Tag Archives: amc

Arts & Entertainment, Film & TV

The More The Killing Goes, The Slower the Plot Gets

Another week, another episode of AMC’s The Killing, and we are now well within snoozefest territory. Oh yes, please give me further insight into Rosie Larsen’s younger brothers, as they are clearly the most interesting characters on the show. I cannot get enough of this gripping bedwetting drama!

Sunday’s episode was entitled “Super 8″ (not to be confused with the upcoming JJ Abrams-Steven Spielberg summer blockbuster), and not much happened. Rosie’s teacher Bennet is a sketchball who married a former student, but even though he was writing “follow your dream” notes to Rosie and refinishing his floors with a chemical found on her body, that doesn’t mean he’s a killer. Although he wasn’t eliminated as a suspect outright, I’d guess he didn’t do it, considering we’ve got another eight hours of show to go.

Meanwhile, Rosie’s parents are still grieving hardcore, while also being snubbed by friends and clients. The mole in Richmond’s campaign was Nathan, a character I did not remember having ever seen before. TWIST. Richmond shoots an ad with Bennet in it, but not directed by the guy that Gwen was shtupping on the side. Holden is celibate (spoiler alert) and got an envelope of money from a random guy in a car, which he later delivered to a house with a woman and kids, who are no doubt his estranged family. Linden needs to stop buying non-refundable plane tickets to Sonoma, since she obviously ain’t going nowhere anytime soon. Jamie got drunk with Mayor Adams and tricked him into thinking he’s an honorable and upstanding re-election worker, yet another piece of evidence for why you should never trust a boy with a girl’s name.

Like I said, riveting stuff. At this point, I’m hoping for a grand conspiracy: Rosie ended up shooting some footage of something bad about the mayor’s waterfront project. And Gwen’s dad the Senator is somehow in cahoots with Mayor Adams, so she was dispatched to get rid of Rosie, and used Bennet’s relationship with Rosie to do so, and Kris and Jasper helped too. I don’t know, just spit-balling here.

“What happened to the Port Townsend move?” Rosie’s dad asks. Ummm, clearly those customers hired a moving company a little closer than Ballard, which is two hours and a ferry ride away. I gotcha good, Killing fact-checkers!

For the record, this Sunday’s episode is not available for streaming on AMC’s website, and the show’s first four episodes will be gone soon too. Last call.

Arts & Entertainment, Film & TV

The Best Part of The Killing Every Week Comes Before the Show

1 Comment

Sunday’s episode of The Killing is the one that I found the most satisfactory so far, and yet it was the first episode that just served as a rote police procedural, so yay? Way to be…merely adequate? After the episode, I kept AMC on in the background at home. The Killing aired again, and then an episode from last year’s season of Breaking Bad. Sigh. Now that’s a show.

Anyways, this week’s episode of The Killing, “A Soundless Echo” (stream here), revealed that Holder, the ratface detective, has his own drug problems (like duh) and is good at riding the bus, and it taught me that there is an area in Seattle called Pigeon Point. (Sorry PP, but Jamie the former Richmond campaign worker is from there, and he described the neighborhood as “white trash.”) Sarah Linden’s fiance made a surprise visit WITH CAKE. Rosie Larsen’s parents went coffin-shoppin’, and thems is pricey.

As to the mayoral election, Jamie was not really a mole but was “fired” so that he could go work for the rival Adams re-election campaign. Sneaky sneaky! Especially since Richmond hasn’t told his colleague/girlfriend Gwen about this covert operation. At the same time, Richmond’s numbers are tanking and he needs money, so Gwenno set up a meeting with a rich Ayn Rand fan (read: asshole) who writes him a check, so now he can put up a towering billboard facing his condo. Because every politician wants a huge headshot of himself right across from his residence. Money well spent.

All in all, I’m a little concerned about the number of easily dispelled red herrings we’ve seen in only four episodes. By way of example, see the video shot in The Cage, which was introduced towards the end of the third episode, only to be dismissed in the first fifteen minutes the fourth episode (because it’s good ol’ Sterling, not Rosie, in the footage). Now that Linden found love letters from Rosie’s teacher hidden in Rosie’s room, here’s to hoping that’s a plot point not so easily resolved in the first half of next Sunday’s episode. Don’t make me quit you, The Killing!

Meanwhile, my favorite part of every episode–the part of The Killing that really feels like Seattle–is the opening credits (known in the business as the “opening title sequence”). While it’s always raining a little too hard in the episode itself, in those shots, it’s just right. Driving through the rain and fog on a cloudy gray day, thinking about a dead body, having to wait for the drawbridge to go down is Seattle to a T.

And with good reason. Though it looks like the work of local agency Digital Kitchen (responsible for Six Feet Under’s iconic credits), the opening title sequence for The Killing was in fact created by Chicago-based Sarofsky Corp, with the help of a fancy RED digital camera. There’s some info here, and check what Sarofsky had to say about it on their website:

AMC and Fuse Entertainment came to us looking for an opening title sequence that would capture the essence of their newest series, The Killing. The show covers the murder of a young girl and the police investigation that follows, so pinpointing the tonality of the show was critical in the production of this main title.

In our solution, we introduce The Killing by taking a journey through eerie, wet Seattle from the perspective the main character, Sarah Linden. As she drives from the city to Discovery Park, multiple environments are seen through the foggy, rain saturated windows of her car. However, throughout the drive, we also cut to erratic and fast moving images of a dead body. We introduce the setting of the show, while at the same time, we witness the inner workings of Sarah’s mind, reflecting on the crime and piecing abstract clues together.

We shot this sequence in Seattle on a RED One. Almost all of the lighting effects were done in post, but treated to have a seamlessly integrated feel.

Arts & Entertainment, Film & TV

The Killing Presents an Alternate-Universe Seattle Worth Murdering For

1 Comment

I am still not in love with AMC’s new mystery series, The Killing. But I am still watching it, and let’s face it, I probably will continue to–really now, what else is there to do on Sunday nights? For yesterday’s episode, “El Diablo,” I turned the captions on, which helped to overcome the muddled sound mixing and overall mush-mouthedness of the actors. Pro-tip!

Besides that, “El Diablo” (streaming here) was a slight improvement over the two-hour premiere in that there were fewer Space Needle shots, and it wasn’t so over-the-top and stilted in exposition. No surprise: Detective Sarah Linden still hasn’t made the move off the case and to Sonoma with her husband-to-be. I’m betting that Rosie Larsen’s killer is mayoral campaign staffer/paramour Gwen, for no good reason than just because it would be “unexpected.” But let’s get away from the suspense and drama of the series and onto the bigger issue at hand: The Killing‘s alternate universe version of Seattle and why I would like to live in that city.

Just take a look at the above screencap of the Seattle Daily Reader, which features frontpage below-the-fold headlines “Lake Union, Site of Music Festival” and (much more newsworthy) “SEA OTTER SPOTTED EATING IN LOCAL CAFE.” Please, oh please, I want to go to there. Imagine a Seattle that has more than one daily paper, in which Wallingford NIMBYs would allow a festival to take place on their precious lakefront, in which you can go out for lunch with a sea otter. I want to live in a world where janitors are proudly named after Lyndon Johnson and children can have breakfast for dinner (maybe with an otter named Lyndon Johnson).

But more importantly: Backroom deals for political endorsements in exchange for a plumbing contract? The current mayor is close to cutting the ribbon on a major waterfront development project? Sounds like this is a Seattle that gets things done! How many teenage girls would we need to kill to get some movement on the viaduct? Because I’m willing to do whatever it takes. Let’s kill Sterling just to be safe.

But one thing about last night’s episode wasn’t a fantasy: NarcScent, the fake marijuana that Holder uses to trick children into thinking he’s not a cop, but just a cool pot-smoking rat-faced dude, is a real fake marijuana product that real law enforcement types use to trick real people–the more you know. Thanks, The Killing!

Arts & Entertainment, Film & TV

So Far, AMC’s The Killing Only Slays Good TV

3 Comments

AMC’s new drama, The Killing, based on Danish series Forbrydelsen (The Crime) about a murdered teen and the ensuing criminal investigation, premiered with a two-hour episode last night, and so far, I am Not Impressed. Because of the network’s track record, I will give every original series on AMC a fair shake, but not every show is Mad Men (this means you, Rubicon). In fact, because of the high bar set by the rest of their shows, you go into a new AMC series with certain expectations of quality. But so far, The Killing is decidedly meh. Let’s take a look at some of the new show’s issues:

  • Stilted exposition up the wazoo, even for a first episode. “Oh, hello, [Character Name]. How is it going with your [obstacle]? Now please hint at your SECRET.” As it is, everything is way too obvious. Example: you know the rat-faced creepazoid detective is going to turn out to be a decent guy and a valuable asset after all.
  • Also obvious: character “quirks,” like the lady cop is always chewing gum!
  • Too many characters already (and, as mentioned above, every character has his/her secret). How’s about just introducing a few characters and then introducing more, as the investigation expands and more suspects are considered? That would be a little more organic.
  • And it’s easy to make the Twin Peaks comparison, so there’s no need for the show’s marketing to do so as well. Tagline “Who Killed Rosie Larsen?” is just plain lazy.
  • What was up with the Montauk monster in the very first scene? Wrong coast. I’m guessing it’s an overloaded allegory, which makes it even worse.
  • Now here’s something they got right: Aggressively unattractive people dressed sloppily is so very Seattle. Also if you’re going to transplant a show from Scandinavia, the next best thing is Ballard. Good gloomy atmospherics for a murder, plus it’s nice and Nordy!

So far, the best part of the show is Shots of Seattle, the game in which you try to determine where exactly a scene was filmed. (And then, umm, take a shot if you’re right? Or would that be take a shot if you’re wrong? I’m making this up as I go.) Though the majority of the production took place in Vancouver (of course), just under a week of The Killing was filmed locally, and I actually thought the editing did a good job of blending the local shots with the Canadian ones. Last night’s episode featured Gas Works Park, Discovery Park, the Larsen family living somewhere under the Ballard Bridge, just a hint of Pioneer Square, and way too many aerial views of the Space Needle.

I’ll give it one more chance with next week’s episode, but if you’re looking for can’t-miss-caliber drama, the new season of Breaking Bad starts in July, so AMC is rerunning the entire series thus far beginning this Wednesday. And if you missed last night’s premiere of The Killing, it’s available for streaming on AMC’s website.