The Killing - “Undertow”
What I wrote last week on The Killing still stands, but I had to add in a few words about this week’s terrible installment.
Let’s take the scene pictured above. Bennet has been the lead suspect for about four weeks/days now, and the principal directly told him not to come in. He comes, and then walks past her into the classroom. As that principal, if he walks into that class and starts to teach, parents are going to crucify me. No way he just waltzes in. But fine.
Bennet walks into the class and looks at the board. We all know there’s something written there, some reference to his role in the investigation. And the scene dances around it the entire time, trying to build to this devastating conclusion. But due to the editing, we saw it the entire time. I actually groaned when I realized we were going to pan all the way around and see him standing there like a sad sack.
The kids walking out was painfully dramatic, and his “false rumors” thing was terrible too. But the worst part was it was so obvious, so ham-fisted, that it took the little part of me that was invested completely out of the show.
What The Killing was trying to get at was, do we jump to justice? Do we just want someone to pin the murder on? We see that with Mitch, as she just barges into police stations and accuses the detectives on the case. We see it with Stan, who takes the law into his own hands. We see it through Richmond, who battles about this with his team.
It’s a good question to ask, and Bennet should not be jumped on/beat up/lose his job because of this false claim. But the execution is so uniformly terrible the question is muddled and any point is lost.
The much bigger issue with this episode was finding out that…well, you know that whole Bennet thing? And Muhammad? Well, it turns out to just be a big ole misunderstanding! Can you believe that?!??!?!??!?!?!??!?!?!??!?!132 ?!??!??!??!?!
Look, I know this stuff happens a lot. But this is a TV show, and particularly when the rest of the show isn’t working all that well, spending four weeks on a narrative dead-end is a colossal misstep. Bringing in the Somali community is fine, because it’s clear The Killing is more interested in the community aspects than the murder, but this terrorism/circumcision thing was just terrible (assuming it’s over…please god).
Meanwhile, Mitch just got worse, Linden was as boring as ever, and Holder was sidelined. Richmond spun in circles. The usual.
Looking at the ratings, the show is almost doubling what Rubicon got, so it could be renewed (but I question if the structure of the show lends itself to another season, particularly when the show isn’t very good). It doesn’t really deserve it right now, just based on what AMC can produce. The show is still better than some stuff on the networks, but as the weeks go on, I find it harder and harder to defend that claim.
We have four episodes left in this season, and a lot could happen. I expect some narrative momentum. But I learned, on this day last year, a great finale can’t save a listless season. Not completely, at least.
