The Killing -- new series on AMC

Cafe Society
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I came to make a reference to the infamous Breaking Bad episode “Fly” which to me is one of the finest filler-episodes of all times, half of the X-Files or Twin Peaks episodes notwithstanding. I mean, I do realize it does not move action forward and it was painful to watch that BB episode, yet the momentum that BB has built made for a much finer and poignant overall experience.

And while The Killing is not in the same league of dramatic thrust it actually brought something innovative about complexities of characters assuming much more than the situation is calling for. What I mean is it shows how a high degree of selfishness is at the centre of what drives much of the individual action and perpetual inability to connect on a human level by seeking to tame unacknowledged anxieties. Some notable selfish characters that pushed action in a certain direction are Gwen, Stan Larsen and now Sarah Linden.

Just rambling a bit while on the boring conf call…

And yeah, I was pained during the episode but did have post-watching pleasure.

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I think AMC is pulling a Twin Peaks on us! They will have to promote the shit out of their next new venture before I invest the time in it I have in this one. The only fair thing I can muster to say about the episode is that the weather may have messed with their shooting schedule and they just adlibbed their way through an hour’s worth of stream-of-consciousness drivel.

Weak!

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I guess I’m all alone here, as usual. I thought it was a fine episode, filler or not. Yes, they seemed to have shoe-horned this exploration of the past into the show too late, but I thought the acting was fine, and I felt really bad for the both of them. I wonder what was up with the boy’s dad that she wouldn’t have even called him. I also wonder, what Indians run the casino, are they a real Indian tribe or a made-up one?

224

I generally like the show; I actually prefer series with a moody feel to them. This episode did nothing to further the plot other than a token afterthought at the end, so to me was a waste of air-time. I guess they thought they should show that these two have some emotion, rather than walking around in the rain like zombies most of the time, but that could have been woven in during the other episodes, rather than doing this. I didn’t like “The Fly” episode, either, other than it showed pretty graphically Walt’s mental breakdown.

225

OK, I just read this entire thread for the first time. I’ve been watching this show since it began and I love it. I love the dreary suspense and I love how every single character is a question mark. What I don’t like is the constant misdirection the show gives off. Why I don’t like it is because usually you are shown something with no dialog whatsoever.

I understand some peeps just hanging on to see it through, because we’re all trying to figure out who the murderer is. This last episode had me saying, “are they going to use an entire episode to look for Sarah’s kid?” While they did do that, we did get to find out alot about Sarah and Holder: Sarah’s was a ward of the state, Reggie’s her case worker, Holder has the gold coin he stole from his nephew and wants to return it, Sarah’s last case put a kid in the system, just like she was. These are all revealing facts about the detectives that explain why they make the decisions and assumptions that they do.

Does anyone think the rich guy who hates the current mayor and donated all that money to Rick’s campaign is involved? Was she the rich guy Rosie was seeing? I haven’t tied it together yet but with his money and connections…I mean, if you saw the previews for next week, you hear Holder say, “Rosie was making deposits at these ATM’s.”

Flashing back to the first episode : Rosie is running through the woods trying to escape. Are these the woods near the ferry? Someone is chasing her with a flashlight. Are we to assume this is her killer? Or someone who captures her and throws her in the trunk of the car with the intention of taking her somewhere?

For those who think it’s the Aunt, why do you think so? What’s her motive? Did she find out the Aunt and her Dad were having an affair?

Anyways, I love the show and the actors. I’m excited for the finale. Now I wonder, if there’s a next season, do we focus on another murder? With a new set of characters?

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All I can say is that unless they do some real magic in these last two (is it three?) episodes to make the season worth the wait to see what they had in mind, unless they do that, I won’t be bothering with another season. I predict it will Rubicon away into the ether.

227

I liked this episode. I agree that the character development might have been better if it had been spaced out, but it makes sense that it would happen when Linden is in a bad place, vulnerable.

Why does Linden have a social worker?

So Liz is Holder’s sister? Are the kids his or hers?

Ridiculousness: More pouring rain, Holder figuring out the pass code, the restricted number for Jack’s dad, Linden not considering Jack was with his dad, the school not calling sooner, the kid’s mother telling Linden Jack was a bad boy, nobody answering Linden or Holder’s calls, neither of them actually doing any police work all day (was it their day off?), Jack leaving the motel without his cell phone.

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Who cares about the character development anyway? It’s supposed to be a whodunnit, not a chick flick.

It would also be nice if Linden could learn more than one facial expression, and if Holder would give it a rest with the Eminem impression. Both those things are starting to wear.

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The white-boy ghetto wannabe talk by a supposed adult is annoying to me, also. You did drugs, we get it.

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I came to this thread just to see if other people had the same reaction that I did, and boy, I suppose so.

I’ve been enjoying the show from the beginning. I agree that some character development would have been nice earlier in the series, but at this point the horse is out of the barn. You have three episodes left and you spend fully one third of them on a boring, pointless, inconsistent, nonsensical piece of garbage like this episode?

At our house, we looked around at one another about 20 minutes in, wondering what the hell was going on. This episode had about as much narrative purpose as a clip show would have. In fact, I would have preferred a clip show.

Yes, of course, in television and movies you can in fact show time passing when it helps to heighten the tension. Wasn’t happening here.

You can use time passing to reveal new information about characters. Was happening here, but at this point, we don’t care! I’m tired of the “problems with Jack” subplot. I’m tired of the postponed romantic relationship/wedding plans subplot. Okay, Linden is functionally Asperger’s Disordered - got it, let’s move on.

This show was time passing in the worst way.

It was made perhaps more painful because Linden had just found something very, very interesting (the casino bit), augmented by the apparent interest the casino management had in the girl’s disappearance, and heightened by the somewhat clever bit about being able to access the ATM camera footage. But the shows writers basically said, “Pretty cool stuff, huh? You’re going to have to wait an hour, and then another week to find more while we force some less-than-timely character development down your throat.”

As the kids say: epic fail.

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I believe from the beginning the makers of this thing said it wasn’t about the murder so much as the effects, the repercussions, of the murder on the family and the community. We viewers never met Rosie, we have no empathy with her. I’m watching mostly out of idle curiosity to see what sordid thing she was involved with to get her murdered, and who did it and why. (Similar to the last season of Lost, I didn’t have a clear idea of what was going on, but I still enjoyed watching, and wanted to see how it ended.)

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Rather than going off on a wild hair and starting another thread on the issue, I’m wondering how a piece-of-shit series like this can survive when they kill off a great show like Terriers. I know, different networks, different (I will assume) demographics, and that sort of thing. But there’s no justice!

Other dead ones that I would gladly watch in this time slot in preference to The Killing:

Human Target
Lie To Me
Chicago Code
Detroit 1-8-7

Rubicon

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That’s fine, and that’s a great thing to develop a show around.

This episode didn’t have anything to do with that, though. It had to do with her son being missing for a day and her efforts to find him, which ends up with him just standing in the hall outside their hotel room at the end of the day.

You might say that it had a little to do with the influence of Linden’s decision to stay to investigate the murder on her relationship with her son, but a) it was at best indirectly related to the problems they are having, and b) that ground has been really well-trod prior to this episode.

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I’ve been pretty forgiving of the show’s flaws; up until now, that is.

AMC’s streak has ended.
mmm

235

The only redeeming part of this episode was the total lack of sad family.

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The only redeeming part of this episode was the total lack of [DEL]sad family[/DEL] political strategy team.
mmm

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Couple of reasons. 1) There isn’t much else on in the way of new drama at the moment. The big network shows are all on hiatus for the summer and none of the summer series have started up. Other than Game of Thrones on HBO the premium channels are also fairly devoid of content with True Blood, Dexter and most of the other compelling stuff on break. 2) We got sucked in by a decent premise and set up. Bad TV can be redeemed by an excellent payoff at the end and some of us are probably holding out hope that that’ll be the case. Some bad TV is worth it in it’s own right, I’m sure we’ve all stuck with crappy shows for thin reasons before, and this one is at least unique even if it’s sorta poorly executed.

Time will tell but one of the upsides of these cable original series is that they air on off cycles and tend to only be 8-12 episodes long. That’s not a big commitment.

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A good episode ONLY if it had aired around episode 5 or 6. It was a totally inappropriate episode for number 11. We should have a better glimpse by now as to who killed Rosie, but the focus backtracked to character development for the two detectives? I don’t get it. And I liked Holder so much better back when he was perceived as a slimeball willing to get teenage girls high. He’s a born again Christian? That’s fine in real-life, but this is a TV show and it’s made his promising skeevy character look really lame.

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I felt that the Danish original lost its way a bit in the second half. However, it sounds from what people have been saying here that the American version is now diverging from the original.

240

God. Slowest episode ever. Yeah, Linden is a flawed mother who grew up without a mother figure, and Holden deals with his addiction by turning to Jesus and patty-less burgers. Did they really need an entire episode to establish this? Was very annoyed at the end.

Did Rosie’s autopsy say she’d been raped or not?