The Killing :: First Thoughts :: Night 20

I love the characters of AMC's The Killing. I love the actors who have brought them all to life. But for almost all of Season 2, in every storyline except for Stan and the boys, I find myself asking "WTF?" or rolling my eyes and saying, "That is not plausible!" or, worse yet [as I am a terrible fiction writer], rewriting scenes in my head to improve them. I do not feel swept into the story this season; I dread rather than anticipate my obligation on Sunday evenings.

WTF?

Gil, a cop with shady things to hide, would not need or choose to use a detachable navigation system that recorded his every move in a city that he should know, as a result of his profession, like the back of his hand. Please. Linden should have pocketed that casino key during a moment of distraction while Lt. Carlson was suspending her at the police station. A demonstration of the shoplifting skills that she would have had the time and motivation to perfect as a runaway teenager would have made more sense. Then we wouldn't have had to listen to Holder's contrived oh-wait-I-know-this-restaurant-oh-wait-there's-a-storage-facility-in-back recognition of the location.

That Is Not Plausible!

Rosie was planning to drop out of school and run away? Rosie was taking secret 4-hour bus trips to see her biological father? Rosie hadn't been communicating with her parents for months? Who is this girl? I hate that the writers are asking us to forget everything that we know about Rosie and her family. Remember, Rosie was too shy to speak to her teacher, resorting to a penpal relationship with Bennet, too unsure to have sex with her boyfriend. But now we are to believe that she is Ms. Adventure ready to leave loving parents, clean clothes, clean sheets, a clean bathroom, to see the world with casino wages that will get stolen after a day or two on the road?

Sure, like we hear about that happening all the time—every day it's another story about a 17 year old who has left a stable home, SAT preparation, and afternoon bike rides with little brothers! And please, what teenager would lug around a heavy Super 8 camera for the adventure? You don't think Alexi with his illegal connections wouldn't have gotten her a good deal on a smaller, lighter, more convenient way to capture the trip, something that would have allowed her to upload right to a Facebook, Flickr, or Blogger account? [Really, Alexi, what kind of a boyfriend were you, making that poor girl go to a drugstore to have film developed?]

Rewrite

So in the middle of the day, Mitch goes to see David Ranier, Rosie's biological father and Mitch's initiator into Seattle grunge. We know it's the work week because Tommy was stomping baby birds to death in the school yard. Conveniently, though, David is home and ready to confess that when a strange 17 year old arrives on his doorstep, he advises her that before she disappears, she should at least let people know that she's running away. Oh, please. What is he, a pot dealer generating income from a basement grow house? Come on! Real adults just don't advise strange teenagers to behave like that. And dumb-ass adults who would recommend that Rosie run away don't live in perfect houses in family neighborhoods.

This scene would have been so much more powerful if David's wife was glaring from the sidelines, if David's dark-haired daughter came up to Mitch with dolls and announced, "Rosie and I played with these!" or if the wife had gotten Mitch alone for a minute to explain that she had tried to convince her husband to call the Larsens and tell them Rosie's plans. This scene would have been so much more powerful if Mitch had whispered fiercely, "You could have told her to finish her college applications instead!" Because, you know, David probably paid for that fine house with the type of gainful employment that requires a college degree.

My Guess

So I have finished "cheating" and have seen all of Forbrydelsen. And as I've said, it's like seeing a copy of the test before the exam. You know what the questions will be, but you still have to figure out the right answers.

At this point, I don't really care who killed Rosie. Last season, she seemed like a real person, and I enjoyed learning bits and pieces about her life as the investigation unfolded. I thought she was a cool kid and wanted justice for her. This season, she is just a pawn the writers are pushing around, trying to get us to buy into whatever contrived ending they have fabricated. So since I don't care any longer, let me take a guess.

Nanna Birk Larsen, Rosie's equivalent, died at the hands of someone who, as a result of changes the writers have made, cannot be the killer in the US version of the story. That's okay because the revelation of the Danish killer was not satisfying. He had to make a long speech in the last episode explaining what happened and why he did it. I was yelling, "That's not motivated!" at the TV screen the entire time.

I assume that we won't be satisfied with Rosie's killer either. I assume that he, too, will have to make an unsatisfying speech to explain his behavior. If The Killing uses Forbrydelsen as inspiration for the revelation, then Jamie is the killer. What, you say, sweet Jamie who doesn't even touch alcohol? He couldn't possibly be the killer! Well, that's exactly how I felt about the murderer at the end of Forbrydelsen. No way! He [I'm trying not to ruin it if you haven't seen it] couldn't have sat at the Birk Larsens' dining table just a few minutes ago without a single guilty twitch if he had been the one to rape, beat, and drown Nanna [Nanna is savaged in Forbrydelsen].

So back to Jamie, remember that he plays to win.

My guess is that something like this happened: Jamie has known about and covered for Darren's sexual dalliances the ten years that they've worked together. Jamie hears—maybe from Benjamin Abani, his counterpart in the mayor's office [I never really understood their fight at the gym]—that Darren has accidentally killed a young woman during sex. Jamie arrives to find a "dead" Rosie. Jamie assumes that Darren did in fact kill her and, wanting to cover for his boss, disposes of the "body," not realizing that Rosie is in fact alive. Because Jamie pushes the car into the water, he is technically her killer—although I assume that someone from this tiresome casino storyline chased her through the woods, knocked her unconscious, and tied her up.

I'm picking Jamie because Morten Weber, his counterpart in Forbrydelsen, did believe that Troels Hartman, the idealistic Danish politician, had killed Nanna and then covered for his boss, jeopardizing the investigation. What would be a really cool ending is if Jamie isn't arrested [Morten, as a precedent, never faces consequences]. Darren and the audience discover that Jamie is the killer but someone else pays, maybe someone who looks guilty but dies before we know for sure. Darren has to live with the fact that Jamie thought he was capable of killing but still wanted to see him elected mayor.

If I'm wrong, then I'm looking forward to seeing if my ending isn't better than what the writers have dreamt up. [I don't currently have a lot of faith in the writers.]

Word Count

The number of words Mitch has spoken this season:

"Reflections" = 0 words
"My Lucky Day" = 0 words
"Numb" = 22 words
"Ogi Jun" = 0 words
"Ghosts of the Past" = 108 words
"Opening" = 137 words
"Keylela" = 0 words
"Off the Reservation" = 0 words
"Sayonara, Hiawatha" = 233 words

Grand total = 500 words even—Wow, I guess we won't get to see Mitch again until the season finale since she nearly doubled her dialog in "Sayonara, Hiawatha."