Tag Archives: amc

Arts & Entertainment, Film & TV

Halfway Through the Second Season, The Killing Muddles Along

2 Comments

Oy vey. This show. Will it ever end? I was out of town when last week’s episode of The Killing aired and couldn’t bring myself to watch it until Saturday night–I got depressed when I realized that it was only the fifth episode (sixth hour) of this season–and then I had to rewatch the episode on Sunday because it didn’t hold my attention the first time around. At this point, slogging through this terrible television show and writing these recaps is truly a labor of hate.

Anyways, in last week’s episode, we found out that Alexi wasn’t involved in Rosie Larsen’s murder, but was with Rosie at the ferry dock the night she died, where Rosie was scared of someone in a town car. Mitch befriended a teenage runaway with terrible piercings at the hotel that she’s been staying at for her family abandonment/sexual walkabout. Linden continued to be a bad mother, leaving her son home alone with a 103F fever until her ex flew all the way from Chicago to take care of him. Richmond stopped pitying himself after finding out that Mayor Adams was somehow involved with the fake photo that framed him for Rosie’s murder. And finally, after we saw Stan kiss his kids’ aunt, in the big reveal, it turns out that Stan Larsen isn’t Rosie’s real father.

That’s actually a lot to occur in one episode, especially compared to last night’s. The mystery man that Terry had been screwing wants to break things off with her. Oh wait, it’s one of her whoring clients, Michael Ames, Rosie’s ex-boyfriend Jasper’s father, a character who I don’t remember at all because he only appeared briefly in a couple early episodes last season. Was Jasper’s father also schtupping Rosie? Was Rosie a virgin or a Beau Soleil whore? I don’t know or care. However, I am thankful for Jasper’s father, if only because he was a part of this great exchange: “What ferry?” “The one that goes to that Indian casino.” Ah yes, Michael Ames’ alibi for the night of Rosie Larsen’s murder is that he took the ferry from Queen Anne’s Cove to the Wapi Indian Casino and then took the 1:30 a.m. employee ferry back to the mainland. Which is a terrible alibi since NONE OF THOSE THINGS ARE REAL.

Mitch spends more time with pierced septum girl and ends up getting robbed. That is a real shocker when you’re dealing with a teenage runaway. But oh no, she also went through Mitch’s Dream Box! At least that allows us to see some of the letter that Mitch wrote to Rosie’s real father, David Rainer, who lives in Blaine. (And shouldn’t that last name be “Rainier”?)

Darren Richmond is back on his feet–not literally, he’s still paralyzed–but he is back to actively running his mayoral campaign. Dude, you just got shot a couple days ago. Take time for your gunshot wound to heal, re-evaluate how your life has permanently shifted, or at least learn how change your catheter without getting piss all over yourself. Or, you know, put all that on the backburner and run for political office. Winning the election should be easy now that your justifiably vindictive ex-girlfriend Gwen is back from DC to eat chicken shawarma and help work on the campaign.

Someone breaks into Linden’s hotel room and puts a kid’s crayon drawing on the fridge, which is scary enough for Linden and her son to move in to Holder’s place, so that a cigarette-smoking man can watch them from a parked car. Meanwhile, Duck from Mad Men thwarts the investigation by blocking the warrants on Michael Ames as well as the casino. He says it’s because the SPD can’t handle another high-profile mistake (which is true), but we also know that he’s dirty and in cahoots with Holder’s former NA sponsor, because obviously there is a huge conspiracy involving the Mayor and the Seattle Police Department and Jasper’s dad’s investment firm and Backpage.com a teenage escort service and the Seattle Polish Mafia and a fake-ass Indian tribe over the waterfront development project that somehow hinges upon the murder of a high school girl. But of course.

And this week in The Killing‘s attention to detail, let’s take a closer look at the front page of the Seattle Evening Standard:

First things first: Is the paper’s URL ses.online.com or SeattleEveningStandard.com? And why do they employ such terrible photoshoppers? However, that is small beans compared to the fact that everything but the Mayor Adams-Michael Ames story above the fold–the format, fonts, other stories, etc.–is completely stolen from the New York Times website. See the column on the left that lists the paper by section: World, US, Politics, New York, Business…. And see the editorial section to the top right, which lists a Thomas Friedman piece, “Freedom at 4 Below,” and a Ross Douthat piece, “The Persistence of the Culture War,” both of which appeared in the NYT‘s February 7, 2012 edition. There, I cracked the case of the stolen newspaper! Now can we please cancel this show?

Arts & Entertainment, Film & TV

The Killing Slowly Slouches Towards Bethlehem

Question mark?

Season 2 episode 4 of The Killing (“Ogi Jun”) starts with Linden and Holder on stakeout, going through Rosie’s backpack, just like I am trying to sort through this mess of a television series.

The Larsen boys are asking about Belko and their dad is lying to them, saying he’s sick, not at the morgue. Stan Larsen, you are not doing anyone any favors, especially with Tommy acting out, putting little brother Dennis in the trunk of the family car, and of course yelling at his aunt Terry “You’re not my mother!” I don’t care. Turns out that years ago, Stan had to kill some dude in order to get out of the Seattle Polish Mafia. Holder and Linden go talk to the man’s widow Monica.

Meanwhile Darren Richmond is being a big whiny baby and a total meanie, just because he’s lost all use of his legs. But he’s about to start physical therapy and so Jamie calls Gwen at her brand-new DC job for some details of Darren’s daily routine. Oh of course, Gwen gets emotional and through tears, she tells Jamie that the only thing that will get him out of bed is “being Darren Richmond again.” Shortly thereafter, Jamie tries to help move Richmond from his bed to his brand-new wheelchair and they both fall on the floor. Oopsy daisy. Powerful stuff.

And then the Mayor swings by the hospital to be magnanimous: “This isn’t how either of us pictured this ending, Darren.” And so Darren Richmond is depressed and wants to resign from the mayor’s race and he and Jamie get into a fight. This is all very zzzzzzz.

Linden gets a call from a lawyer, as her husband is suing for joint custody. “Your continued & consistent neglect and failure to meet your child’s basic needs as a parent” sums the situation up nicely.

Holder and Linden go talk to stupid Sterling–a character there’s no reason to care about, since we last saw her in the fourth episode last season–who quickly offers up that a guy with tats who had been in jail was hanging out in front of the Larsens’, watching Rosie. Thanks for that information now, Sterling!

And introducing Benissimo Lee, the famous juvenile detention tattoo artist, who remembers giving the Ogi Jun tattoo to one “Giffs,” the nom de juvie of Alexi Giffords, a foster kid whose latest home was three blocks from the Larsens’ place in Ballard.

Stan Larsen goes to the morgue to identify Belko and take care of the funeral services. But wait! Janek Kovarsky has done so already. TWIST. Stan goes to the sad-ass send-off for Belko Royce and Janek’s the only other person there too. But uh oh! Poor Tommy is getting bullied at school, and so Stan drops by to tell him that the next time some guys are talking shit about his whore of a sister, he should hit the biggest one. Father of the Year advice right there. And when Stan finds arson evidence in his van (which Kovarsky and his “friends” have been borrowing), he knows the mob was involved in the Beau Soleil fire. So Stan confronts Janek and is told to forget about Rosie and focus on the children he still has. Them’s fighting words–not Lane Pryce-Pete Campbell fighting words, but fighting words nonetheless.

Whilst taking a piss, Holder sees the Ogi Jun tattoo (on a guy with a sweet silver chain necklace), and he runs after him, but Alexi gets away. Then Linden violates a citizen’s civil liberties by illegally accessing Alexi’s foster records via a friend of Regi (remember her?) while Holder searches the guy’s apartment. Turns out Alexi Giffords is actually the son of Piotr Michaelski, the man who Stan Larsen killed. Piotr’s widow shows up just to tell Stan that he “got what he deserves.” But oh wait, Alexi had drawn a picture of Rosie and then scribbled on it!

So of course the killer is not going to be Alexi Michaelski–in fact, it will likely turn out that they were star-crossed lovers, so I’m going to jump one step ahead: how about if Rosie’s dad killed Rosie? She was found with her hands tied in a trunk of a car at the bottom of a pond, while Stan’s victim was shot in the head, bound, and put in the trunk of a car before sinking to the bottom of a pond. And why the hell not at this point? We’ve had every other suspect thus far. TWIN PEEEEAAAAAAKKKKSSSS! Boom, drop the mic.

Arts & Entertainment, Film & TV

Back to Square One on The Killing

1 Comment

Image from The Killing opening credits

If you haven’t already, hie thee to the Grantland podcast from last week, which was DEAD ON in their assessment of what exactly is wrong with AMC’s The Killing (starts at 15:30). Case in point: It’s Day Sixteen–is this forever?–and here we are, with all our previous subjects dead or paralyzed or otherwise cleared of Rosie Larsen’s murder.

So Linden is back to the drawing board, investigating the Wapi Eagle Casino and the Beau Soleil teenage escort service, after those threads were long ago abandoned last season. We’re also back to discussing the Mayor’s Waterfront Project, which maybe now can go forward even though the land is a Native American burial ground? Regardless, you just know that this development project is somehow going to be involved in Rosie’s stupid murder conspiracy.

As I predicted last week, Linden learned all about the tattoo glimpsed in Rosie’s Super 8 film from her son, who, unprovoked, launches into the entire manga story of Ogi Jun. The hero avenged his father’s death using the skills taught to him by the sensei who would later betray him, which I’m guessing will end up mirroring the arc of another character on this show.

The shoe place that was acting as a front for Beau Soleil has been torched, but it doesn’t matter, considering all the computer servers had already been moved from the basement. Oh, but of course, there’s security cameras, so we’ll be able to see if it was arson–MAGIC security cameras with images that somehow get clearer the more they zoom in–images which show a Larsen van drive by Beau Soleil right before the fire. And lo, there’s a guy in the van who has the mystery tattoo, thought assuredly this will turn out to be yet another red herring.

Nope, apparently Beau Soleil has relocated and is busy deleting all their files, and of course, they’re somehow involved with the Seattle Polish Mafia. But that’s not what Janek told Stan! He said that they had investigated Beau Soleil and it was entirely composed of Russian girls, not Rosie. He also gives Stan Rosie’s file from the morgue just to rile him up.

After finding out he has been duped, Holder is skipping NA meetings (which apparently now take place in a brokedown shack, complete with handwritten sign), visiting his old meth-head friend Logic to hit his mom and steal a baggie, and boning some junkie chick from NA in his car. By the end of the episode, Holder is totally tweaking and pacing in the middle of the street before Linden comes to rescue him and he takes her to Rosie’s real backpack. Let’s investigate this murder AS FRIENDS.

Meanwhile, Mitch is on the road, driving somewhere between Seattle and Canada, from the looks of the map in her car. She decides to stay at the Motel Olympic and unpacks Rosie’s shoebox of dreams. And while her abandoned family is struggling without her, Mitch is off making bad decisions in her hotel room with a schoolbook salesman, as one is wont to do when grieving over a dead child.

Speaking of, file under Linden being a bad mother: talking on her cell phone while driving, which her son correctly points out is illegal. Linden also almost makes her kid mac and cheese (Jake has to finish cooking for her), which almost counts as real food. File under Linden being a bad cop: Linden has to be told how to download an email attachment.

And finally, Councilman Richmond is still paralyzed. Um, why are we still following this character? He’s no longer a suspect and it’s not like we feel any real attachment to him. Whatever the case, Richmond is completely living in denial about his condition, trying to rush rehab, talking about going to fundraisers, and not taking his morphine. (Take the morphine, buddy–believe me, I’d be using it to slog through this show if some were available.) Richmond doesn’t feel it when he puts a campaign pin in his leg, nor when he gets a seamless catheter change from a flirty brunette nurse. Just his type, ladies. All the while, his former flame Gwen talks to her Senator Daddy Charles Widmore about finding a job for her in DC.

This week, The Killing‘s Killer Attention to Detail Award goes to intrepid hatewatcher Josh Bis, who captured a still from this week’s episode, along with this assessment: “This badge should say Katie, but the producers are as bad as their characters.” Let’s conduct our own investigation:

The credits indicate that this character’s name is Nurse Katie Jordan.

And here’s the badge, screengrab by Josh:

Helloooooo, NURSE. Enhance:

ENHANCE:

ENHANCE!!!:

ENHAAAAAANNNNNCCCEEEE!!!!11!!!!

Alright, I can’t come close to discerning that name, but it looks like it starts with a C or K and maybe the last name starts with a J, so it could say “Katie Jordan” after all. Or that could be the morphine drip talking.

Arts & Entertainment, Film & TV

The Killing is Back with a Second Season of Ugh

1 Comment
Excellent detective work, as always, Linden.

Oh no, this show again. When last we left off (June 2011, which is only Day Thirteen on The Killing‘s calendar), Rosie Larsen’s murder remained unsolved due to myriad macguffins, red herrings, double-crosses, and psych-outs–and television critics, the Twitterverse, and what few fans were left were pissed off at being jerked around and vowed that the show was as dead to them as Rosie.

I was hoping that in the interim AMC would think better of it and cancel The Killing entirely, but here we are, with a two-hour premiere (“Reflections”/”My Lucky Day”) to ease us right back into television hell. The episode starts with Detective Linden looking as unhappy about having to do all this again as I am. She tells her son Jack that they’ll be staying in Seattle, so hopefully we won’t have to deal with any more of the will-she-or-won’t-she-move-to-California subplot that wasted so much time last season. RIP, Fiance Rick, we hardly knew ye.

Meanwhile, mayoral candidate Darren Richmond is in bad shape after Belko shot him (and killed his own mother too, before turning the gun on himself at the police station). There’s an unnecessary, unintentionally funny moment as the EMTs are wheeling Richmond to the ambulance, when somehow the stretcher tips over and Richmond’s body falls on the ground. Maybe that’s why he’s now paralyzed from the waist down, not Belko’s bullet. Good thing the councilman is receiving good care and terrible bedside manner at the Lake Washington Medical Center.

Linden continues being a bad mother, dropping Jack off at a random church, leaving him alone at night to continue her investigation, and feeding him a healthy dinner of vending machine potato chips. Speaking of bad moms, Mitch has run away from home, abandoning the Larsen family, while her sister, who’s acting as Substitute Mommy, sends one of the little boys out to the car to fetch her cigarettes. Classy. Just wait till everyone finds out you were a secret Backpage.com Beau Soleil escort, Terry!

Campaign aide Jamie tells Gwen he’s a “garden variety asexual,” and Gwen returns the favor by telling Jamie (and eventually Linden) that Richmond wasn’t with her the night of Rosie’s murder, but later showed up soaking wet at the Tacoma B&B where they were staying. I suppose that’s as good a reason as any to go to Tacoma, so Linden investigates further, ultimately discovering that Richmond couldn’t have killed Rosie because he was too busy trying to kill himself that night by jumping off a Tacoma bridge.

So who killed Rosie Larsen? Now that we’ve taken an entire season plus one episode to rule out Darren Richmond, obvs there’s a CONSPIRACY AFOOT. It definitely involves Lt. Gil Sloane, another cop and a member of Holder’s Narcotics Anonymous group, who performed a “secure erase hard drive” in record time before heading to the Mayor’s now-shuttered Waterfront Project to meet with Mayor’s assistant and yell at him. After finally learning to trust Holder, Linden now thinks he’s dirty, thanks to those faked traffic cam photos, but it turns out Holder was just a rube. And he can’t be that bad, considering he kept Rosie Larsen’s real backpack and turned in his own to the crime lab, only for them to return faked results.

Linden goes back to the station and finds a new police lieutenant in charge. Oh hey, it’s Duck Phillips! Maybe some of our other old Mad Men friends will show up and join the cast, like dear departed Sal and neighborhood boy Glen and Zombie Miss Blankenship. I’d much rather be watching a fever dream Mad Men spinoff. Oh well, only eleven more hours of this season of The Killing to go.

So many cliffhangers: Will Holder and Linden go back to being BFFs? Will Jack recognize the Japanimation character from Rosie’s super 8 film, since we saw him reading a manga in this episode? Will the famed Seattle Polish mob find Rosie’s real killer? Will Darren Richmond’s sister and Mitch check their voicemail? The suspense is KILLING me.

And before we go, let’s take a look at the close attention to detail that has made The Killing so very famous. ENHANCE:

Linden gets Gil Sloane's phone number from the Narcotics Anonymous list.
More like Narcotics Not-So-Anonymous.
Writing down the number: 509-555-0058.

And in the very next scene, when Linden is relaying the phone number in order to track down Gil Sloane’s address:

A phone number that wasn't even on the list! Bravo.

Arts & Entertainment, Film & TV

It’s All Over But The Killing

Image from The Killing opening creditsWell, at least that’s over. OR IS IT? So, who killed Rosie Larsen? You did, The Killing, with your terrible, horrible, no good, very bad show. Spoilers follow, but really, I’m doing you a favor. Do not watch this awful series. If there is a gun to your head, you take that bullet like a man, and spare your mind from this idiocy.

I am not alone in this opinion, as public sentiment can be summarized thusly, while critical opinion is somehow even worse. Maureen Ryan’s recap includes the statement (caps hers) “YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME,” while Alan Sepinwall said: “So this will be the last review I write of The Killing, because this will be the last time I watch The Killing. Because I have no interest in going forward with a show that treats its audience this way.” Yeeeowwch. (I deliberately will not address Gina Bellafante of the New York Times‘ semi-positive review, as she obviously does not know what she is talking about.)

Last night’s season finale (“Orpheus Descending”) begins where the previous episode left off, with Detective Linden getting caught checking out Councilman Richmond’s AOL account after she sent him twelve sexts with the subject line “I KNOW WHAT YOU DID.” Since his email address/escort service username is Orpheus, Richmond hamhandedly recounts the story, even though we aren’t a bunch of semi-literate fools and already learned about mythology in fifth grade. Linden finishes her conversation with a murder suspect and then merrily goes on her way.

Meanwhile, at the Larsen house, Mommy and Daddy are still fighting. Day Thirteen dawns with Stan Larsen sleeping in his truck at the cemetery. You know, Dad stuff. Happy Father’s Day. Stan visits Bennet Ahmed’s beaten body in the ICU and has a heartfelt moment with his wife. Once again, give me this interpersonal stuff six episodes prior, not now. Mitch looks over her childhood dreams scrapbook at all the empty pages of things she didn’t grow up to do. (Page 12: star in a critically acclaimed AMC mystery series.)

The press has revealed that Darren Richmond has had many brunette lovers, not all of whom he had to pay for, because OH BOO HOO HIS WIFE DIED AND HE’S SOOOOOO DAMAGED. Gwen is pissed off, but she puts on a brave face, even after his ex-married girlfriend/ex-campaign manager shows up at the office. Linden and Holder are trying to get some evidence to tie Richmond to Rosie’s murder, but the mileage on the campaign car seems off. The math doesn’t work! Maybe the math killed Rosie Larsen! But oh wait, if Richmond skipped the ferry and took the long way home, the mileage makes sense. And whaddya know, an old guy saw Richmond at a gas station and heard a girl screaming, and whaddya know, they find a shoe, and whaddya know, there’s an image of Richmond on a traffic cam on Desolation Bridge at 3 a.m.

Linden and Richmond have a big showdown that wouldn’t hold up to Miranda scrutiny, and then Linden conveniently runs into Gwen for a parking garage chat, in which Gwen provides her with the DVD featuring Richmond meeting Rosie at a rally. (And that’s why you don’t cheat on your campaign manager.) Richmond is elected mayor, but Linden and the cops show up at the celebration rally and arrest him right there. AWK-WARD. Mitch, the only woman in Seattle who is a lousier mother than Linden, decides she shouldn’t be a mom anymore (“it’s not good for the boys”) and so she leaves Stan and her family to go work on her dream journal. Meanwhile, Belko is cleaning his gun while his mom takes a bath, which is just a typical Sunday night at my house.

So everything is wrapped up with a tidy bow, right? Linden and her son run to finally catch a plane to Sonoma–sidenote care of Videogum: Detective Linden is almost as bad at getting on planes as she is at police work–and the pilot announces that they’re going to have “somewhat of a bumpy flight.” GROAN. Right before takeoff, Linden gets a phone call from the Department of Transportation, notifying her that they can’t get her those surveillance photos from Desolation Bridge because the cameras at the tollbooth haven’t been working for months. Which means that the photos that placed Richmond on the bridge the night of the murder were doctored. WHICH MEANS THAT HOLDER IS AS MUCH OF A RAT AND A DIRTY COP AS HE INITIALLY APPEARED. So Holder is working for someone else–Mayor Adams? This would actually be kinda sly, if I at all cared about anything involving this show anymore. The episode (and the season) ends with Richmond being hauled off to jail, when Belko shows up in the crowd to assassinate him, Jack Ruby-style.

Sigh.

Producer/creator Veena Sud seems to think she’s done a good job here, but instead she has rewarded her audience for their loyalty with a frustrating fakeout. If there is a second season of The Killing–and shows have been renewed and then canceled before, so AMC still has time to do the right thing–I will watch it and cover it so you don’t have to, brothers and sisters. But if I ever encounter Veena Sud, if she visits Seattle to film a couple soggy exteriors of the Space Needle, or if I’m in Vancouver and happen to spot her shooting pseudo-Seattle, I will punch her right in her smug, condescending face. Case closed.

Arts & Entertainment, Film & TV

Don’t Worry, The Killing Will Be Over Soon

Image from The Killing opening credits

I didn’t even bother to recap last week’s episode, especially on the heels of headlines like “The Weekend Everyone Turned Against The Killing.” It’s not that the previous episode, entitled “Missing,” was especially lousy. It actually provided a lot of great character development and took a break from the main plot (who killed Rosie Larsen?) to spend some time learning more about Holder and Linden, in the wake of Linden’s teenage son’s disappearance.

That is all well enough. But the problem is that it came too late in the series. That kind of character development should have occurred in the first third of the show, not the second episode from the finale. It’s like the people behind The Killing don’t know how a good television show should be structured–or in other words, it’s like they’ve never watched another drama on AMC. (As a reminder, Season 4 of Breaking Bad starts July 17th.)

Alright, let’s do this: Oh noes, Belko got fired. Oh noes, Linden’s estranged ex-husband wants to spend time with her son. Oh noes, Rosie Larsen’s parents are fighting over the money he spent on the new house. Oh noes, the mayor’s waterfront development is held up due to the unearthing of an INDIAN BURIAL GROUND, which somehow ensures he won’t be re-elected. I could not care less about any of the above.

Meanwhile, Rosie’s aunt Terry is a whore, and Rosie was too? Because there’s a huge underground Seattle high-price escort ring with high school-aged girls called Beau Soleil? But of course. You are killing me, Killing!

And naturally, part of excellent detective skills is sending an email to a murder suspect with the subject line “I KNOW WHAT YOU DID.” That always works.

So let me guess, even though it looks as if mayoral candidate Darren Richmond is Rosie Larsen’s killer, next week will bring a surprise TWIST? My money is still on campaign aides Gwen and/or Jamie.

For better or for worse, AMC now has all of The Killing‘s episodes available for streaming on their website (with ads). For better or for worse, AMC has just renewed The Killing for a second season. Alright, it’s for worse. Spoiler alert: THIS SHOW WILL KILL ME.

Unlike Linden and Holder, here’s some video of local officers actually doing their job: