“The cops are asking about birthmarks and scars and jewelery and anything they can identify her with.” – Mitch
Mystery shows are sometime difficult to review, especially in the early going. It can be a bit of a slog putting all of the pieces on the board. Without knowing the ending, it’s hard to say whether or not the juice will be worth the squeeze. It’s possible to suffer through a sloppy set up and eventually find yourself in the midst of a mind-blowing climax, but it’s also possible that the ride itself could be fun but the pay-off turns out to be a dud. After just two episodes (which premiered back-to-back Sunday on AMC), the jury is still out on which camp (if either) The Killing will fall in.
The Killing is a murder mystery show that follows the investigation of a single homicide. (Not to be confused with the litany of uninspired shows that chronicle a different killing each week.) The show is a remake of a Danish series, although the network promises that enough changes have been made to keep viewers from being able to check online for spoilers.
The fact that the entire show is based on one case allows The Killing to delve deeper into the investigation and the people surrounding it than would be possible in a standard procedural. While I appreciate what the show is trying to do, this format comes at a cost. The pacing at least in the early going is, well, to put it kindly, “deliberate.” It takes 42 minutes to find the body of 17-year-old Rosie Larson. The Killing does a admirable job of ramping up the tension before the corpse is discovered, but I found myself getting a bit impatient at certain points during the first half of the episode. We know there is going to be a murder — the show is called The Killing after all — so all of the conjecture about whether or not Rosie may have just run away feels a tad superfluous.
The Killing is set in Seattle, which makes an excellent stage for a murder mystery. The show is shot in a way that conveys dampness and darkness, while also managing to look crisp and lush. The city itself looks very cool, but the constant transitional shots of the Seattle skyline between scenes becomes somewhat annoying. No joke, EVERY scene begins with one of these shots. It’s as if the director can’t figure out how to start and end a scene and is using them as a crutch.
I very much enjoyed the first two episodes, but I was at times distracted by some clunky dialogue, especially from the teenage characters. This is a problem that is certainly not unique to The Killing. Writers often have a difficult time nailing the slang and speech patterns of characters much younger than themselves, so I won’t hold this gripe against them too much. To sum up my bitching; I had an issue with some of the dialogue, I found the pacing to be a little slow at times, and the transitional shots between scenes were annoying. Just about everything else I liked.
Going forward, I’m not quite sure how I will format my reviews/recaps, but for the pilot episode I figure it is best just to give a breakdown of the major players and how they relate to the case. Here goes nothin’:
Mitch (Michelle Forbes) and Stanley Larson (Brent Sexton)
Mitch (Mom) and Stan (Dad) are Rosie’s parents. They seem like a pretty typical couple. Stan is portrayed as a sweet, working-class Joe, the type of guy who wears overalls all the time. He owns some kind of meatpacking business (I think). They were out of town on a camping trip the weekend of Rosie’s murder. (The show begins on Monday and Rosie was last seen at a school Halloween dance on Friday night). A bloody sweater and a credit card belonging to Stan are found in a field, sparking the investigation. Stan is initially a suspect (although only very briefly), but his camping alibi checks out. For much of the first half of the episode the Larson family is kept in the dark about the particulars of the investigation, I suppose because a body hadn’t been found and the police didn’t want them to panic. There is a pretty heartbreaking scene in which Stan, not knowing what else to do, drives to the park where Rosie’s sweater was found. He is talking to his wife on the phone as he pulls up and finds the park crawling with cops. When it becomes clear that the police are investigating a murder, and not just a missing persons case, he absolutely freaks out and has to be restrained by the police. All the while, Mitch is listening helplessly on the phone as the tragic scene unfolds.
Det. Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos)
Sarah is the homicide detective assigned to the murder. She is about to move from Seattle to California with her over-the-top nice fiancé and her depressed teenage son when the case file lands on her desk. Not exactly an original idea (you know, the whole “I want to leave the force, but not before I solve this ONE LAST CASE” thing), but that’s okay, tropes are effective sometimes. Sarah seems quiet and methodical, unlike her new partner, a transfer to Homicide from the Vice Squad, Stephen Holder (Joel Kinnaman). Holder is gung-ho, in kind of an obnoxious way. I hate his faux-gangster accent. I’m sure as the series progresses the two will learn to work together and feed off of their differing styles. (That’s the way it generally works on a television police force, right?)
Councilman Darren Richmond (Bill Campbell)
Richmond is a very interesting character and, at first blush at least, the most mysterious of the bunch. Initially it appears like he is just a politician capitalizing a tragedy to bring attention to himself during a hotly contested mayoral bid. But the case gets much more personal for the Councilman when Rosie’s body is discovered in the trunk of one of his campaign cars. If that isn’t distraction enough, Darren is carrying on an affair with on his campaign staffers. His back story gets even more complex when reference is made to his wife’s tragic death.
Sterling (Kasey Rohl)
Rosie’s (seemingly) only friend, Sterling covers for Rosie, saying that she is sleeping over. Sterling suspects that the victim spent the weekend with her rich and jerky ex-boyfriend, Jasper. There is something fishy going on with Sterling, she might know more than she is letting on. There is some indication that Rosie might not have been particularly innocent during her brief earthly stay and Sterling might be trying to protect she and her friend’s reputations.
Jasper (Rich Harmon)
Video game enthusiast and Rosie’s a-hole ex-boyfriend. His father is some kind of big shot who sweeps in to shield his son from consequence whenever he gets himself into trouble (which appears to be often). Jasper is definitely a suspect, but I get the feeling that he might be a red herring of sorts, too easy an answer to the mystery.
Please feel free to use the comments section to discuss clues and try to solve the mystery with me as the season goes along. Once we get a little further into the story, I’ll start offering some of my own theories for readers to pick apart.
Some stats and info about The Killing, “Pilot” and “The Cage”
TV SHOW – The Killing
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 1 Episode 1 & 2
AIRED ON – April 3rd, 2011
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – AMC
GENRE – Drama, Crime Dramas
CREATED BY – Veena Sud
CAST – Mireille Enos, Joel Kinnaman, Billy Campbell, Liam James, Michelle Forbes, Brent Sexton, Kristin Lehman, Eric Laden, Jamie Anne Allman
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.