After taking advantage of viewers' loyalty last year and rewarding us with a cockamamie season finale where the season-long tagline "Who killed Rosie Larsen?" was never answered, producer Veena Sud has redeemed AMC's 'The Killing' for actually operating like an intriguing crime mystery it promised to be.
Last season the moody, noir-ish, crime drama began very promising by following Detectives Stephen Holder and Sarah Linden as they tried to uncover who killed the teenage Rosie Larsen. The daughter of a former mafia goon turned moving company owner disappeared and found dead in a submerged car owned by the campaign of Councilman Darren Richmond. It gets murky from there on. Everyone introduced is a suspect.
One red herring after another. Every week we were convinced through the detectives investigation that they got their man. It's the school teacher. No. It's the ex-boyfriend. No. It's the dad's right-hand man. No. Despite great performances from all the actors involved,especially Michelle Forbes as Rosie's distraught mother, the false alarms just undermined the credibility of the detectives. I had never seen such terrible police work on television. Finally, fingers pointed to the Councilman himself. Which was wrong again. He got a bullet that made him a paraplegic for his troubles by dad's right-hand man in that anti-climatic season finale. No payoff.
This season the mystery is unraveling. The detectives are doing a better job of following leads and investigating without falsely imprisoning anyone. It's still not clear what Rosie was doing at the time of her death but it's clear there are many people involved and even her parents are not what they seem. Detective Linden is a great character. She's obsessed with the case. So much so that she's an awful neglectful parent to her teenage son. Detective Holder still charms as the comedic relief who is battling his own demons. The mood is still grim and Seattle is eternally gray and sorrowful. This season Billy Campbell, of Rocketeer fame, as the Councilman is doing some Emmy-worthy work too.
I can recommend the show this season after getting shafted last year. The network has promised to reveal the killer this season. I hope so. It would be a shame that the network of 'Mad Men', 'Walking Dead', and 'Breaking Bad' would let an otherwise quality show jilt viewers again.
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