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tv_talk2024-12-27 08:22 pm
yourlibrarian) wrote in tv_talk2024-12-27 08:22 pm
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The Killing (US)
I spent a good chunk of my holiday period watching all 4 seasons of The Killing. This was not prime holiday viewing. I knew this was an adaptation and was surprised it went on for so many seasons, since I assumed this was a single story. And indeed the first two seasons were of a single case. It was well done, with lots of clues being laid and different red herrings. To my mind its one failure was not to focus enough on the role of the press in all the events.
S3 was a big change and rather grim viewing. Whereas S1 was something of a political thriller mystery, with all sorts of string pulling and collusions, S3 focused on a single killer but very much not a single victim. It was about a serial killer preying on runaway girls as well as the likelihood that the wrong man was now on death row for possibly the first murder years earlier, which our central detective had always had her doubts about.
I got the impression that this second storyline (which ran into S4) was more of an opportunity to examine and condemn a broken system of both social services and criminal justice than to really investigte a mystery. Easily half the storyline was following the man on death row, while I kept expecting it to tie into the murder investigation. It never really did, other than by some clumsy last minute potential identifications (which just felt like audience baiting because they made little sense, especially in light of S4). Although the final episode seemed to be implying a return to sunlight from the darkness, the ending didn't hold together well, and apparently this was because it was being carried on into the final season.
S4 seemed to undo some things character wise which had been developed in earlier seasons. Although in the last episode the ship was righted, it made for dark viewing, as did the new murder investigation. I had my issues with the resolution of the S3 mystery. On the one hand, the killer had the background I expected, but I had expected another character to be the killer. In fact, I wondered if this hadn't been changed during the writing process, perhaps when an extra season was greenlit?
Ultimately, the killer seemed to be chosen more to shift the main character into a new storyline than because it made that much sense. And that storyline seemed to introduce both new elements and a reversal of her values. On the one hand, it was interesting to see what it was that would move her to a selfish viewpoint, and I could go along with that reasoning. But on the other, it seemed like a particularly nihlistic story development for the show.
What's more the final 10 minutes of the series seemed to be sticking a happy ending onto a show whose final seasons were all about how the system had so little to do with justice and ate alive anyone who cared about it. Our two central detectives have in fact left the force, though how one of them was able to go off on her own made my teeth itch in the same way it did in S1 when she kept going from hotel to hotel, burning money on plane tickets, and eating vending machine food as if this wasn't an expensive way to live for someone on a not great salary. This is not a show that I could call at all shippy but I guess it had viewers who were?
I will say that the male lead had more of an arc than the female one, who change very little across the seasons. He, on the other hand, went a great distance in terms of his focus, his regard for his partner, and his own personal life.
Overall I'd say it was worth watching if darker crime stories are your thing, as well as non-expressive and obsessive central characters.
S3 was a big change and rather grim viewing. Whereas S1 was something of a political thriller mystery, with all sorts of string pulling and collusions, S3 focused on a single killer but very much not a single victim. It was about a serial killer preying on runaway girls as well as the likelihood that the wrong man was now on death row for possibly the first murder years earlier, which our central detective had always had her doubts about.
I got the impression that this second storyline (which ran into S4) was more of an opportunity to examine and condemn a broken system of both social services and criminal justice than to really investigte a mystery. Easily half the storyline was following the man on death row, while I kept expecting it to tie into the murder investigation. It never really did, other than by some clumsy last minute potential identifications (which just felt like audience baiting because they made little sense, especially in light of S4). Although the final episode seemed to be implying a return to sunlight from the darkness, the ending didn't hold together well, and apparently this was because it was being carried on into the final season.
S4 seemed to undo some things character wise which had been developed in earlier seasons. Although in the last episode the ship was righted, it made for dark viewing, as did the new murder investigation. I had my issues with the resolution of the S3 mystery. On the one hand, the killer had the background I expected, but I had expected another character to be the killer. In fact, I wondered if this hadn't been changed during the writing process, perhaps when an extra season was greenlit?
Ultimately, the killer seemed to be chosen more to shift the main character into a new storyline than because it made that much sense. And that storyline seemed to introduce both new elements and a reversal of her values. On the one hand, it was interesting to see what it was that would move her to a selfish viewpoint, and I could go along with that reasoning. But on the other, it seemed like a particularly nihlistic story development for the show.
What's more the final 10 minutes of the series seemed to be sticking a happy ending onto a show whose final seasons were all about how the system had so little to do with justice and ate alive anyone who cared about it. Our two central detectives have in fact left the force, though how one of them was able to go off on her own made my teeth itch in the same way it did in S1 when she kept going from hotel to hotel, burning money on plane tickets, and eating vending machine food as if this wasn't an expensive way to live for someone on a not great salary. This is not a show that I could call at all shippy but I guess it had viewers who were?
I will say that the male lead had more of an arc than the female one, who change very little across the seasons. He, on the other hand, went a great distance in terms of his focus, his regard for his partner, and his own personal life.
Overall I'd say it was worth watching if darker crime stories are your thing, as well as non-expressive and obsessive central characters.