my money is still on her surviving with her sanity. What else are we watching for—to find out if Richmond trades his soul for the mayorship? Don’t they all? Is it to find Rosie’s killer? It seems like ages since her murder felt vital and not a game of suspect Whack-a-Mole. I guess we could be holding on to find out if Stan and/or Mitch finally crack—but whether they sob or fight or recreate Rosie’s pink bedroom (or even go postal with a shotgun next week), it all just feels sad.

Most fake Seattle thing We saw the local news air graphic crime scene photos because “We have decided that it is in the public interest to give a realistic picture of this particular crime.” And this is in the morning, while preschoolers are still eating their Cheerios? No way.

It also felt kind of fake that Mayor Adams—he of the fancy men’s club membership—is only paying $1,500 per month for his mistress’s Seattle apartment. Now, I’m not the secret mistress of an elected official (that you know of!), but if I was, I’d sure as heck score a prime pad worth a little more. Just sayin’.

Current murder suspect I’m not going to hop on the Mohammad bandwagon; I refuse to finger a character we haven’t seen. Boring! So I’ll go with Holder’s NA sponsor, Baldy (real name: Gil). He controls Holder’s purse strings—what if Holder is his puppet inside the investigation?

The Killing airs Sundays at 10pm on AMC.

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Investigating The Killing: Episode Seven

Vengeance is no one’s on day seven of the Rosie Larsen case.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on May 10, 2011 at 10:20AM 2 Comments

“Hey Linden, is it just me or does this flash-lit scene take you back to 1990s-era productions like Se7en and The X Files, what with the rusty locks and the creepy grappling hooks?”

“It’s not just you.”

This week’s episode of The Killing is called “Vengeance,” but nobody gets any.

We start out in the car with Bennet Ahmed and Stan Larsen. Stan is supposed to be driving the teacher home—because that’s such a normal thing to do when you’re hosting your daughter’s funeral—but (oopsy daisy!) he misses the exit leading to Ahmed’s apartment and instead drives to the end of a pier. Uh-oh Bennet, is Larsen going to kill you just for being a suspect? That seems kind of harsh.

Oh, but if only it had been Darren Richmond out on that pier, and if only Stan had gone ahead and pushed him into the water (as opposed to Ahmed, whom he just leaves there), we wouldn’t have had to watch the scene.

And no, I’m not referring to the one where Darren and Gwen have unsanitary desk sex. I’m talking about the one where Darren pays a visit to the mother of his dead wife to discuss the imminent release of the drunk driver who killed her (she’s being released from the Bainbridge Island Corrections Facility for Women, because that exists). “I just don’t think I can ever forgive her” he says, in his best throaty soap opera voice. And then his mother-in-law says it. The line. The wretched, wretched line.

“Are you sure it’s just that woman you can’t forgive?”

Subtle, The Killing. Real subtle.

But there was redemption ahead. In a scene at the Larsen house, we learn that Mich’s pregnancy with Rosie had been unplanned. Mich gave Stan an ultimatum: Stop being part of the Polish mob if you want me to keep the baby. So Stan stopped killing and robbing and marauding and doing whatever else the Polish mob do in Seattle, and he became a mover. Having Rosie made it easy, Stan explained. He didn’t want to be a gangster dad. And to avenge Rosie’s death by killing her teacher, he would have had to revert to his pre-Rosie thug self. He would have had to deny the significance Rosie’s life had to him.

That, when you think about it, is a pretty astute metaphor for the psychology of mourning. Getting over a dead loved one is so difficult precisely because it means having to re-enter the world as it was before or without that loved one. In some ways, mourners are forced to revert to a prior version of themselves. Pretty deep stuff.

Let’s see, what else happened? Linden missed another flight to Sonoma—shocking—and we learned she almost lost custody of Jack when she was investigating another child’s murder. It become clear (it was pretty clear before, but okay) that Linden is sticking with the Rosie Larsen case to avenge that kid’s death.

What else? Mich and Terry’s mom shows up, she turns out to be a total beyotch. And in a scene straight out of a Justice League comic, Darren Richmond’s evil mayor nemesis calls an emergency meeting of the Seattle City Council. The council votes unanimously and without debate (LMAO) to suspend the Seattle All-Stars, Darren’s cause celebre. Why? Because Bennet Ahmed is involved and Richmond refuses to kick him out.

Finally, Holder and Linden, acting on a tip, break into a meat-processing plant in Rainier Valley where they are arrested by a gaggle of FBI agents.

Phew, day seven was a long one.

Most ridiculous fake Seattle thing Can we talk, production assistant in charge of research for The Killing? I realize you were stuck in Vancouver for a few months and maybe your goldfish died because your roommate forgot to feed it (but remembered to ruin your silver Manolo sandals) and possibly your boyfriend left you for some slutty Bravo AP. Distractions, all. I get it. But that still didn’t give you carte blanche to do such lackadaisical research. Green Lake mosque in the Rainier Valley? No. Not even close.

Current murder suspect In the episode six wrap-up, we introduced spinster Aunt Terry as a potential suspect. And now that we know what a shrew her mom is, I’m thinking there’s some interesting psychology to explore there.

The Killing airs Sundays at 10pm on AMC.

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Investigating The Killing: Episode Six

More suspects. More clues. Fewer crimes against Seattle verisimilitude.

Posted by: James Ross Gardner on May 02, 2011 at 11:15AM 0 Comments

Aunt Terry: “Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking pot.”

Well hello there new suspects. I’m looking at you Terry the Neko Case–loving aunt. You too Amber Ahmed, the teacher’s wife who’s somehow possessed the body of Growing Pains’ Chrissy Seaver.

You join The Killing’s rascally ranks of potential perps: Bennett Ahmed the dreadlocked and too-obvious-to-be-the-killer teacher; Dad Stan’s bearded right-hand man, Belko Royce, who used to be a gangster and used to wet his bed (not necessarily in that order).

I’m guessing that episode six (“What You Have Left”) destroyed a lot of viewers’ theories last night. I know my Belko Royce conjecture (I’d taken to calling it the BR Bedwetter Theorem) took a nosedive. Royce is looking less like a threat to the Larsen clan and more like some sort of codependent defender. Which isn’t to say he’s completely innocent. (See the way he ominously looked up the stairs just as the family exited for the funeral?). Also, he’s mourning too hard.

But now we’ve got Amber Ahmed, whose word the cops don’t trust—and who wouldn’t answer the door when they came calling and instead cowered with a hammer (murder weapon?) in the corner.

Most surprising of all: Terry. Sidelined until now as the supportive sister of Rosie’s mother Mitch, Aunt Terry’s starting to hog some screen time. And thanks to an awkward exchange in the funeral line we know she has a connection (as jilted lover?) with Jasper Ames’s jet-setting father. She’s so traumatized by that encounter she sulks away to Rosie’s empty bedroom, downs a bottle of wine, lights a joint, and zones out to Neko Case’s “Hold on, Hold on.”

Meanwhile, Detective Holder becomes more of an enigma every episode. After eyeing a drug buy, he whines in vague terms to an associate (his sponsor?) about his habit of making bad choices. What are those bad choices? Shooting heroin? Wearing the same ugly-ass hoodie for six days straight? Or did he kill all the hookers in Detective Linden’s gallery of missing girls? We don’t know. But it’s all the more intriguing given his thinly veiled racist banter with Amber’s sister; you could practically see both characters fantasize about squashing Muslims. (Unless of course Holder was manipulating his witness, as he’s done in the past.)

What does episode six mean in the grand scheme? I take a lot from the exchange between Mitch and Stan in one of the first scenes, where they can’t agree on when Rosie gave Stan a pair of cuff links. They’re so certain of their memories, but they can’t both be right. It’s a reminder—a sort of primer going into the episode—that memory is unreliable and corruptible. When Holder and Linden question Bennett’s neighbors, so certain of what they saw, the witnesses can’t be trusted. No one can.

Most ridiculous fake Seattle thing I’m going to give the producers a pass this week. Bennett Ahmed’s passive-aggressive neighbors were pretty spot on. And the hermit with the telescope who over explains everything with a stutter and won’t make eye contact? We all know that guy.

Current murder suspect I know we just got a new pair of promising potential killers, but they could just as easily be victims. (Though in the case of Aunt Terry, I bet her carelessness or selfishness in some inadvertent way led to Rosie’s demise.) For now, I’m taking a long hard look at Michael Ames, the rich father of Rosie’s ex. Remember a few weeks back when it was pressed upon us, more than once, just how much Jasper hates his father? Now we’ve got this weird, sexually charged link between Old Man Ames and Terry. And where did Rosie get those expensive high heels? You have to wonder.

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Investigating The Killing: Episode Five

Our gang of suspects and detectives is just a bunch of control freaks.

Posted by: Allison Williams on Apr 25, 2011 at 03:00PM 1 Comments

Photo courtesy Carole Segal/AMC.

Stan considers vigilante justice…or he’s stuck on his son’s whole bedwetting problem.

It’s all about self-restraint this week on The Killing. Everyone’s trying to impose a little control over their behavior—a natural response to a murder, an addiction, or a case that won’t quit.

Dad Stan has been the rock of the Larsen family since Rosie’s death, but in this episode he starts to show his grief. Sort of. He breaks down in the sanctity of a roadside men’s room. (It’s well-acted, but this pattern of Mitch and Stan trading grieving scenes is starting to feel indulgent.) Even after that tortured sob, Stan tries to regain some sense of control by enlisting his associate, Belko, to pinpoint a murder suspect for him. That probably won’t end well.

Stan’s not the only one trying to rein himself in: Detective Holder has been celibate for six months; we don’t know if that’s a 12-step program, self-punishment, or, hell, a joke. And Mayor McDrunkypants (er, Mayor Adams) brings a sober buddy to drinks with the Richmond campaign double agent, Jamie. No one trusts themselves in The Killing.

But that brings me to the queen of self-control, Detective Linden. In a small, crucial scene, she buys nonrefundable plane tickets to Sonoma—over the phone (who does that?). Since she can’t return them, she’ll have to make herself go, right? Anyone who’s ever used that reasoning in buying a gym membership knows it’s bullshit. That’s not willpower, it’s wishful thinking. It doesn’t beat the look she gives the wall of crime scene photos. Overcommitment ahoy.

A side note: Compared to Linden’s careful dance with her own intentions, Richmond is starting to feel like a pretty ponderous character. He acts so put-upon as a candidate—not much love for politics or even people. No need for the martyr act, Richmond! No one’s making you run for mayor. (Or are they? Did Gwen push him into it for her own reasons? Did her senator father? Or my current favorite character, Newly Drunk With Booze And Power Jamie?)

Most ridiculous fake Seattle thing The whole speech Mayor Adams gave about the history of the fictional old-boys club. It was like Seattle bingo: Miners! Loggers! Boeing! I half expected him to natter on about how Paul Allen owns it now.

Current murder suspect Frankly, I couldn’t focus on a murder suspect this week—I was too busy freaking out at the casting of Bennet Ahmed’s wife. Teacher married Chrissy Seaver from Growing Pains! But I’ll circle back to Gwen, whose temper flared when her ex-boss, Yitanes, told her that Candidate Richmond suspected her as the campaign mole. Gwen responded emotionally, not even seeing the practicality of her boss/boyfriend’s due diligence. She’s hiding more than a few dirty campaign tricks.

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Investigating The Killing: Episode Four

Spoiler: There are “all kinds of silences” in the latest ep—and a new suspect.

Posted by: James Ross Gardner on Apr 18, 2011 at 10:30AM 0 Comments

Darren Richmond: Mayor of meaningful squinting

Nicely played The Killing writers, nicely played. Last week
you had us on the trail of a pink-wigged red herring after the episode ended with phone camera footage of what looked like rich kid Jasper Ames and junkie sidekick Kris violating Rosie Larsen. But you fooled us! It was, we learned last night, Rosie’s friend Sterling—donning a pink mop—in a willing act of ménage à plot device.

Tricky screenwriters.

But now you’ve really got our attention. In episode four, murder victim Rosie’s absence is felt more than ever. Nearly every scene seems to star a Rosie-shaped void that, as the episode title suggests, produces “A Soundless Echo.” Her parents, Stan and Mitch (Brent Sexton and Michelle Forbes), stare into an empty casket at a funeral parlor. Stan and his employee at the moving company, Belko Royce (Brendan Sexton), stare at the empty house Stan had bought as a family surprise. Stan: “Rosie never had a backyard.” Belko: “If you want to do something about that guy, that [mayoral candidate] Richmond, just say the word and we’ll take care of it. Like old times.” It’s the first solid indication that Stan has a less-than-spiffy past.

Other revelations: Seattle police detective Holder (Joel Kinnaman) may have a drug habit—a suspicion noted by both Holder’s lieutenant and asymmetrically coiffed suspect Kris. Rosie had likely met “someone she couldn’t tell anyone about,” someone who bought her blingy high heels. And the endorsement Darren Richmond (Billy Campbell) so aggressively sought in episode three? It didn’t help him in the polls, and his campaign is out of money.

So behind Richmond’s back, Gwen Eaton (Kristin Lehman), his aide and lover, arranges a meeting with mogul Tom Drexler (Patrick Gilmore), a Paul Allen type “whose patron saint is Ayn Rand.” The candidate shows up at a Drexler-hosted party. So does his opponent, Mayor Adams. Later, outside the party, in one of the first rainless scenes in the series, Drexler hands Richmond a campaign check for $50,000 because, he says, “I want Adams going to his grave pissing in his adult diaper knowing he lost this thing because of me.” Richmond accepts the donation, but not before the actor playing him lowers his gaze and glowers, as if to say, Fine, now where’s my Emmy?

The biggest revelation comes in the last few minutes, when Detective Linden (Mireille Enos) discovers letters from high school teacher Bennett Ahmed (Brandon Jay McLaren) hidden in a globe in Rosie’s bedroom—after many references have been made about the deceased “wanting the world.” In one missive the teacher tells his pupil she’s “an old soul trapped in a young body,” then quotes a long passage that begins “There are all kinds of silences and each of them means a different thing,” and ends with “a soundless echo.” (The quote, by the way, is from the 1942 memoir West with the Night, by aviator Beryl Markham, the first woman to complete an east-west transatlantic flight, a woman who had the world.) The screen cuts to Holder at a Richmond campaign office, where he’s discovered that Rosie often visited with the man in a photo on the wall. The man in the photo: Bennett.

Most ridiculous fake Seattle thing: Money Bags Drexler’s $50,000 adult diaper soiler comes in the form of a check from the “Tukwila Mutual Bank.”

Current murder suspect: All eyes are on Bennett now. But there’s no reason—yet—to believe he and Rosie had anything beyond a platonic mentor/mentee relationship. No, I’m getting increasingly suspicious of Belko Royce, Stan Larsen’s employee. Royce the derelict doesn’t likely have the wherewithal to lavish a mistress with expensive shoes or give her “the world,” but he seems like the adult most likely to murder for money. His offer to retaliate against Richmond suggests that he’s not only capable of violence—to do a hit, “just like old times”—but that he has special knowledge of the campaign’s ties to Rosie’s death. Could someone (Gwen?) in the Richmond camp have hired Royce to kill Rosie to hide a campaign secret, or even scare someone (Bennett?) into keeping mum about the secret? That seems likely. We know Gwen’s in the habit of going behind Richmond’s back when she thinks he’s being too soft. And that the show’s writers love to throw us off track.

The Killing airs Sundays at 10pm on AMC.

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Investigating The Killing: Episode Three

Spoiler: Only three eps in, and we’re already drowning in water metaphors.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Apr 11, 2011 at 10:36AM 1 Comments

“Did you bring an umbrella? It’s metaphoring like crazy out there.”

Rain is ever-present in The Killing. We’ve known that from episode one. But the torrents that soak its slicker-clad, umbrella-toting characters are rather unlike the actual rain here in Seattle.

Real Seattle weather stains our suede shoes and coaxes mold to grow in our basements, but it’s far less intense than the Super Soaker-strength rain in The Killing. This was initially irksome to the verisimilitude-craving viewer (and she was already miffed that the show is being shot in Vancouver, BC, real Seattle footage limited to faux office-window views of the waterfront cranes and B-roll of downtown buildings during transitional montages). However, it becomes clear in episode three why rain is the most aggressive character on the show.

We are being soaked with metaphor.

We knew going in this week that Rosie Larsen died from drowning. She ripped her fingernails off, according to the coroner, attempting to claw her way out of the trunk of a vehicle belonging to the campaign of mayoral candidate Darren Richmond (Billy Campbell).

But at the beginning of the latest episode, Rosie’s parents had not yet learned the cause of death. Detective Linden (Mireille Enos) drops by to tell them that their daughter drowned, and Rosie’s mom Mitch Larsen (Michelle Forbes) asks if she suffered. Linden then delivers a whopping lie that is sure to come back to haunt her. She says that Rosie was likely unconscious when the car went into the lake.

Further along in the episode Mitch is seen soaking in the bathtub, wide-eyed with pain. We watch as she slides her head underwater and holds it there, apparently trying to experience her daughter’s final moment. For a suspenseful few seconds she, too, is drowning. But she can’t stay down long and comes up gasping for air. The gasps quickly turn to tears. Mitch has regained her breath, we are meant to understand, but she continues to drown in her own grief.

Detective Linden, meanwhile, continues to grasp the lifeline that is peacing out of Seattle and moving to Sonoma with her fiance—she is, quite literally, trying to get herself and her son to dry land—but with every passing moment she is dragged deeper and deeper into the murky waters of the Rosie Larsen case.

Over at campaign HQ, Darren Richmond is drowning in his own problems. The news leaks that the car Rosie died in belongs to his campaign, and he subsequently loses the essential support of union organizer Ruth Yitanes (Lee Garlington). The leak is pegged on aide Jamie Wright (Eric Laden), though suspicion lingers that Richmond’s mistress Gwen Eaton (Kristin Lehman) may have set Wright up.

Ready for more water metaphors? Before he is accused of double-crossing the campaign, Wright suggests that Richmond can win back Yitanes’ support by offering her husband a lucrative plumbing gig. Richmond balks, but in the end he takes the advice. Richmond gives Yitanes control of the waterworks of an important project, just as the incumbent mayor announces his plans to develop Seattle’s waterfront. “The waterfront is all he has!” says Gwen.

But controlling the water, in the Seattle of The Killing, is everything. Lose control of it, and you may be the next to drown.

Most ridiculous fake Seattle thing This newspaper headline: “Sea Otter Spotted Eating in Local Cafe.”

Current murder suspect In last week’s recap, Allison Williams named Gwen as the murderess. I see no reason not to continue to suspect her involvement, despite the ugly activities we now know went down in “the cage” prior to Rosie’s murder.

We’ve peeled back one layer of what happened to Rosie that night, but everything points to this thing going way deeper than those two hideous twits from the high school. Keep your galoshes on, the flood is still rising.

The Killing airs Sundays at 10pm on AMC.

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Investigating The Killing

Spoiler: We examine the latest episode of AMC’s Seattle-set crime drama.

Posted by: Allison Williams on Apr 06, 2011 at 10:10AM 0 Comments

Photo courtesy Chris Large/AMC.

No, I’m Crockett, you’re Tubbs! Detectives Holder and Linden on AMC’s The Killing.

One episode in and we’re already mesmerized by AMC’s new Seattle-set drama, The Killing. It’s the spawn of two excellent TV traditions: a dead-girl storyline (we remember you fondly, Twin Peaks and Veronica Mars) and the channel that brought us Mad Men and The Walking Dead. Adapted from a Danish show, The Killing has a lot of style to balance the crime-solving substance, a bleak, gray palate borrowed from its Scandinavian parent (or from Steve Pool’s recent forecasts). It’s filmed primarily in Vancouver, but that’s close enough for accurate drizzle.

The two-part premiere on Sunday night had a lot of ground to cover, and a lot of establishing shots of the Space Needle to show. We learned that Seattle teenager Rosie Larsen is missing, then dead, drowned in Discovery Park after a school dance. But she was beaten first; while most school basements are full of deflated tetherballs, Rosie’s has a little serial-killer bungalow, complete with bloody bed. The whodunit is complicated by the fact that Rosie was found in a car belonging to the mayoral campaign of City Council President Darren Richmond (Billy Campbell). There are a lot of holes for the series to explore—are the Larsen parents merely devastated, or are they hiding something? Is Rosie’s rich-kid boyfriend too obvious to be the killer? And where’s the political angle going? (Please don’t tell us that Rosie was whacked because she discovered some secret documents about the deep-bore tunnel overrun costs. For the love of Mayor McGinn, please.)

Detective Linden is at the center of both the case and the show, and her spotlight is well-earned. Actress Mirielle Enos has morphed the spaciness she showed in Big Love into a steely calm. (Fun fact! Enos is married to actor Alan Ruck, aka Cameron in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, which obviously means they sing this over the breakfast table.)

But it’s Linden’s partner Stephen Holder (a lanky Joel Kinnaman) that has me hooked on this show. First of all, he’s a total ass; he whinges about protocol and asks a high school teacher if he “tapped that” teenager. But here’s my prediction: Holder is more than a scummy loose-cannon cliché. He’s crazy like a fox. After working as an undercover cop, he knows the power of lowering someone’s guard, even giving underage girls weed so that they’ll reveal their high school’s seedy underbelly. Just watch, Holder’s going to get more emotionally invested in finding Rosie’s killer than anybody. Need a bolder prediction? Hmm…okay, he’s totally going to crush on the practical, grim Linden when even his brattiest misbehavior fails to nail the killer. Prove me wrong, AMC.

Seattle Met will be following The Killing through its first-season run, keeping an eye out for fake Seattle shots and recapping each Monday with our current pick for Rosie’s murderer. So far, every single character—except maybe Detective Linden and her 13-year-old son—is a suspect. But with almost nothing to go on but gut instinct, I’m naming Gwen, Richmond’s campaign manager, as the killer. She’d do anything for her candidate-slash-boyfriend, and homegirl is intense.

Anyone else dare to hazard a guess this early? After what happened to my March Madness bracket, I’ve learned that the wildest guess can be the smartest.

The Killing airs Sundays at 10pm. Missed the premiere? We present…episodes 1 and 2.

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