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The Killing: A Soundless Echo

“I am just so ready to start living, I guess.”

It’s strange some of the things you think about when watching a show. I’m not talking major stuff like plot twists and character arcs but little, incidental things like how much the production team must spend on water for those rain towers. The Killing’s Seattle currently rivals Blade Runner’s LA and that nameless city from Se7en when it comes to non-stop torrential downpours. I’m surprised half the cast aren’t dying of pneumonia by now.

Well done to everyone who managed to guess correctly that it was Sterling in that video and not Rosie. You win a Faroese jumper and an all day bus tour of Seattle. So it looks like we can rule out Jasper and Kris as suspects. They might have no trouble taking advantage of Sterling when she’s drunk and vulnerable but, for the moment at least, it doesn’t look like they killed Rosie. Back to square one for our dogged detectives.

The Investigation

Poor Holder. While Linden gets some quality alone time with her Cylon sex toy he’s left riding the bus all day. At least his public transport odyssey paid off in the end. Linden should definitely save him a slice of wedding cake as reward. That’s assuming Rick and Jack don’t scoff the whole lot (nice to see them bonding). We now know that Rosie was having some kind of secret relationship with her teacher, Bennett. Too early to say whether or not there was actually anything inappropriate going on between them. It’s entirely possible that their relationship was completely innocent, just a dedicated teacher trying to inspire someone he saw as a promising student. But that letter did seem very personal. I’m not surprised Rosie chose to hide it in her Globe of Secrets.

Meanwhile, back on the love boat, we got a little more insight into our knitwear loving detective. Rick’s comments seem to suggest that this isn’t the first time that Linden has become obsessed with a murdered girl, likely the same girl whose son drew that picture. Was it a case that she failed to solve? Detectives don’t usually hold on to old case files because they’re full of happy memories. If so, it would go some way to explaining Linden’s motivation for wanting to stay and solve Rosie’s murder as well as Rick’s attitude towards her last time they spoke.

The Larsen Family

This week the Larsens had to go through the unpleasant task of planning Rosie’s funeral. If that wasn’t bad enough they then accidentally saw all those crime scene photos and finally understand the full horror of how their daughter died. Linden’s comforting lie just came back to bite her there.

I’m going to take a break from endlessly writing about how brilliant Michelle Forbes is and lavish some well deserved praise on Brent Sexton. Forbes might be getting all the show reel moments (like that gut wrenching church scene) but Sexton is doing some equally impressive work as Stan. Will knowing how his daughter suffered eventually push Stan into taking the law into his own hands? He might want to put whatever it was he did in the past behind him but it’s obvious that he’s getting frustrated with how the police are not telling him and Mitch everything.

The Richmond Campaign

So Richmond and the gerbil are secretly working together to expose the Mayor. That was certainly a surprise. I’d figured that the gerbil was innocent but I would’ve never have guessed that whole “screw you guys, I quit” scene was staged. Guess the councilman isn’t whiter than white after all. This plot strand suddenly just became, well, I wouldn’t say more interesting but certainly less uninteresting.

We were introduced to two new players this week, sports fan and shifty rich boy Tom Drexler and Senator Eaton, Gwen’s father. I’m adding Drexler to my list of suspects. So far that list only includes him because I haven’t bothered to compile a list of suspects yet. I don’t know what it is yet but there is just something about Drexler that’s making my spider sense go all tingly.

Think I’ll add Gwen’s dad to that list as well for two very good reasons. Firstly, film and television has taught me not to trust any US senators because they are always up to something dodgy (unlike our British MPs, who are always honest and would never dream of fiddling their expenses). And secondly, he’s played by New Zealand’s answer to Mark Sheppard, Alan Dale, here once again cast as a character’s powerful and disapproving father. Alan, I know typecasting can be a bitch but be glad more people now know you better as Charles Widmore and not Jim Robinson off Neighbours.

Notes and Quotes

--Jumperwatch: No change from last week. With any luck there’s something special in amongst all those clothes that Rick brought back with him.

--Holder hasn’t changed his clothes at all since day one. He’s got to reek by now.

--The passage Bennett quotes in his letter to Rosie, the one that made him think of her, comes from Beryl Markham’s memoir West with the Night. Here’s the complete passage: “There are all kinds of silences and each of them means a different thing. There is the silence that comes with morning in a forest, and this is different from the silence of a sleeping city. There is silence after a rainstorm, and before a rainstorm, and these are not the same. There is the silence of emptiness, the silence of fear, the silence of doubt. There is a certain silence that can emanate from a lifeless object as from a chair lately used, or from a piano with old dust upon its keys, or from anything that has answered to the need of a man, for pleasure or for work. This kind of silence can speak. Its voice may be melancholy, but it is not always so; for the chair may have been left by a laughing child or the last notes of the piano may have been raucous and gay. Whatever the mood or the circumstance, the essence of its quality may linger in the silence that follows. It is a soundless echo.”

--So if Richmond knew all along that Jamie was innocent does that mean he suspects Gwen is the mole?

--Holder, you silly boy, don’t you know you’re not supposed to distract the driver while he’s driving the bus. And just how long was that route anyway? Felt like he had been on that bus for days. Did it go on a magical mystery tour around the state or something?

--When I first saw all those Richmond posters hanging on the walls I was expecting Holder to find a picture of Rosie and the councilman. It’s probably still too early in the season for him to be fingered as a suspect.

--I’m sure any Stargate Universe fans watching got a kick out of seeing both Patrick Gilmore (Drexler) and Peter Kelamis (Michael – I’m assuming he’s Jamie’s replacement) in this episode. Anybody want to take a guess at which Vancouver-based genre actor we’ll be seeing next? No peeking at IMDB, please.

Mitch: “What good is that to me? She’s not supposed to be with god she’s supposed to be with me”

Lt. Oaks: “That junkie in there looks better than you do. You should clean yourself up and put on a suit.”

Richmond: “He hates politicians. He thinks we’re all hand puppets for rich lunatics like him.”

Rick: “I sent them to a French gangster movie. It’s like five hours long.”

Jamie: “How’d you know it wasn’t me?”
Richmond: “Because if you wanted to screw me you would’ve found a smarter way to do it.”
---
Mark Greig has been writing for Doux Reviews since 2011. More Mark Greig.

3 comments:

  1. Wonderful review, Mark. Right on the money. And it's so funny -- like how much the production team must spend on water for those rain towers... because I was thinking the same thing during this particular episode.

    Can I have my own Cylon sex toy? No, I didn't say that.

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  2. "Sex with robots is more common than people think."

    Very good read, Mark. I definitely got a kick out of seeing both Brody and Volker in the same episode. Patrick Gilmore particularly impressed, because the role was so different, but he completely sold it. I vote for Ryan Robbins, Christopher Hyerdahl, or David Nykl as the next Vancouver genre actor we get to see.

    I've read some speculation that maybe we haven't seen the last of Jasper and Kris. They seemed pretty darned upset to be in custody, until they realized all the police had was the video. Kris in particular. So what exactly were they so concerned about, if not their little games in the Cage?

    You know, it really doesn't rain that much in Seattle. I lived there for awhile, and "cloudy with sun breaks" was a frequent forecast. It was grey a lot, and you might have seen a little rain most days, but it wasn't a constant torrential downpour.

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  3. I really liked this review. Litterally, because I just discovered there's a "like" button. Has it been there long?

    It's funny that, though I'm enjoying the show and want to keep watching, I don't feel compelled to speculate on the murderer. And that's coming from a person who's read 53 Agatha Christie books (seriously).

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