A thread for AMC's The Killing, a remake of much-lauded Danish drama "Forbrydelsen"

just had to chime in and say 'UGH THAT MUSIC IS BACK'

― Gukbe, Monday, April 4, 2011 1:51 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

never seen the original but god theyre laying drama on thick

not sure this show is for me

my gf was really, really into the first two episodes from sunday, but man to me this just mostly seems like a histrionic 12 hour long episode of SVU or something so i'll probably get out after a couple more episodes unless it finds a way to hook me.

watch the original

i saw a few scenes of the remake and it just felt pointless

ok moving over here so as not to get mixed up with the original

so are we talking about US Killing on this thread? cause it's awesome.

― Mordy, Monday, April 18, 2011 2:09 PM

yeah it's really good
something is up with the aunt imo - the one who's always at the larsen's house
also the other detective, he's a former gang member isn't he? is he moonlighting as a private investigator on the side?

― daria g, Monday, April 18, 2011 2:12 PM

i haven't seen the most recent episode, but i wanted to say that the video game scenes are pretty chilling. i don't know what game he's playing (or if it's a real game -- it looks like something like Modern Warfare 2 or Black Ops or whatever) but it's very violent in a very restrained, chilling way. the kid isn't playing video games like i play them and i wonder if this kind of digital representation of violence is one of the things the series is planning on examining. (i assume by how subtle everything else has been, they aren't gonna be like: video games make killers.) maybe more about how inured you can become to violence.

well, i noticed that the kid himself was violent - sterling was afraid of him, in the 1st or 2nd episode, and that was before his father smacked him.
also the union guys are mobbed up, at least some of them? and larsen is a made man of sorts, or was.
and the little guy who's the professional political operative must have noticed that the councilwoman endorsed richmond, and thus knows that she likely took him up on what seemed to me to be a basically highly unethical/illegal quid pro quo (hiring certain plumbing companies for the new development)
and the fiance of the lead detective.. guy is a jerk, she won't marry him will she? i don't get it - it's like the moment she tells him she's under a lot of pressure and such, he's all like ME ME ME. ugh.

SPOILERS about RED RIDING TRILOGY are included below

i really want to like the killing, but it is so relentlessly dreary, and not in the 'charged atmosphere' way it seems to want. it is just ugly: the people are ugly, the story is ugly, the sets are ugly, the costumes and music are ugly, the connivances are ugly. and for goodness sake, why can't they shoot /something/ on a sunny day? every damn thing about this show is sad-making. i mean i get that it's a tragedy and the girl is dead, but there's nothing enlightening about watching 3 minute scene in which a father tells a little kid his sister was murdered. that's not entertainment, it's like penance by televisual means. it /does/ seem like a long episode of SVU, and the 'bad' stuff the kids do (play video games? smoke cigarettes? skateboard? have sex?) are straight out of '90s PSAs. If this ends up being about an underground sex ring or whatever like it was in red riding trilogy i am gonna be like 'fuck you, lame tv' and post about it here. but i will give it one more episode because ooh ooh ooh the only black character being a paedo actually pissed me off, and i want to see if it's just a red herring or if the producers have some cryptic racially offensive agenda.

COMING UP ON TEENAGERS ARE BAD: bunch of adolescents spray-paint something, break a piece of glass with a brick, and swear at each other. for an encore, they will use some recreational drugs and listen to loud music with references to death. parents will be offended, but reminded of their own misspent youths.

I'm 90% sure this show is red herring central, so I'm guessing a lot of the Teenagers are Bad stuff + the teacher are throwaway plot devices. Agreed that much of the 11 O'Clock News style "Are your tweens sexting???" fear mongering is laid on pretty thick.

i like a lot of stuff abt this show but its spending too much time w/ the campaign imo sorta deflates the whole story

t is just ugly: the people are ugly, the story is ugly, the sets are ugly, the costumes and music are ugly, the connivances are ugly.

http://www.nonpopulist.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Mireille-Enos-The-Killing-AMC-1-268x400.jpg

no.

Gotta admit, tho - My thoughts on this show have basically traveled along the following line: watched pilot double ep and was like "here is a nice murder mystery to wrap your head around" > realized that said mystery would take three months to unfold & until the final third would be likely filled w/ cheap red herrings, regardless of the quality of production, writing, acting etc. > discovered I could download the Danish original w/ english subs, which was supposed to be some great thing anyway, according to the britishers > watched Forbrydelsen, loved it > kinda finding it hard to get psyched about this at all anymore.

First 4 episodes of this have been pretty awes imo

realized that said mystery would take three months to unfold & until the final third would be likely filled w/ cheap red herrings, regardless of the quality of production, writing, acting etc.

I should clarify that this is an observation based on what I perceived to be the general nature of the show at the outset, and not anything inferred from subsequent watching of the original series

problem is not so much that the show lacks in any fundamental way, just that the original is one of the high benchmarks of TV drama - all time, like.

best comparison I can think of is the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead.

i mean thats cool & all but its not even in english so...

Really don't get the love for the Danish original. Sarah Lund was amazing, but aside from that...

really like this so far -- thought based on the premise it would feel "slow" but so far it feels like lots of stuff is happening in every episode and i'm never bored or not having to pay attention to keep up.

the whole 'a remake is necessary b/c lol fat stupid american's can't be asked to watch the foreign language version like i already did' is kinda an easy line. transplanting and retelling a story is ... as old as stories, and can bring a lot of life and new audience to a good tale. unsure if i believe this is a good tale yet.

and for goodness sake, why can't they shoot /something/ on a sunny day?

doesn't this take place in seattle?

yeah. which, i assume, they chose because it allows them to wallow in gloominess.

I noticed that they always crank up the sound of the rain falling when they cut to the politician's office.

I'm enjoying this but the rain thing bugs me. I'm pretty sure it does not rain that hard all the time in Seattle. It rains a lot but not the downpours that you see on the show. It seems like every episode has one or two scenes that take place in the middle of a downpour.

I feel you, but at the same time I don't begrudge The Wire or Homicide for choosing not to shoot much in the parts of Baltimore that have a lot of trees and greenery. It's OK to play up the location's inherent atmosphere.

but the timeline of the events in the show is a matter of days, so it's probably just one weather pattern so far w/r/t the constant rain?

i like this a lot. it didn't seem like there was any particular attempt to make the teenagers' behavior seem shocking or all that unusual.

weirdly the thing i thought did PNW weather really well was twilight.

This is well paced. So damn gloomy and depressing though. Not a drama fan at all but each episode leaves you hanging so expertly its hard not to crave the next bit.

i was right about some of the guys being mobbed up

i take it the feds are investigating the mob & their connections (which probably includes the current mayor and likely also includes that female campaign operative who is not to be trusted b/c she is from a longtime political family). and i wonder if someone in the larsen immediate family was an informant.

shoot i bet rosie found out something she wasn't supposed to know and told bennett or mohammed or the imam, who told the feds

also somebody's going to blackmail richmond for hooking up with that staffer, there's a camera in the room, the show shoots things from a certain perspective to let you know someone else is watching who's not in the scene

The guy did make the "I thought you two were connected at the hips" crack right after the hooking up scene.

How is this holding up against the original?

Never saw the original but this is really well done.

I would have preferred to start watching this once all the episodes were available...

yeah, that's the tactic I'm taking.

loved this until this week where it is starting to bug me and I have a feeling the plot is going in a direction I don't care about and find irritating (the terrorist stuff). Also getting tired of Ensign Ro Cox Caine Maryanne staring vacantly into space, and the mayoral race storyline is a fucking snooze. But I'll stick with it.

imo the terrorist stuff is a red herring

yeah i mean obv that was just a little diversion (that took up, what, 10 minutes of screentime?)

but ahmed's still talking on the phone to mohammed about the passports so no

it seemed really 24 to me in a bad way

What the fuck has happened to this show?

Sarah Linden is just awful at everything she does.

Just a coincidence that some kid writes "KILLER" on the dry erase board on the same day that Ahmed shows up at school unannounced.

stopped watching two episodes ago out of boredom, felt vaguely guilty but it's lookin like the right call based on reactions in here and elsewhere (eg. http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/05/23/amc_the_killing_episode_9_undertow)

i haven't been keeping up because the original exists, but the US reaction is sort of interesting

The first was the revelation that the mysterious Muhammed did, in fact, help abduct the Muslim girl Aisha, not for purposes of molestation or murder, but to save her from genital mutilation prior to an arranged marriage. That "The Killing" would toss off a twist like this suggests a racist mentality more troubling than anything explored in the show's pat images of discrimination against Seattle's Muslims. Female genital mutilation is a political and cultural powder keg that deserves to be placed at the center of a series, or at least a multi-episode arc within a series, rather than treated as a handy way to strike a character from a list of murder suspects.

well, if the expert dramaturge matt zoller seitz says so, i guess...

mzs's vitriol towards this show is pretty entertaining. I mean the show is a massive disappointment but mzs goes SO hard at it every week.

this past week was way better.

the resolution of this is going to be lame.

i mean, really?

the grand canyon shirt thing, now that i think of it, is dumb. but i don't really have any problem w/ this show -- are most of peoples issues w/ it unique to the US version and totally changed from the original?

i haven't seen the original! my issues with this.. well, i am still watching so whatever, i still enjoy it although the writing can be flat at times.. and the twists just too contrived. also, 'orpheus' - is this supposed to be cryptic or is it intentional that it takes about 5 seconds to figure out who they're pointing to with that?

so i binged on the first season of this the past week and really enjoyed it. then i watched the first episode of the second season *MINOR SPOILER I GUESS* and was pretty put off by the conspiracy direction it seems to be taking. am i in for an entire season of confusing political intrigue?

RIP The Killing, someone pls export Joel Kinnaman's character to a better show immediately.

man i hate this chick's face

also i don't understand the sound production, it seems like everyone is super close miked or like they voiceovered it after shooting or something. for added presence and INTENSITY

"Six Minutes" is better than this show deserved. Season 3 is solid so far though.

binge-watched all of season 1 and half of season 2 while I was sick last week...though tbf I had to have a break a few times and watch some gilmore girls or veronica mars or lame tv just to wash all the gloom off, watching all those eps in a row the rain reaaaaally started to get to me

I really hate Mitch Larsen's character, but Commander Kane's was v good to make her such a punchable character. Love Brendan Sexton III, though he did p good as Belko (no-one ever explained what his actual name is did they? for half the show I thought his name was Balko like the cartoon dog)

Love Kinnaman. The way he's so chill and the way he talks reminds me so much of a friend of mine. "In the bloodsport of life, I am your sensei" <3 <3

I think that quote from the producer upthread about the red herrings is pretty key. It's really not meant to play out like a normal join the dots procedural. I liked that it was a lot more human in the way some things just seem important but it turns out they're not, mistakes happen idk I dug that. and the family stuff was p good too, I thought.

oh and I dug the Twin Peaksian vibe of it. cold and weird and slightly surreal.

Liked the way it resolved s2. Now I need to wait for S3 to be free on Amazon so I can binge that.

The Larsen family, as individuals, various subsets, and the whole chain, kept me watching Seasons 1 and 2, bravo. I didn't feel motivated to follow Season 3 so closely, though the street kids were good, whenever they did get some screen time. The ending was written so it could well be considered *the* end, but still with some room for further speculation, and fan fiction, of course---also, if somehow the show got uncancelled yet again--well, the writers set themselves up for quite a challenge. And now
http://lostremote.com/back-from-the-dead-netflix-begins-instagram-promotion-for-season-4-of-the-killing_b42027

Yeah, Belko was good too, that miserable little bastard.

I cruised through season 2 mostly on inertia and fondness for these actors tbh, but Season 3 is actually factually excellent.

season 3 episode 9 (dir. Jonathan Demme) just made me cry, amazing and could be watched independently of the rest of the show w/o too much confusion.

is season 3 a new mystery?

i need to see s3, totally forgot about it!

Yeah, S3 is a new mystery. Thought it was significantly better than the first two seasons but it still had issues. Final season trailer just popped up.

Wow, Demme.

Basically all that carries over from 1 and 2 is the accrued characterizations and personal histories of the cops.

also s3 is largely about homeless teens, a milieu for which I am a total sucker

just started s3

this show made me realize how much i love inscrutability in characters

it should be a keyword search in netflix

also all this rain & bad weather is good for helping me forget that it's hot as balls here in sactown

Sometimes I like to imagine how bad Holder's hoodie stinks.

How to you take it Linden???

http://plannedbanter.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/mireille-enos-on-the-killing.jpg

The new season, which I would assume is definitely the last, is decent enough. It's up on Netflix now.

Totally off-topic but I couldn't find a general new series related thread. There is an Italian 12 episode spin-off series of the movie Gomorrah out there, so far I could only find a version with Finnish subs. Looks very promising.

Season 3 was so good, I'm p psyched for the new concluding batch

ust finished this final season. Pretty predictable/safe.

Finished last night. Carl and I were discussing the ending, and she thinks that the implication was that Holder and Linden were going to become romantically involved. I guess, maybe? But I took it just to mean that they were going to become best friends again and hang out more. If I recall, neither of them had any romantic feelings for each other through the course of the series, so for it to pop up right at the end would be weird.

Overall, I loved this. It's not the greatest series ever, but the tone and mood of it were very appealing to me.

Series 4 not on series 3's level but really good. I took the ending as relationship romantic but it's cool that it's interpretable the other way.

I'm gonna miss seeing mirielle enos' face making crazy expressions of consternation and suppressed anger.

I remember thinking the final episode was particularly well-directed, then realized its director was Jonathan Demme!

Fashionably late as always, we just blasted through this whole thing in a couple weeks and finished last night. The further I get from it, the more I feel like this was a lot of good acting and directing in the service of total garbage. The killer reveal at the end of season two was frustratingly stupid and out of left field in the same way as that goddamn first season of Broadchurch (well, we've evoked and ruled out plausible suspect after plausible suspect until just about every credited actor has been exonerated soooo...I guess the guilty party is whoever's left? even if it makes no real sense?). And then the reveal at the end of the third season....hoo boy. I actually called the penultimate suspect very early on as a total goof because there was no reason to suspect him until there was. But the person who actually did it? The first thing that popped into my mind was Merv Griffin being revealed as the serial killer at the end of The Man With Two Brains. 'I've always just loved to kill. I really enjoyed it.' That was roughly the level of depth and rationale that we got.

In all, though, I thought those first three seasons were v. good with the character development even if the whodunnit shtick was completely cockeyed. So leave it to the fourth season to completely spoil the aspect that actually worked. I was not a fan of that final moment of season three (although I'm sure it felt very thematically satisfying for whichever writer came up with the idea), but Linden and Holder's response to that event over the course of the final season was completely ludicrous. I was just like, do you seriously actually want me to come to hate these characters in their final hours? What is that? The very very ending was fine but felt kinda unearned.

Wasn't this thing feted when it was new? Maybe there's a reason I haven't heard a peep about it in the intervening years. At any rate, still thought pretty much all of the central performers were great and I want to see them in other, better things.