Last updated on August 10, 2014
I’m one of those rare people who doesn’t exactly love AMC’s serialized drama line-up. Trust me, I’ve tried. Having watched two seasons of Breaking Bad, an episode of Mad Men, and a sustained lack of interest in zombies which makes The Walking Dead unpalatable, I don’t quite get what’s so original. If I wanted to see Macbeth, I’ll see Macbeth; I don’t need to see the forever extended version from Arizona with Bryan Cranston and a funny nickname. At the same time, my penchant for serialized television being IMPORTANT and MEANINGFUL has led to a lot of dead ends. For example, I watched LOST and Fringe all the way through, easily finding myself with a bag full of unanswered questions and lots of emotional closure…I guess!
Frankly, the problem lies more in the specter of cancellation – if you don’t do well, you can’t finish the story, but if your show does great in the ratings, you need to perpetuate the narrative. I could see this problem vividly in Chuck, which ended up on the verge of cancellation nearly every half season (and those “half season finales” felt like possible series finales every time). On the one end, you need to string your audience along; on the other hand, you also need to keep your options open to end the story well. Either way, you sacrifice SOMETHING.
In that way, I can see why people absolutely went bonkers when The Killing decided it would not solve the murder in its first season. How could they NOT tell me, the loyal viewer, the answer to this horribly convoluted murder that, at times, strained plausibility with mixed character motivations and insane happenings? Well, Veena Sud just didn’t care; the show would end or begin as she saw fit, which meant she left with a cliffhanger to ensure a second season. That’s sorta brilliant, in a backhanded way, to allow your story more time to develop regardless of what some network executive thinks about your show’s chances of survival.
On the other hand, The Killing frequently goes for the typical emotional beat over the solution – rather than focus on the murder mystery, you spend a lot of time with a grieving family and a political campaign. The two detectives, Sarah Linden and Stephen Holder, assigned to the case seem like an afterthought at times. Honestly, I expected all of these seemingly disparate elements to never combine into anything interesting, but they did! The whole show follows that first, and most essential, rule of mystery stories: the culprit can’t just be some dude or dudette out of nowhere. They need to appear in the foreground of the happenings, visible yet not quite a suspect. That leads to the show’s more-than-fair share of crazy guesses and dead ends (while also making every person on the show a suspect), but that made it pretty exciting for me. I liked not knowing where the story went, even when it felt totally unrealistic that someone smuggling someone out of the country could also look like a murderer from the wrong perspectives.
For once, I found myself completely in the dark, and literally blindsided by the conclusions of the second season, and yet it all made perfect sense in the end. The tugging at heartstrings only added to the experience, as you end up growing to like these people despite their faults. Hey, any time a show can make you like even the most despicable of characters, that’s gotta count for something (I’m thinking Rosie Larson’s mother. I hate her, and she is awful, and she does many dumb things, yet I still empathize).
The third season goes for the “incredibly dark and gritty” vein that show proponents desired, and for the most part it improves on the formula. If you call your show The Killing, you’d better live up to the name, and our unnamed serial killer more than lives up to it. At the same time, the third season demonstrates a penchant for interpreting “killing” in many sense, especially that of the soul. Horrible, horrible things happen to most of the characters; Holder and Linden mostly get to watch the events at play, and it ain’t pretty. The police chief even comments that their job isn’t meant for human beings, and I can agree – who would do this to all these kids? The life of displaced young kids in a system that doesn’t want them kills them slowly on the streets or via horrible murder. Even the grinding machinery of the justice system kills the guilty and the innocent alike. Man, there’s no show that really nails gloom and darkness quite like The Killing! The Seattle locale probably adds a lot of atmosphere unintentionally, but it remains a perfect choice for this sort of narrative.
Is The Killing perfect? Not by a long shot. I’m sure a bunch of reviewers could point out various continuity errors, the twists and turns, or even that the show really amounts to a lengthened police procedural that does in a season what Law & Order does in a single 42 minute chunk. Maybe they’ll also comment on Mireille Enos’ relatively personality-less performance as the glue holding the show together (she turns into something much more interesting as things progress, though). Maybe they will also comment that the first two seasons felt like they were trying to make too forthright an attempt to feel “important”, just like the rest of AMC’s lineup.
At the same time, they’ll also need to comment on Joel Kinnaman’s outstanding performance as Holder, who never fails to entertain even among the bleakness. Also, they will probably need to explain why the show compels me to watch it, even though this sort of darkness isn’t my sort of thing at all. I don’t often like to delve into the abyss like this, but I can’t help but recommend it if you’re up for anything in a similar vein. In any event, The Killing falls into the “love it” or “hate it” category more than any other show…but maybe you’ll love it.
