This Monday marks an Independence Day of sorts. Because after Sunday night’s season (and hopefully series) finale of The Killing, I can finally find out who killed Rosie Larsen and then never watch this terrible show ever again. I look forward to the day when I can point out all the Northwest-related errors in Top Chef: Seattle. But first let’s take a look back at the penultimate episode of The Killing, because there are a ton of inaccuracies all up in this shit.

To start with, the episode begins with the polls for the mayoral election set to open in nine hours. WRONG. We vote by mail only across Washington State now, Veena Sud, which means that there should have been a very tense scene where Darren Richmond dramatically put his ballot into a mailbox. Also, this Election Day happens to be the day after Halloween, which would make it November 1. Except that’s impossible. Help me out here, Wikipedia:

[Election Day] occurs on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The earliest possible date is November 2 and the latest possible date is November 8.

Just like I previously guessed, this episode’s title “Donny or Marie?” refers to the question of “Jamie or Gwen?” which Holder helpfully spells out to anyone who couldn’t figure that out in the show’s first scene. Linden replies, “Those two are the only ones in Richmond’s campaign with enough power to broker a deal between the Indians and Ames.” THE INDIANS? Y’might want to keep that term to yourself, friends. Cops show up to arrest Linden and Holder for breaking into City Hall, but Linden is able to blackmail the Mayor into calling off “his dogs” by threatening to take the faked surveillance photo of Richmond to the Times. Linden acknowledges that they know that someone within Richmond’s campaign planted the human remains at the site of the waterfront development project, and promises they’ll pursue their lead on Rosie’s murder within Richmond’s camp.

Looks like Darren Richmond gave his big speech in last week’s episode in Rainier Valley. Dude is lucky he didn’t get shot. Again. Instead, he goes to get a haircut from his black barber Charles. Darren Richmond: Man of the People.

Meanwhile, at the Larsen home, Mitch apologizes for abandoning her family for a couple weeks. Stan says it doesn’t matter, that the important thing is she’s home now. The kids and Terry show up and are reunited with Mitch. Stupid Denny takes his mom back immediately, although he still wants Terry to make him grilled cheese, while Tommy is rightfully skittish.

Terry and Mitch get in a fight about Terry judging Mitch for leaving her family. Stan wants to have a fresh start in the new house, but Mitch wants to stay in the old one and doesn’t want to leave Rosie behind. Stan is just ready to move on. Mitch counters with, “But I’m her mother,” which rightfully sets Stan off, because he’s her dad, and how dare she imply that she somehow loved Rosie more. At this point, I think we all can agree that Mitch just should’ve stayed gone.

Oh, and the radio reports, “Reputed Polish mob boss Janek Kovarsky was gunned down in Capitol Hill,” perhaps after a trip to Dom Polski. Leave the gun, take the pierogi.

Back to the investigation: If Gwen wasn’t Richmond’s alibi, he wasn’t hers. But could Gwen chase down and kill Rosie? Linden thinks that putting Rosie in the trunk while she’s still alive and drowning her is a “passive way to kill,” since you don’t have to look a person in the face when they die. “Men kill with guns and knives. Women poison their victims.” But what about a boy with a girl’s name?

Turns out that the night of Rosie’s murder Gwen had a dinner scheduled with Yitanes at the Lake Union Yacht Club, but she cancelled, while Jamie worked late and went home. His grandfather provided his alibi. Says Holder: “He lives with his grandpops? Damn.” But wait, Jamie went to the City Hall gym at 4:37 a.m. without a keycard.

The guy in charge of keycards for the Richmond campaign doesn’t have a list of who is assigned which one, as it was deleted from his hard drive on Monday, October 8, the Monday after Rosie’s murder. (Let’s see…it’s Day 25, so Rosie was killed on Friday the 5th, with the 6th counting as Day 1 of the investigation. That checks out. For once, The Killing did the math!) Turns out Gwen was in need of a replacement keycard after that weekend. And when Holder and Linden go to the Wapi Casino to pick up the surveillance camera footage, they find a photo on the wall of Gwen at the grand opening of the casino, which Holder takes a picture of on his flip phone.

In investigating potential ties to Michael Ames, Linden and Holder find out that the Columbia Domain Fund is actually Ames’ wife Sally’s company, so the waterfront project failing would affect her more than him. How did Holder’s previous research on the Columbia Domain Fund not turn up that info? Digging deeper, Ames is a part of five companies, but only one doesn’t have his wife on the board: Nereus Capital Properties, located at 21558 Hillcrest. That address exists, but not in the 98158 zip code (it’s 98168). Might this be near Jamie’s childhood neighborhood of Pigeon Park?

So Michael Ames was attempting to tank CDF’s waterfront project because he’s working on his own separate deal, which would double-cross the mayor and screw his wife over to boot. Poor Terry wasn’t deluded–it looks like Michael really was going to leave his wife for her.

But wait, Nereus Capital Properties was only formed a month ago? This is supposed to be 2010? This whole time I just assumed the year was 2011 or 2012. Regardless, some bureaucrat expedited the process for NCP’s eligibility for city contracts after a call came from City Hall. From Jamie, of course.

Richmond wheels himself out of the voting booth that doesn’t exist because Washington State doesn’t have polling places. Oh no! Every one of Richmond’s posters on “4th Street” has been torn down or defaced in the last couple hours! Actually, the mayoral election is going well for Richmond. At 9 p.m. election results so far are Adams with 83,982 votes and Richmond 83,005 votes, but Darren is superstitious and doesn’t watch his own returns.

Holder and Linden show up at Richmond’s City Hall office, where staffers are illegally using city phones to make calls on behalf of his campaign. They ask him about expediting the NCP contract. Does Jamie have his keycard? Of course he does. Jamie says that Rule Number One in Politics is Never run against a guy with no scruples. Rule Number Two: Never trust a boy with a girl’s name.

What if Gwen and Jamie collaborated and killed Rosie together? Why Linden, that’s exactly what I posited after the last episode. You’re just a few steps behind me.

Off to the Lake Union Yacht Club! The valet kid, “Gibby,” just happens to have Friday the 5th’s guest sign-in sheet on his clipboard, even though that was 26 days ago. They have Gwen’s name and signature, along with the model and license of the car she was driving, a black crown car–the campaign car Rosie’s body was found in–except the ledger shows the date as 5/10/10, which is October 5th. IN CANADA.

So Rick was actually Linden’s shrink as well as her fiance? I assumed he was just her emergency contact, but no, only her shrink could get her out of the loony bin. That’s way more inappropriate than a drunken fourteen-year-old girl and a college-age boy kissing. However, there’s no need to bring this up now.

Hey, look, the woman next to Chief Jackson in that photo has a broken arm, and Roberta, Chief Jackson’s current head of security/girlfriend currently has a broken hand. Back at the casino, Linden and Holder show Roberta the excellent quality of photos taken on Holder’s flip phone.

Then they tell Roberta about Chief Jackson’s former head of security/girlfriend Kallie Wimms, who the Chief pinned a murder on, and who is now serving 10-20 years at the Bainbridge Corrections Facility for Women. What a great idea! Let’s quarantine all of our troublesome lesbian Native Americans in an imaginary prison on Bainbridge Island.

Roberta knows that if Chief Jackson sold out Kallie, she could easily do the same to her, and so she turns over the extra surveillance footage. The cameras show the Richmond campaign car in the casino parking lot just before 1 a.m., at about the same time that Rosie is in the elevator heading up to the 10th floor. Then Chief Jackson is in the elevator, then Michael Ames, and then finally Jamie, looking menacingly right at the security camera.

Richmond shows up at a house and dismisses his driver. Inside, there’s a guy with an empty fridge, who is none other than Ted Wright. Except this Ted Wright, unlike the one that Richmond has been mentioning in his speeches, has two legs. Jamie shows up and yells at his grandfather, before Richmond appears to accuse him: “Why did you lie to me, Jamie?” Oh jeez, is the Ted Wright story going to end up somehow being key to the case? And what’s worse for Jamie–that he’s going to be implicated in Rosie Larsen’s murder, or that he has disappointed his boss? One thing is for sure: After Sunday we no longer have to care.