“Rosie’s gone. Finding out who killed her won’t change that.” – Stan
Over the past few weeks The Killing fell into a familiar pattern. The format of the show was basically as follows; the first ten or fifteen minutes was devoted to disproving the prior episode’s red herring, the middle section was mainly the cops running in place and the machinations of the Richmond campaign, and the final 10 minutes introduced another red herring followed by a dramatic cliffhanger. Rinse. Repeat. Don’t get me wrong, this is a perfectly reasonable set-up for an episode, the concern is how long a show can keep it up without becoming predictable.
“Super 8” bucks this trend, but I’m not sure the change improves the quality of the episode. When you have an entire season to tell a single story – in this case the story is, obviously, Rosie Larsen’s murder – there are bound to be slow patches. The trick is making these lulls feel like more than just filler. Unfortunately “Super 8” felt like just that: filler.
So there’s my little 30 second critique, now let’s jump into the theorizing.
Clues/Theories
Last week’s episode ended with the revelation that Bennett (Brandon Jay McLaren) and Rosie (Kate Findlay) had some sort of relationship outside of class which makes him the prime suspect at this point. I expected the show to follow the pattern it had established previously and have Bennett’s name cleared pretty early on. That didn’t happen and, in fact, as the episode progresses he looks more and more guilty. First he admits to having access to Richmond’s (Bill Campbell) campaign cars (although he claims to have never used one). Then he gets busted lying about his alibi.
At his home, Sarah (Marielle Enos) and Holder (Joel Kinnaman) find ammonium hydroxide (a chemical that can apparently be used to destroy evidence left on a victim’s body) on the floor of a plastic tarp covered space that looks suspiciously like a Dexter-esque kill-room. (Although, its probably more likely that the plastic sheeting was simply being used to keep paint from dripping on the floor). Even creepier, the cops discover that Bennett not only had some kind of indiscretion with a student at another school, but he is married to one of his former pupils. As skeevy as it id, teachers marrying students might be more common than one would assume. I had a teacher is high school who started a family with a former student and I also know a girl who married the band teacher after graduation. Weird.
The evidence is mounting up, huh? I don’t really know what to make of all this. It certainly seems pretty damning, but something doesn’t feel right. I still don’t think Bennett is going to turn out to be the killer. When taken together the evidence looks bad, but it is possible to explain away most of the individual pieces. Maybe it’s all one unfortunate coincidence. Maybe it really was merely “intellectual discourse” between Bennett and Rosie. Maybe he really did send his wife out of town so she wouldn’t be bothered by home improvements. Maybe the ammonium hydroxide was really for treating the hardwood floors.
The piece of evidence that I keep coming back to is the video tape. I mean, what the hell was that thing? There has to be some kind of clue hidden in those frames that Sarah had blown up. Any theories?
I’m glad I noticed that Jamie (Eric Ladin) was drinking water at the bar in “A Soundless Echo”. It turns out that Jamie is a teetotaler, which becomes (relatively) significant in “Super 8”. He gets drunk at a meeting with Adams (Tom Butler), and ingratiates himself with the mayor. His position in the mayor’s inner circle allows him to discover the source of Richmond’s leak; Ruth Yitanes. Apparently, Ruth gave the story of Darren’s connection to the murder to the press in order to leverage a government contract for her husband’s business. Now let’s take this a step further. Does anyone think it’s possible that Ruth not only capitalized on Rosie’s death, but also planned it? Could Ruth have set up the murder and planted the body in Richmond’s car in order to send him running right into her clutches? I doubt it, but it’s worth considering.
More intrigue this week on the Holder front. Sarah catches a glimpse of him accepting an envelope of cash from a stranger in a car. When she asks him about it he mentions something about blackjack and quickly changes the subject. Could Holder be a mole inside the police department, feeding information in exchange for cash? If so, who is he working for? Adams? Yitanes?
At the end of the episode, we see him slip the envelope into the mailbox of a small house with what appears to be a family inside. Who are these people? Does Holder have kids? I remember him saying something about his mom not being around much in an earlier episode, is he taking of her? Any guesses? Do you think that the money has any connection to Holder’s decision to go celibate for six months for “personal reasons”?
One last note: The Killing seems to have a slight obsession with breakfast foods. First it made a big production out of the chocolate-chip pancakes scene. Then in this at least two or three separate scenes revolved around “Bits ‘N Pieces” cereal. Symbolism or coincidence?
Some stats and info about The Killing, “Super 8”
TV SHOW – The Killing
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 1 Episode 5
AIRED ON – April 24th, 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.