“The guy was right. But he was wearing a dress.” – Holder
“Vengeance” is one of those hours of TV that seem pretty great while you’re in the moment, but ultimately fails to hold up under scrutiny. Take the opening scene, for example. The episode starts up where we left off last week, with Stan (Brent Sexton) and Bennett (Brandon Jay McLaren) driving though a torrential downpour toward Ahmed’s certain doom. Stan parks the car and exits, then pops up spookily outside the passenger window. Meanwhile, Linden (Mirielle Enos) is pounding on Ahmed’s front door, screaming for Amber (Ashley Johnson) to let her in. It’s all very exciting, but what significance does it hold, really? Stan doesn’t kill Ahmed, nor does he glean any particularly insightful information from him.
Linden, on the other hand, nets a treasure trove of info from Amber before Bennett is able to barge in and shut the impromptu interrogation down. First, Amber says that she went to the dance on Friday and sat in the parking lot because she isn’t able to trust her husband around 17-year-old girls, what “with their perfect bodies” and all. Then she informs Sarah that she had previously had a miscarriage and is thus unable to carry any heavy objects, i.e. dead bodies and such. So, chances are Amber isn’t the one the neighbor saw helping carry Rosie’s body out of the house.
Forgive me for not turning in a review of last week’s episode (I have just moved from my hometown of Baltimore to Chicago, so I have been quite busy), but had I had time to write it, I would have floated a wild theory. Luckily, after this week, I still think it might be a possibility. The woman who helped carry Rosie’s body out of the house was none other than Mitch’s sister, Terry (Jamie Ann Allman). Now, I don’t really have much evidence for this, just a vibe, really. But hear me out. My suspicions were first raised last week at the wake. Jasper’s father, Michael Ames (Barclay Hope), approaches the Larsen’s to give his condolences and Terry greets him with an almost seductive sounding “Hiiiii.”
Mr. Ames just looks away in disgust. So perhaps Terry has a checkered past that we haven’t learned about yet. Then there is a weird scene at the end of last week’s episode where Terry is playing records and getting blitzed on wine and weed. This week, the writers made a big deal about focusing on Mitch’s side of the family. For whatever reason, it feels like the show is telling us to look in her direction. I can’t say for sure what her connection to the crime is, but it seems to me that we will find out soon enough.
Also, while at the Ahmed house, Sarah finds out that Bennett has been hanging out with a guy named Muhammad a lot lately and that this mystery gentleman has a key to their house. Before she leaves, Linden snags a copy of a Qur’an and gets an address for Bennett’s mosque. She checks the place out and pretty much gets stonewalled by an imam who is unhappy with the level of service the police have provided in trying to locate a missing Muslim girl. He says that if they help find her, he will help find Muhammad. Now, don’t get me wrong, this is a good scene and the back and forth between the cops and the religious leader felt natural. But the whole missing Muslim girl thing just screams, “FILLER EPISODE COMING SOON.” Holder (Joel Kinnaman) and Linden will have to track this girl down and the focus will be taken from the meat of the show, the Rosie case.
That leads us to the final scene — the FBI raid. While putting on her shoes to exit the mosque, Linden finds inside one of them a note with an address on it. She and Holder check the place out and find some kind of creepy industrial space. What kind of building were they in? The hooks and stuff made me think slaughterhouse, but I’m not sure. Right when the audience thinks the camera is going to pan to something gruesome, a platoon of federal agents barges in and takes the cops down.
Like I said before, this is all very exciting. But what does it mean? It feels to me like the beginning of another dead end, another red herring. I mean, no chance Rosie’s murder was at all related to Islamic extremism, right? I certainly hope not, as that would be a stretch that I don’t think I would be willing to accept.
Other thoughts:
- Linden is clearly in a kind of manic state right now. She’s forgetting flights, chewing gum like a crazy person and totally freaking that Regi chick out. “I don’t want to do this anymore, I’m finished with this life. But I have to wrap up this case.” Not exactly the words of a sane person. Guesses on what exactly happened with her during the other case with the kid they keep referencing? Suicide attempt, maybe?
- I didn’t really mention anything about the Richmond storyline in my review, but there is one development to note. His wife was not murdered but killed by a drunk driver. So that’s one more connection to the Rosie case that you can cross off the list. Right now, Bennett is the only thing tethering the Richmond campaign to Rosie and Darren appears on the cusp of cutting ties with him.
- It just doesn’t get any easier watching Stan and Mitch, does it? Both actors are killing it (no pun intended) but it just wears on a person to watch that much grief.
- Stan doesn’t kill Bennett, but the episode ends with Mitch sitting outside the Ahmed house. Do we think that she can do what her husband is no longer capable of?
Some stats and info about The Killing, “Vengeance”
TV SHOW – The Killing
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 1 Episode 7
AIRED ON – May 8th, 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.