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The Killing – This thing is one big, fat mess

This yawner of an episode almost seemed as though it went backward several steps instead of forward, making anti-progress.

- Season 2, Episode 6 - "Openings"

Where to begin? With the endless parade of people having affairs and/or sleeping around like Aunt “Escort” Terry who was kissin’ Stan last week, that rich dude Michael “I Love Beau Soleil and hang with the mayor” Ames, Darren “I freak out young women with Orpheus talk” Richmond and the senator’s daughter Gwen Eaton, Mitch Larsen and Rosie’s baby daddy David, and Rosie who may or may not have slept around as an escort. It’s getting kind of confusing.

Then there are all the shifting alliances which call, or appear to call, people into question. Mayor Adams is in cahoots with the Ames family (who are also seemingly in business with the woman who runs the casino), Sloane and possibly Janek and Lt. Carlson. Rosie chilled with Jasper Ames, possibly with his dad and also with Alexi, the fatherless kid who hung out with the daughter of the man who killed his dad. Janek has involvement with Beau Soleil, Terry, Stan, Rosie and possibly the mayor, as well as the pols who used his escort service.

This show requires a massive Lost-like flowchart or, as Holder might say, some kind of A Beautiful Mind board.

And don’t forget the outstanding mysteries (other than the big one, obviously, who killed Rosie): The identity of the dude playing Peeping Tom outside of Holder’s apartment, the person who planted the drawing on Linden’s fridge … did they ever definitively say whether it was indeed Alexi who put Rosie’s bloody backpack on the Larsens’ doorstep? I can’t remember anymore.

There’s a baby daddy drama, organized crime, an escort service, an Indian casino, a mayoral election, an assassination attempt on an already suicidal widower city councilor, a meddling U.S. senator, questionable property developments, a grieving mother who abandoned her young sons and formed an unhealthy attachment to a girl who resembles her deceased daughter, possibly crooked law enforcement officials and a former drug addict detective working with a former foster kid detective who is the dictionary definition of the word “haunted.” Am I leaving anything out? Oh yeah, a grieving father making out with his AWOL wife’s sister.

All of this is supposed to keep us guessing, keep us invested because you can’t count on anything. But to me, it feels like a giant mess. Yes, I’m feeling very sour about The Killing these days. Fatigue is setting in. Instead of finding all of the drama’s mysteries riveting like I did during season one, now it just feels like a slog. I no longer feel as though the show is grabbing me by my shirt and commanding me to watch it. And I really want it to do that, in all of its dreary, rainy capacity, that’s the only reason I’ve stuck around, because I want it to go back to being what it was in season one.

But hey, at least the wrongly accused teacher, Bennet Ahmed didn’t die when Stan beat him within an inch of his life. At least there’s that.

Photo Credit: Carole Segal/AMC

2 Responses to “The Killing – This thing is one big, fat mess”

May 1, 2012 at 11:02 AM

UGH. I feel like I did with Lost. Too much forshadowing and backshadowing and sideshadowing and BLAH BLAH BLAH. I think the main reason I am starting to hate this show is because there is not ONE SINGLE character I can identify with. They are all so unrealistically complex and tormented but still function. I am about to just give up and have someone email me the answer… hopefully by then I will still give a damn who killed Rosie.

May 1, 2012 at 6:38 PM

Whew. I got tired just reading that clusterfluster. You’re so right.

And all of a sudden, they try to make Lady Detective a good, proud mom ? Gimmmmmmmeeee a break. They’ve given us little reason to care about Rosie, and lots of reasons to hate all of her relatives, right down to those 2 snobby brat boys. End it already.

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