The Killing: "Vengeance"

Season 1, Episode 7

Piggybacking off of last week’s closing minutes, the show starts to lose itself

The Facts of the Case are These:

·         On the night of Rosie’s murder, Amber drove to the dance to stake out Bennett, which explains her late arrival to her sister’s

·         Amber’s pregnancy means she can’t lift anything, which it couldn’t have been her loading the body into the car

·         A named Mohammed, who studies the Quran with Bennett, has full access to the house, and was most likely there on the night of Rosie’s murder

·         Yet Mohammed is also under investigation by the FBI for…something.

I have tried avoiding the issue as much as possible, but at the point the show has more or less forced me to go there: race. Out first major suspect was Bennett (I’m not really counting Jasper), who was black, and apparently also a Muslim. Mohammed, our next big suspect, is also Muslim, and most likely black, given what we say of the mosque Linden and Holder visited. I don’t want to accuse the show of being racist – in fact, odds are good that the actual killer is going to be white – but it is interesting to note how the show seems to be using race to propel this section of the story forward. After using a black man to supposedly engage us (black men being the traditional first suspect of any story), the show now has moved on to a Muslim suspect, a person whose evilness quotient is much higher in the current climate. Now obviously Mohammed can’t be the killer – it’s still too early and he’s under FBI investigation – but it does seem that the show wanted us to believe that he could have been the killer, base solely on the fact that he was Muslim. It feels like the show is using race as a stand-in for actual story, and not only is that just lazy writing, but it’s also a bit offensive on a moral level.

The other problem with Mohammed is what his FBI investigation means for the show. Clearly some portion of next week’s episode is going to be devoted to explaining what was in that locked freezer/why the FBI was investigating Mohammed, and odds are quite good that it won’t have anything to do with Rosie’s murder, which puts us right back in the “eliminate one suspect per week” mode the show was operating at earlier. So then the question remains: why? What possible good can come from the Mohammed investigation? And will any of it matter, or will it just be one more thing we look back on at the end of the season and say, “Man, was that ever a waste.”

Meanwhile, on the campaign trail less traveled:

·         Darren is feeling pressure to have Bennett fired, both from the school and the Seattle All-Stars organization. The issue over the latter leads to a city council vote to suspend funding for the program

·         The drunk driver responsible for Lilly Richmond’s death is being given parole, and it’s hinted that Darren may have played a part in it.

Much like last week, the campaign plot worked when it stayed focused on how Rosie’s death – and the suspicions of Bennett’s involvement – seemed to completely derail Darren’s chances of election. A particularly liked how the episode used all of this as a platform to discuss the over-reactionary nature of the public at large, perhaps best summed up by the faux-Limbaugh radio show Darren heard in his car. These moments were subdued, well played, and really lent a lot to the show’s atmosphere. In these scenes, Rosie’s death never left us, and it felt as if Darren’s story was actually part of the same show.

But the rest? I could leave it. I don’t particularly care about Darren’s wife’s death, at least not until it links back up with the Rosie’s death. (I mean, it’s got to, right? Because if that plot point’s only there for emotional resonance, well then it’s falling down on the job.) And while I appreciated how the city council vote played into the theme of paranoia that the show was getting at, it was also meant to further the story of Darren’s decline along (before what I’m sure will be some sort of eventual comeback), and as far as that goes, I couldn’t care less.

And in the land of the Forlorn:

                                         

So just like that, Stan is no longer on the war path to find out Rosie’s killer. It was a bit sudden to be sure, but I think I like it better this way. Sure, those opening minutes were fantastic, as Stan came so close to killing Bennett before realizing that that’s not the man he changed into for his daughter’s sake. And unlike say, the fact that he was once part of the mob, this little bit of character development makes sense. Of course he’s the kind of man who would have left the crime life for his daughter, and he seems moral enough to want to stick to that.

However, this change also leads to the show’s stupidest plot development so far – now Mitch is the one starting her own rouge investigation. I could see how this could have worked, if Stan’s own investigation had gone on longer than it did, and then it was dropped for a while, and then Mitch picked it up. But as is, it’s just feels forced and unmotivated by the character, as if the show is just scrambling to give her something to do besides feel sorrowful. While I haven’t minded so much that the Larsen are feeling out their grief (it’s only been seven days, people!), others are itching for them to move on to something else already. And while Stan’s arc as felt a bit more natural – at first he wanted revenge, but now he just wants to stay the same good man he is for his boys – Mitch’s has been growing in fits and sprits, and it doesn’t work nearly as well. (Plus, need we really need to bring in racist ol’ grandma? What did that accomplish?)

And then there’s Linden. *Sigh* The show just spent what felt like an exorbitant amount of time tonight dealing with the supposed fallout between her and Rick (who we didn’t even see, by the way) over her missing the flight. And then we got that whole clunky exposition via Reggie about how Sarah almost lost custody of Jack (we she pronounces more like “Jacques”, for some reason) during her last big investigation. I just can’t take it anymore.

There was, however, one good moment out of all of this that I rather enjoyed, and that was the scene where Sarah taught Jack how to shoot/aim the paintball gun. It was both light and a nice character beat for the two, and it finally felt as if we were viewing them as mother and son. Yet even this worries me, because it plays off of Jack’s new bully, yet another plot point the show has introduced that had nothing to do with Rosie’s murder, much like the Mohammed FBI plot. (And, thanks to Wikipedia, I know what’s coming up in a few weeks, and it makes me shake my head even more. I won’t tell you what it is, and I don’t want you spoiling it for anybody else either, but you can look it up for yourself if you’re really interested.)

I feel more and more as if this show is turning into Twin Peaks – a show that used a murder as an entry point into a town – as opposed to what this show was originally marketed as – something that takes a look at the far-reaching effects of one person’s death. And that worries me. I’ll still stick to this show for the rest of the season, mostly out of brand-loyalty and curiosity to see how it all ends, but the second season? I’m out. (That’s of course assuming the show get’s a second season. Its numbers have been dropping lately.)

Quotes, Etc.:

Current Killer Theory: Well, not much has changed in the past week, so I’m sticking with Sen. Eaton. Or Adams. Somebody in the political scene, and I’m sure it has something to do with Rosie’s camera.

Holder can’t pull off the phrase “puffy white ass.”

“That thing you do, where you run your mouth off without thinking: that explains a lot to.”

“Yeah, the guy’s right. But he was wearing a dress.”

“Everybody be hatin’ on the Po-Po.”

“Somebody was yelling ‘Help!’ inside, so I got my probable cause.”