The Killing - “Stonewalled”
I was in a creative nonfiction class last semester, and we had to write three essays. The first ones were almost entirely based on small, quirky moments in our lives - I wrote about a wedding I went to where there were no flowers. But with the second essay, about two months in to the class, the floodgates of hurt opened. Personal demons were unleashed; stories of death and decay and abuse were abound. My piece, which ended with a girl randomly being attacked and then a further assault which put someone in the hospital, was praised as light-hearted, because the four pieces around mine all dealt with someone close dying. The third essay mostly continued this as everyone got more comfortable with each other, and realized writing is an effective tool for letting go of things. (Or at least understanding better.)
One piece in particular stands out - it was about a girl’s best friend, and she painted to honor his memory/remember him/what not. It was good writing, to be sure, but it wasn’t very intriguing, just because it was so weighed down in sadness. I made the example of Jonathan Franzen’s New Yorker piece about DFW - it was about his friend committing suicide, but there were still moments of warmth and levity, of joy, and so it didn’t feel like a chore.
I feel like The Killing is a direct response to stone-faced liberals who criticize a show like Law and Order for dealing with the murderer for 42 minutes and not thinking about the families, about the emotional harm that murder causes. It brings us through the Larsen’s grief step-by-step, and through eight episodes, the show doesn’t seem like it’s going to leave them anytime soon.
It’s an honorable route to go, in addition to being interesting and needed, but it’s not working completely thus far.
The biggest problem is Rosie isn’t a character. This is a tough order, since she hasn’t been alive on camera, but it’s definitely possible. I almost think the show has been consciously trying to avoid this, perhaps not wanting to do a Cooper-delving-into-Laura’s-secrets, instead trying to focus on Mitch’s reluctance to acknowledge Rosie’s secrets. But since the investigation into Rosie’s murder is inexorably tied to Rosie’s secrets, we just end up with a lot of wallowing about this girl we don’t know. Sure, she was a tortured genius, or something, and made an artsy personal film, but these seem stock instead of personal. I think the details need to be smaller, like the Grand Canyon sweater. But I get the distinct sense they’re trying to avoid making Rosie Larsen into a character like Laura Palmer was, probably to avoid further Twin Peaks comparisons.
Going in, that was one of the major talking points of the show, but it’s mostly irrelevant now. Some of the plot points are similar, to be sure, but the mood is completely different, and the mood is essential to both shows. Eight episodes in with Twin Peaks, we were dealing with Giants and dwarves and the town itself was a crazy character. Here, Seattle mostly has rain.
The rain is an easy target to harp at the overall depressed mood on the show, but I think it would work excellently if the characters congealed. Because of Rosie The Character being dead as well, the Larsens are a drag whenever they’re on the screen, stopping any momentum the show had. Some moments work, like when they saw the crime photos in the department, but most don’t, like when Mitch left the kids in the car. I get it, she’s endangering her other kids because of the death of Rosie. It’s heavy-handed and dumb.
I do give the show props for keeping the Larsens involved though, and I thought the funeral stuff was really well-done. It is refreshing to see them occasionally, and it has only been seven days since the death of their daughter, so it’s not realistic to think they’d be back to their usual lives. But the Larsens aren’t the problem with the show - they’re only a symptom.
The issue is there’s only one character - Holder. (His name is a little obvious now in light of his druggie past, isn’t it?) Maybe it’s just that he vaguely reminds me of Jesse Pinkman, and I’d give my second finger on my right hand for more Breaking Bad right now, but he’s interesting every scene he’s in. The revelation of the drugs was necessary like three weeks ago, but it was still nice to see him tell his little speech about stealing the coin. His partnership with Linden, especially since they’re back on good terms, is perhaps the best part of the show.
About Linden…it’s great to see a female lead, and she does lead the show well enough. But we’ve had eight episodes, and I still don’t feel like I know her at all. The paintball scene in the last episode was excellent, but if these little hints about a previous (similar) case where she almost lost Jack are supposed to be character-defining, they’re not working (or being doled out quickly enough so they matter). Her little moments of defying authority are cute, but I think her main trait is her lack of commitment to family/commitment to her case, and I don’t understand why this is. I have no idea what drives her, or what matters to her. Eight episodes in, this needs to be addressed with your lead.
Like I said above, I feel like the investigation that’s ostensibly driving the show along isn’t really the focus of the producers, and thus, the police procedural elements seem rote. The chief’s “now you need to leave” thing was silly and out of character, and most of the case elements have been done better in 42 minutes on procedurals. I don’t feel like the show is taking advantage of the slow burn that this structure provides. For example, I mostly liked the handling of Bennet up until last episode. Now, all of a sudden, Mohammed is thrown in, and with it some background on Muslim-American relations, and terrorism…sure, I don’t know where this is going, but it isn’t promising right now. It’s out of nowhere, and doesn’t work with what came before it. Also, the narrative is moving so slow that moments with the Larsens seem even more glacial, and it just makes everything look bad.
Maybe the character that’s progressing the best recently is Darren, although I’m immensely torn on that plotline. On one hand, it feels completely useless, trying to interject more procedural plotlines (as I call it, “one-upsmanship of the week”) and explore a city that doesn’t seem interested in being a character. On the other, it’s stable, and mostly makes sense within the bounds the show provides. Adams v. Richmond is interesting, even if it’s not groundbreaking, and I do like how Richmond’s idealism is working against him. Him quickly reversing to letting the documents leak in this episode undid a lot of that work, though, especially after the one parole hearing (and the terrible double metaphor of breaking the mirror, then having blood on his wedding band).
I feel like, once again, the producers wanted to explore this but didn’t do the greatest job connecting it to the main stuff. It feels like Rubicon’s Katherine Rhumor subplot with more network notes earlier saying to connect it, so they added in some scenes with Richmond running in to Linden or the family. With the city not really being important, the election seems unimportant, and the Richmond stuff is easy to tune out.
But this is still one of the best shows on TV, even though the characters are wildly uneven (when they’re there at all) and it makes me want to cry because it’s so down on everything. Just take this against most of the dreck on network television and The Killing looks like Mad Men. Thus, I feel strangely compelled to support it and continue watching, even though it’s clearly inferior to other shows.
If I could give advice to The Killing, I’d say to lighten up a bit. Give us some moments of joy, some character, and this could be absorbing stuff. But this week one of the breakthroughs came when this FBI guy said that he had to protect the evidence, it’s important, and this is my job, man!, and now I’m going to walk away and you’re totally not going to walk in and look at the stuff, and then you’re going to walk away clean. More and more often, I find myself saying: Really, The Killing?
