So I Was Wrong About The Killing, So What?

I previously predicted that the incredibly stupid AMC crime drama The Killing was so stupid that the heretofore unintroduced character David Rainer (which should be spelled “David Rainier”), supposedly the real father of dead Ballard teenager Rosie Larsen, would end up being the alter ego of Seattle mayoral candidate Darren Richmond. Because of initials. And after the latest episode, that turned out to be not the case. No, David Rainer was just a heretofore unintroduced character living in Blaine. Because that’s the flavor of stupidity we’re dealing with here.

Where to begin with “Sayonara, Hiawatha,” the ninth episode of the second season of this terrible show? The title is a parting shot Holder fires at a Wapi Casino rent-a-cop. Joel Kinnaman actually does some great work in this episode–his Holder is given the chance and the room to get a little weird, and he goes for it. (He also gets to say, “ain’t no party without no trim.”) Which makes it all the more of a shame that his acting is taking place in the midst of a terrible story. Let’s all hope that the season finale on June 17 allows The Killing to go out not with a bang but a whimper–for now, we’ll crawl through the next four hours together.

I’m talking about lazy exposition like Lt. Duck Phillips just casually mentioning that Linden was thrown in the loony bin over the last case she was this obsessed with. And now it looks as if Linden might be in a psych ward in next week’s episode, if the teaser is any indication. But first: Linden cries herself to sleep in her car. It’s Day 22, everybody.

Oh noes, all of the evidence of Rosie’s case is gone! County has it? County never has it. But Holder and Linden need to get that key to go up to the casino’s tenth floor! Uh-oh, guess we’ll have to break in to Holder’s NA sponsor Gil’s place, so Holder can threateningly eat Italian leftovers, then use GPS to find Gil’s hoarder storage unit in Everett (“the middle of nowhere”). Very conveniently, Holder has been there before. It is also convenient that they easily find the pile of evidence amidst Gil’s hoard, including Rosie’s key.

Meanwhile, the Richmond campaign is talking about an appearance at Oktoberfest at the Ballard Senior Center. For someone still recovering from a bullet wound, I think that’s considered physical therapy. Linden and Holder approach Richmond about putting some pressure on the Mean Wapi Chief Lady, “if solving the Larsen case is truly a priority.” Richmond doesn’t “owe these cops anything,” but when Chief Jackson comes calling to offer her endorsement in exchange for his approval of the Northwest American Indian Museum (and Gift Shop)–which of course comes with tax-exempt status for anything built on their property in city limits–he brings up allowing SPD to search the last place Rosie was seen alive. But Chief Jackson is all, “Your police have no place on sovereign Indian land.” To which Darren says, “This conversation is over.” Boom, drops the mic, wheels himself away. Big finish, Darren Richmond!

Darren says he is not doing business with that charlatan, and he wants to run a clean campaign, for these last final four days till the election. And why does Jamie defend Chief Jackson? Because he killed Rosie! Somewhere in here we find out that Gwen was molested/seduced by Mayor Adams when she was fourteen and he was her dad Senator James Widmore’s campaign aide. Gwen tries to blackmail him to call off any deal he has with Chief Jackson, forcing him to tell her, “You think your father didn’t know?” Boom, drops the mic. You wheel yourself off too, Mayor Lesley Adams. You earned it.

Speaking of teenage girls, Mitch has been all over the place looking for the mysterious David Rainer (which should be spelled “David Rainier”); she found a couple addresses in Blaine, even one all the way out in Ferndale. When she knocks on the door, David Rainer is not Darren Richmond, but just some dude who apparently doesn’t have any contact with the outside world, as he has never heard the news that Rosie is dead.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? A smart, pretty white girl in America gets killed, possibly by her Arab teacherand then possibly by a political candidate–the media would eat that story up. There’s no way that Rosie’s real dad would have been able to avoid hearing that story. And Mitch doesn’t tell him? Even though she has multiple opportunities to do so in a conversation that goes on for far too long? And even when he asks her point-blank as to whether he is Rosie’s real father, Mitch lies and tells him no. Oh come on! Maybe I was wrong about David Rainer, but The Killing was even wronger.

Mitch, of course, freaks out and runs away. But she finally calls home: “Why do we have so many secrets, Stan?” She tells Stan that Rosie visited David Rainer and was planning on running off to California to see the monarch butterflies. [Again, this show.] The weight that they didn’t really know their adolescent child finally sinks in. Oh, btws, sez Mitch, how are my other children? Cut to a photo of the Larsen family in happier times. Ummmm, Tommy is turning into a sociopath and killing baby birds, which has earned him a two-week suspension from school. Tommy hates his dad, his dad hates Tommy, I hate you too, The Killing. Stan has to tell his boys he’s not leaving them too. He finally talks to them about their mom’s abandonment and their sister’s death.

Meanwhile at Casino Mockingjay, Holder provides the distraction, acting like a drunk asshole, while Linden uses Rosie’s key to head up to the 10th floor, and it’s there, where Rosie’s abduction occurred, that suddenly Linden knows it! Rosie was up on the casino’s roof for the view before she left town–a view of Seattle that looks to be from somewhere south of West Seattle. And considering this is an Indian casino island, it’d have to be somewhere like Vashon or Blake Island? Sure, why the hell not.

So Rosie’s must’ve seen Michael Ames and Chief Jackson talking, having some kind of meeting, and that got her killed. But wait, there’s a City of Seattle ID keycard with no photo, so someone else was at the scene of the crime. Someone like Jamie. The episode ends abruptly as Linden is hit over the head with the stupidity of it all.