Monsters of Television

“I didn’t know.”

It’s weird to write about The Killing in this space, not because we haven’t in the past (we have), but because when I think about this finale, and the season as a whole, I don’t separate it from the first season. I think of both seasons actually as a single, 26-episode season. Like, you know, on broadcast TV! Exactly what Veena Sud didn’t want!

This is a little unfair, of course. The Killing strode for something slightly more ambitious than your normal crime melodrama in its effort to show the ripple effect of this single girl’s utterly pointless murder. It wanted to explore the ramifications on the police, the victim’s family, power brokers, and, at least the first season, other people who knew the victim. It most cases, the show was wildly unsuccessful in its attempts to do this as it saw these ramifications as not only subplots but as red herrings into a murder that it, ultimately, never really cared about.

So I’m going to talk about the episode and this season, and then some brief thoughts on where the show can possibly go from here.

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“Nothing’s going to get that taste out of my mouth.”

Aw, yeah. It’s the summer and, here it is: a podcast slightly transformed. Just a bit of break from the norm — in that Matt couldn’t make it so we’re a beast short. Karen, Nick, and Noel make do, though, by giving some serious discussion to the all set-up Game of Thrones season finale and the much ballyhooed ender to The Killing while tossing around some Lost references in Matt’s honor. Then we look at some summer programming and shrug our shoulders at it because it’s summer and we’re not supposed to take summer programming seriously. Right? That’s why television’s the way it is right now. Right? Riiiiight. So just sit back and unwind.

Here’s the blog post we mention a couple of times from @ErikaJL simply titled “Sansa.”

Running time: 77 minutes

• Game of Thrones season finale: 0:01:24
• The Killing season finale: 0:30:50
• Wilfred: 0:42:10
• Louie: 0:48:03
• Suits: 0:54:30
• Walking Skies Falling Skies: 1:00:01
• Love Bites: 1:05:29
• The Voice: 1:11:40

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Rosie who? I no longer care. But I still love "The Killing."

Man, I loved this episode.

With her son missing, Sarah and her partner Holder scour the town in search for him.  I loved the tense interplay between Sarah and Holder, the palpable fear on Sarah’s face as she faces the same horror as the Larsens, the sense that both these detectives are so damaged but trying so hard to return to “normal” relations with their respective families. During her 10 hour search for her missing son, Sarah must face not only fear of loss but also her inadequacies as a parent. Best moment? When Holder compares Sarah to an orphaned cat who has never been taught to hide her own feces.

Heres the rub.  Do you know what was the primary trouble with this episode? It wasn’t an episode of The Killing.

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Yes, she's a cypher--get over it.

I have a rather daring claim to make in my support for The Killing–do you think, perhaps, that the identity of Rosie’s murderer is sort of beside the point?  Yes, I know it is being marketed as a whodunnit (search online in Rosie’s room for clues!), but I am not sure that I care about who is the killer.  I can see why this claim should necessitate a huge critique against the program–shouldn’t they be making me care about the central plot point?  But I’m too busy being fascinated by excellent acting and deliberate storytelling.

In a podcast that should be going up very soon, the Monsters crew complained quite a bit about Game of Thrones, but we spent less time complaining about The Killing. To be honest, I don’t want to complain about The Killing. Despite my theory that HBO’s recent series seem to specialize in being a whole lotta fuss about nothing much (sorry, but Boardwalk Empire was super slow, with few characters I cared about (at all) until about half way through the season), similar claims could be made about The Killing. Yet for me, while I may not quite get HBO, but I sure as heck “get” AMC.

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“Because I will Tritter tangent forever.”

After a brief hiatus (has it been two months already?), we have a brand new podcast. We talk about all kinds of stuff like the NBC Thursday Night lineup (natch), our varied interest in Game of Thrones, the return of Thirteen to House (and why she’s important even if people hate her character), and all veritable sundry of other items. It’s really pretty good. You should get on that. Also, notice how Nick hates it when anyone gets together on a show. Does he hate love? Is he a robot? Who are we to say? It’s half the fun. Enjoy our sing-song voices.

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