Culture Fiend

Lindy West Is Now Writing for Vulture

Even better: She’s recapping Glee.

Posted by: Laura Dannen on Oct 06, 2011 at 03:15PM 0 Comments

Photo courtesy Mike Yarish/FOX.

I’m not watching this season of Glee, but I’ll read the recaps.

So there I was, reading TV recaps on New York magazine’s Vulture blog…it’s work, I swear…when I got to the latest Glee episode and it had this for an opening:

For the most part, this season so far has been a disappointing blend of schmaltzy dullness and crazy-bananas nonsense. Episode three, to its credit, has abandoned dullness TO THE MAX. This episode is not boring. It also makes less sense than Gary Busey’s dream journal. It makes less sense than Ikea’s assembly instructions for their build-it-yourself space station (FLËRG). It makes less sense than when people make a radio out of a potato (how do they DO that!?!?). This episode is bonkers and I kind of loved it for that. Bonkers is better than boring.

I know that voice. Those erratic CAPS. Who else would reference something as hilarious as an Ikea build-it-yourself space station? I scrolled down to the bottom and there it was: written by Lindy West. The Stranger‘s former film critic and eviscerater of Sex and the City movies recently left Seattle for LA, according to her Twitter, where’s she apparently writing balls-out funny Glee recaps and interviewing Peter Dinklage. Well done, Lindy.

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Tags: Television

Jane Espenson Is a Grown-Up Girl Geek

One of TV’s biggest science-fiction writers comes to EMP for GeekGirlCon.

Posted by: Allison Williams on Oct 05, 2011 at 11:30AM 3 Comments

Who are you calling a geek? Oh, this lady. Cool.

If you’ve ever watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, or Game of Thrones, guess what: You’re probably a geek. It also means you’ve seen episodes penned by Jane Espenson, a prolific television writer and producer who’s also behind this fall’s drama Once Upon a Time and comedic web series Husbands (check out the Nathan Fillion cameo!).

With nerd cred like that, it’s no wonder she’s a featured guest at this weekend’s GeekGirlCon. Espenson will be at the EMP to talk about her career on Saturday at 1pm, then wax poetic on her Buffy years in a Whedonistas panel at 5:30pm. We caught up with the sci-fi celebrity to find out what’s so exciting about girls and geeks:

Would you call yourself a nerd?
Sure, absolutely. [Nerd] is used now to mean a fan, anyone who’s obsessively into anything. But it used to mean someone more academically advanced and socially disadvantaged. I definitely fit both of those.

What do you expect from the GeekGirlCon?
It’ll be good, as long as it’s not exclusive. I want boys to feel included. The whole emphasis should be that we’re not the cool kids, so we don’t exclude anyone.

Do you ever get tired of being a poster child for female geeks?
No, not at all! I love science-fiction fandom, because there’s no reason why anyone should know my name. But in science-fiction shows, people pay attention to who writes the show. They value writing and they value ideas. Writers get to be as revered as the actors, or more. And I love that, because I’m a writer.

Many sci-fi shows film in Vancouver, including your own upcoming Once Upon a Time. Is the Northwest naturally geeky?
I think there’s something about tax breaks [in Vancouver]. There are enormous financial incentives, and it makes it much more affordable. And with sci-fi, you’re wanting to spend some money on effects, so you’ll want to save money on other areas. And it’s part of the tax break, that you employ local hires, so you can hear the Canadian accents all over sci-fi.

What’s the geekiest piece of clothing you own?
Oh my gosh. On my first season at Buffy, the Christmas gift we got from [actor] Alexis Denisof was a fanny pack that says BUFFY. I wear it in Las Vegas when I go to there.

Are there still gender issues in the world of sci-fi and fantasy?
Yes, though maybe a little less acute than similar problems outside of science fiction and fantasy. I think they have a great history of inclusivity. There’s always been a pretty good presence in sci-fi for women…. People think sci-fi must be the worst boys’ club in TV. No, that’s sitcoms.

I try to make myself hyper-conscious of [gender portrayals]. I ask myself, what if I switched all my genders? I try to make sure that I’m writing something as enlightened as I’d like to think I am.

So your writing is genderless?
No, it’s not genderless portrayals… [but] I’m not sure I’m willing to say that men and women are different, that women are more romantic and men are more likely to fly off the handle. I would like to see things a little more genderless. Why do we assume that the female will fall in love and the man will, like, pick his nose? I know a lot of active women who pick their noses.

Hear Jane Espenson at GeekGirlCon on October 8.

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Tags: Television, Interview, Experience Music Project, GeekGirlCon

Slideshow: Seattle’s Boardwalk Empire Sneak Peek

We put on our best bowler hat for a party and preview of season 2.

Posted by: Heather Fink on Sep 19, 2011 at 02:00PM 0 Comments

All photos by Carey Rose.

The Tommy gun: an always-excellent means of ensuring speedy service.

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All photos by Carey Rose.

The Tommy gun: an always-excellent means of ensuring speedy service.

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The season two premiere of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire took place at the Big Picture, a bar and theater beneath El Gaucho in Belltown. Specialty cocktails were available in addition to the usual selection of beer, wine, and bubbly.

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Kieran Archer works the bar at the Big Picture, serving up drinks to attendees who were encouraged to dress (and party) like it’s 1919.

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The premiere “should be great,” said Todd Hattori, decked out in a full suit and bowler.

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Chris Warner, second from right, sits with a group of friends before the premiere. “We’re fans of the show, and fans of dressing up,” said Warner, who purchased his bowler hat from a Goorin Bros. Hat Shop in Seattle.

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Leah and Marty Ross pieced together their outfits from a costume shop in Northgate, leftovers from a wedding, and a Value Village. “We decided to roll it into Halloween,” Leah said.

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Another group gets a last-minute drink order in before the show.

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A group hailing from Issaquah said they love the show, and when they saw the suggestion to dress up, decided to be “good sports.”

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There were no smartphones in 1919 — you’re breaking character!

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Shea Whigham, who plays Sheriff Eli Thompson on the show, chatted briefly before the screening about their latest round of taping (which had just wrapped). He withheld all juicy tidbits about the second season.

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Eric Warner, with friends Lee Kalfan (left) and Kate Solomon, exit the premiere and head over to the first spot on the “speakeasy crawl,” the Sarajevo Lounge (aka the old Del Rey).

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The Sarajevo Lounge was booked exclusively for participants in HBO’s pub crawl, and offered drink specials, snacks, and a photo booth.

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Kate Solomon makes sure the bartender mixes that drink right at Sarajevo Lounge.

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Lee Kalfan and Kate Solomon have a souvenir photo taken at the Sarajevo Club photo booth.

The scene at Belltown’s Big Picture bar and cinema last Friday was decidedly un-Seattle. Locals dressed in bowler hats and flapper dresses? Strangers mingling? A man brandishing a Tommy gun in a dimly lit underground bar? Okay, the Tommy gun was a fake, but the costumes—and a palpable buzz in the air—were real.

Thanks to the high concentration of Seattle-area Facebook fans for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, our city played host to a sneak preview of season two of the Prohibition-era drama, followed by a pub crawl with complimentary food and booze. The theater, with seats for 100, was filled nearly to capacity as Shea Whigham (Sheriff Eli Thompson) took center stage to properly introduce the show. Despite delivering a recap of last season with a quality Jersey accent, Whigham was decidedly tight-lipped about the rest of the new season.

The good news: The second season of Boardwalk hasn’t faltered in costuming, acting, or drama. Nucky faces new challenges [SPOILER!] following his arrest for election fraud, Chalky White goes up against the KKK, and Agent Van Alden’s wife Rose comes to Atlantic City for their anniversary (which proves to be a strangely hypnotizing, slightly awkward occasion).

View the slideshow for more from Friday night’s Seattle “speakeasy crawl.”

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Tags: Belltown, Television, Slideshow, Boardwalk Empire, Pub Crawl

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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Tags: Television, Television, Recap: AMC's The Killing

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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Tags: Television, Recap: AMC's The Killing,

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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Tags: Television, Recap: AMC's The Killing

Vicci Martinez Makes It to Next Round of NBC’s The Voice

Tacoma rocker outsings Niki Dawson in “the best duet of the night.”

Posted by: Laura Dannen on May 11, 2011 at 06:20PM 1 Comments

I just heard that Tacoma rocker Vicci Martinez won last night’s elimination round on NBC’s The Voice in a too-close-to-call battle with 19-year-old Niki Dawson. Woo! Watch the clip above for a replay of their singoff: a duet of Pink’s “F***ing Perfect” that Adam Levine called the best performance of the night.

A few thoughts:

—I love that they’re referring to Vicci as a “fiery soul singer from the Pacific Northwest.” It makes the NW sound so much less soggy.

—Has anyone ever called Cee Lo out on his sunglasses-at-night thing?

—I should actually start watching this show rather than replaying clips online. I think I like it better than American Idol.

UPDATED 5/18/11. Vicci has a few weeks off from battling on The Voice, so she’s coming home to play a show at Showbox at the Market on Saturday, May 28. Tickets are on sale now.

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Tags: Reality TV, Television, Local Music, Vicci Martinez, The Voice

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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Tags: Television, Recap: AMC's The Killing, Seattle In the Spotlight

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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Tags: Television, Recap: AMC's The Killing,

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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