The Killing: Seasons 3 and 4

By
Scott D. Parker

I recently finished watching the Seasons 3 and 4 of The Killing and I got to wondering something: Why do sequels typically go darker than the first?

What makes The Killing interesting is that it started dark and went even darker. Seasons 1 and 2 focuses on a single story (and I flat-out loved it). Seasons 3 and 4 has a common overarching story arc but two cases-of-the-season. Season 3 goes almost full dark from the get-go. It involves the street kids of Seattle and someone who is hunting and killing them. Add to that two characters in Detectives Linden and Holder who already battle their own demons and you’ve not exactly got a joy-filled show. I’ll admit that a few times during the ten episodes I was like “Really? They’re going there?” Yeah, they went there.

Holder is the one character who can turn on and off the charm on a dime. One moment he was jabbing street talk with other characters in his most charming way and the next he’s staring out a window, pondering death. Linden starts season 1 sad and barely rises to a smile. It’s oppressive, to be honest, and it acted as a damper on all of Season 3.

Which is a shame because the most compelling character was Peter Sarsgaard, who plays a man on death row…and Linden helped put him there. He is fantastic, and he frankly steals just about every scene he’s in. As depressing as Season 3 gets, I’d still recommend it…

…Except the last minute. Ugh! Something happens in that last minute of the season 3 finale that aggravated me and propelled the story into Season 4. The case-of-the-season in Season 4 was the brutal murder of a rich family and the only survivor is the teen-aged son three months away from graduating from a military school. If you thought Season 3 had some dark moments, Season 4 went even darker. There are moments that are downright disturbing, enough to make you shift in your chair. Tyler Ross plays the surviving son and he does a phenomenal job with his role. Joan Allen is, however, the star of this season, playing the principal/superintendent of the school. She commands the screen whenever she’s on it with her steely gaze and firm jaw line. The more the aftereffects of Season 3 played on our two detectives, the more I enjoyed Allen’s scenes.

The denouement is one I partly saw coming, odd considering the conclusion of seasons 1 and 2 I didn’t see coming at all. It didn’t detract that much, but it is still surprising. One of the things I commented about to my wife was that The Killing is that particular show that turns the viewers against its lead characters. Not in a big way, but there were a few times when I just wanted to slap them around and make them straighten up.

Then there is the epilogue. I’m still trying to determine if I liked it or not. One the one hand, when I watched it, I had a smile on my face. On the other, it might have seemed too trite. But I certainly understand the point that show runner and creator Veena Sug was after: you find your home wherever you find it, sometimes in the most unlikely of places.

If you read my review of Seasons 1 and 2—especially the length of it—you might question why I’m summing up sixteen episodes in 500 words. Frankly it is because Seasons 1 and 2, all one story, was so utterly compelling and consuming that the writers had a tall order to even match how great that first story is. And it ended in such a way to suggest that the story was done and finished, but the network decided it had a hit on their hands and renewed the show for another season.

It brought to mind the TV show “Castle,” still one of my all-time favorites. When the show runners didn’t know if the series would be cancelled at the end of Season 7, they provided an ending which was tear-inducing, warm, and great. When Season 8 was announced, I was overjoyed. What could be better than more Castle? Well, the answer was mediocre Castle.

Same thing here. I’m almost tempted to tell people to watch Seasons 1 and 2 of The Killing and walk away. My wife, the one responsible for me watching the show in the first place, disagrees, saying the finale and epilogue allow the characters some closure. I see her point and I certainly agree with it considering I watched all four seasons…

…But there’s still a part of me that says the first 26 episodes of The Killing are some of the best television I have ever watched. The next 16…not so much. They are good and there are some incredible moments in Seasons 3 and 4, but none approaching the heartbreaking moments of episode 1. Heck, that one episode is better than any single episode in Seasons 3 and 4.

I’m glad I watched all the episodes and, as a whole, still consider The Killing among the best crime shows I’ve ever seen. But there’s still part of me that wants to caution folks about the dichotomy of seasons 1/2 and 3/4. Heck, the more distance from the series finale of Castle, the more I tell new viewers to stop at the Season 7 finale. I’m pretty sure the more time I get from The Killing, I’ll tell people something similar about Seasons 1 and 2. Stop when you're ahead.


Have you ever had a show like this?

The Killing: Seasons 1 and 2 Review

By the time the credits rolled for the second season finale of THE KILLING, my mouth open on account of the jaw-dropping revelations, I realized I had just experienced one of the best crime/mystery TV shows I've ever watched.

A couple of weeks ago, I finally relented to my wife’s urging that I watch Netflix’s (nee AMC) THE KILLING. She had watched seasons 1-3, but was willing to re-watch with me if I’d just give the show a chance. I did and wrote about Season 1, Episode 1 and how it hooked me.

Here’s a little tidbit about my wife: she rarely reads or watches things over and over. “I got it the first time,” she says. So what does it tell you that she’d be willing to re-watch a show again just so I could catch up? Let me put it to you this way: after I saw the season finale of Season 2 last night, I already want to watch both seasons again.

The first two seasons of THE KILLING, totaling 26 episodes, follow a single case. The show focuses on how the killing of a young, seventeen-year-old girl affects her family, the police detectives investigating the case, the mayoral race, and other characters in their periphery. Being based on a Danish TV show, THE KILLING is less like a typical American police procedural show than a character study, and it is in this aspect where the acting is stellar.

Mireille Enos plays Sarah Linden, detective for the Seattle Police Department. As the show starts, it’s her last day. She’s to catch a flight down to California with her thirteen-year-old son where she’ll get remarried. She is ordered to look into the new case and bring along Joel Kinnaman’s Stephen Holder, recently transferred from county, to show him how to work a case. Naturally you know how this is going to go, but Enos’s performance brings so much depth and pathos into the character that you get lost in just how good she is. Linden is a damaged person, and you get the backstory as the show moves forward. The physical way Enos plays Linden shows the damage, especially in her walk. It’s striking. So, too, her interpersonal relationships. You root for her, but it can sometimes be difficult. I can’t think of another character—especially a woman—who is quite like Detective Linden. It makes this show truly unique, and Enos was utterly compelling.

Kinnaman is an actor I only knew from House of Cards. Here, he’s the rookie homicide detective, formerly a narcotics cop who became an addict. With his street talk and attitude, he’s a bit irritating at the start, but that all changed at the end of episode 1, season 1 when Holder gets a look at the dead girl. His performance grows on you, episode by episode, as Holder grows and changes. Often I laughed out loud at some of his comments. Kinnaman owned this performance and became the character I truly enjoyed in every scene.

Other actors who also shined were Brent Sexton, as the father of the dead girl, and Billy Campbell, as Darren Richmond, the city councilman who is running against the incumbent mayor. I saw myself in Sexton’s character, his anger, his soul-crushing sorrow, his desperate attempts to hold his family together. So many times he could say so much without saying a word.

Campbell I’ve known since The Rocketeer, but haven’t seen much of his work other than sporadic episodes of Once and Again and The 4400. He was fantastic in his understated reading of Richmond. The more the show went on, the more I thoroughly enjoyed his character.

Acting is one thing. You can have great acting with a not-so-great story, but with THE KILLING, you get the marriage of all the excellent acting with a phenomenal story. With 26 episodes over two seasons focusing in the one case, the story is long, but utterly engrossing. There’s never a boring moment. As a writer who constantly throws in gun fights and chases, to see a show without much of that but with an equal amount of tension, was an eye-opening experience. I was completely consumed by the storytelling, how each new revelation plays on the various characters, and how well the nuts and bolts of the episodes were layered on each other. I’m a writer, so naturally I analyze story. True, there are moments when a character says something and you pretty much know they’re holding back, but it doesn’t detract. The complications that arise for our characters are legitimate and not some out-of-left-field shenanigans.

Then there is the mystery itself: who killed Rosie Larsen and why? Some shows you can figure out the bad guy a mile away. I developed my own theory of who and why and stuck to it until the end…when I was wrong! And then, just when you think you’ve reached the satisfactory conclusion of the show, there is a twist. And then another one! My mouth literally dropped open during the last episode. I may have even whispered an expletive.

I don’t like to binge. I’m still rooted in Appointment Television. THE KILLING is a show that you’ll want to binge, but I urge some restraint. On most nights, I watched a single episode. On weekends, maybe two. It gave me time to ponder the story, the characters, and the plot. I enjoyed that time, even laying out my theories on my wife before each new episode began. Going into this past weekend, we had eight episodes to go. We watched four on Saturday night. The pace had increased and I just wanted to get to the end.

But I’m glad I waited for the last two episodes and watched them on their own. It allowed the denouement to wash over me, complete with tears. Patty Jenkins, recently of Wonder Woman, directed the pilot and the season 2 finale. She and the writers did a thing in the finale that I can’t say has ever been done before. And it was excellent and so emotional. THE KILLING is very much like THE SIXTH SENSE: as soon as you watch it and know the ending, you really do want to re-watch.

I have seen many, many TV shows and films featuring crime, mystery, detectives, victims, and politicians. There are some truly great shows with great performances. THE KILLING, Seasons 1 and 2, is nothing less than one of my favorite crime/mystery shows I’ve ever seen.


Now, on to Season 3.

The Killing: Season 1 Episode 1

For a few weeks now, my wife has been enjoying AMC’s The Killing. I know next to nothing about it other than it is an American remake (re-imagining?) of a Danish show called “The Crime” (I had to look up that last bit). In my walks into and out of the TV room, I’ve noted a few things, namely the actors.

As a recent fan of House of Cards, I immediately recognized Joel Kinnaman. In HOC, he plays Governor Will Conway, the man who ran for president against Kevin Spacey’s Frank Underwood. I also took note of Michelle Forbes who I know as Ensign Ro from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Other than those two actors, I knew nothing about the show other than my wife loved it and constantly reiterated, “You know, you’d really love this show.”

Maybe, but isn’t The Killing yet another cop show?

Well, last night, I gave the first episode of season 1 a viewing. With a title like “The Killing,” you know there is going to be one, and you see it right out of the gate. No surprise there. But you don’t know who the victim actually is. The scenes of the victim running for her life are cut in with our lead character, Detective Sarah Linden on her last day as a detective with Seattle’s police department. We learn she’s going to marry her second husband and she and her fifteen-year-old son will move down near San Francisco. She’s packing her office when Kinnaman’s Stephen Holder waltzes in to his new office. Naturally, her boss instructs her to head up the investigation until 6pm that day. She’s got a flight at 9:30pm and, according to the boss, she’s still on the city’s dime.

Along with those scenes, you see a family with Michelle Forbes as the mom. It’s no slight of hand to know that this is the family to which the victim belongs, made even more obvious by the fact that their seventeen-year-old daughter hasn’t checked in since Forbes, her husband, and their two elementary age boys returned from their weekend camping trip.

You know where this is going as much as I did. The victim is the daughter. Detective Linden will somehow not get on the plane, and her last case will be the one that’ll likely cause some domestic strife with her fiancée.

But those elements are not in this episode. What is present is one of the more agonizing scenes of parents learning their child is dead I have ever seen. My benchmark for this kind of thing is Sean Penn’s character from Mystic River. That animalistic roar that Penn spews out is heartbreaking. In The Killing, you have something similar. Brent Sexton plays the father and he’s driving out to the location where his daughter’s friend said she went. He’s on the phone with Forbes. In the previous scene, the dad said he was heading out to the island to pick up their daughter. Forbes sighs with relief as does the dad…until he sees the police lights.

At the same time, the detectives are discovering the victim’s final resting place. Their reactions—especially that of Kinnaman (who is a narc cop coming over to homicide)—are great. But what tears your heart out are the reactions from the dad and Forbes, who can only hear what’s going on via her phone. Excellent, excellent scene and it truly rips your heart out of your chest.

What began, for me, as yet another cop show transformed in that moment. I’m all in for The Killing.

Yeah, I guess my wife was right after all.