The Killing :: First Thoughts :: Night 16

The Kiss

What do we know about Stan? He's a doer, not a talker. Time and time again, we've watched him act without hesitation or concern for the consequences. Need information about Rosie's whereabouts? Grab her ex-boyfriend by the throat. Want to get the family on track? Pack up your dead daughter's room and erase her existence from the house. Cops not getting you justice quickly enough? Kidnap the suspect they're considering and bash out his brains. That Stan went seeking intimacy with the resident adult female fits the instinctual impulses that compel him.

I am not judging you, Papa Bear. If life and its complications had gotten as rough on Roseanne, Dan Conner might have looked for comfort in Jackie's arms. [Ew.]

I do wish AMC would plug the leaks about what's to come. I didn't like learning that Rosie's murder would be solved at the end of the second season. And I don't like knowing, even before the next episode airs, that the kiss is as far as the Stan-Terry connection goes.

Special Message to Mitch

I understood a road trip to, as my father puts it, "blow the cobwebs out." But you're not traveling, are you? You're just parked at that motel. Are you waiting for someone?

Now let's talk about Little Red Riding Pants. On the one hand, you were creeping me out stuffing her with all that sugar. I kept flashing to the blind witch in the woods fattening up lost children before she roasts them in the oven. Your easy fictions about your family made me question where your mind is.

On the other hand, though, you know better than to give a desperate runaway with a big, impulsive boyfriend the number of your room at a poorly maintained motel. Yeah, make it easy for the two of them to rob you! And this is TV, so you won't come back to a room in disarray. Oh, no. We'll have to watch Little Red Riding Pants first trick you into opening the door and then her boyfriend knock you to the carpet, demanding to know where the money is. Should such violence occur, I hope that they shake out that damn box you brought with you so that we finally learn what's inside.

The Box, Again

What's inside Mitch's mysterious box?

1. Terry's love letters to Stan
2. X's love letters to Mitch [X = Rosie's biological father]
3. Art supplies
4. Dead, crispy monarch butterflies
5. A gun

Special Message to Alexi

What kind of a boyfriend are you? You can track Stan like a hunter after a bear, but you didn't bother to sneak onto the ferry to discover what Rosie was doing? Shame on you!

I'll Have the Fish, Please

I think I preferred last season's string of red herrings to Season 2's endless look at how parents mess up their children. I have sympathy for Det. Linden and Alexi because of their experiences in child protective services. That Jasper has to contend with an abusive father makes me dislike him a little less.

But I don't understand Jack's father being upset with his son's care. Det. Linden has not been ignoring Jack for the 14 months that The Killing has existed, just the 2 ½ weeks of Killing time, and for much of that, Jack was under Regi's care. I am sorry that Terry doesn't get the same kind of approval from her parents that Mitch does, but Terry is an adult, and her parents aren't to blame for her own bad choices.

And we can't forget Rosie's bedroom. A teenager truly unhappy with her family would have decorated the walls with celebrities who offered fantasy escapes from her horrible existence. But Rosie chose pictures of family and friends, indicating that she had a good home life. So why would Rosie have a problem with Stan not being her biological father? And why would her good mother abandon the still living children so callously? The explanations had better be worth it!