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

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?

well they introduced that name and then indicated who it was in the same episode what 20 minutes later? so there wasn't any attempt to build suspense.

yeah i think my irritation is more 'what kind of fool would use that name on his email' because the answer is 'a goth who lives in his parents' basement'

renewed

http://i.imgur.com/TUNdm.jpg

Why does he receive campaign emails at his orpheus account?

yeah I wondered that too, sloppy. although maybe he has forwarding set up on one of them.

anyway resolution of this is going to bug me becaues I do not feel that richmond was suitably set up to be the killer; he is too smooth and stuff which is weird but this just seems out of the blue to me. so maybe they are going to surprise me? I don't know.

am I to belive rosie was working as an underage call girl, her aunt (who was also a call girl with the same service) didn't realize it, and rosie, despite being photographed all dolled up in the atm camera, was wearing a grubby old grand canyon sweatshirt to her last visit with a john? what?

She wasn't wearing the shirt. It was in the laundry.

I think it's either Gwen or Jamie or...ah, I don't give a shit who did it any more. Just one more episode and I don't have to think about watching this show again.

plz could one of you has also seen the original Forbrydelsen series simply let me know if The Killing follows the same plotline note for note? I have seen the first four or five eps, over the course of which it seemed esp. dutiful to Forb., but stopped & have not gotten back to it. I was thinking about catching up, but will prob not bother doing so if it is just basically hitting ALL the same plot points (suspects etc.) as the original. i have purposefully avoided web chatter on it in case it does go off on its own path & I might end up spoiling it for myself..

i have heard that the ending is different. beyond that i don't know. i watched a trailer for the american version and the lighting, music, and tone were so exactly the same that it seriously gave me the heebie jeebies. like an alternate universe. this is not my beautiful house! who am i???

it made me feel like i was in existenz.

Hmm, very good finale. Guess I'll keep watching this when it comes back.

Wow fuck this show

no doubt

i knew that other detective was up to something on the side

however (WHY AM I THINKING ABOUT THIS) if he is involved in trying to frame richmond, seems like it's done out of convenience more than anything given that they spent half the show investigating bennett

This is a pretty good breakdown of everything dumb about this show:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/orpheus-descending,57743/

loooool so I'd heard that there were only 13 episodes to this, so I was like, wow, they really tightened up the plot. But no, they just stopped halfway through!

I mean, that episode in the original, where she's on the plane with her son and you can see the gears turning in her mind and you're like "oh my god, she's not going to stop the plane on the runway.... is she??" was AWESOME but if the season ended there i'd want to throw my TV out the window

srsly thats what they did??? what!!

you crazy americans

Jesus, this show.

haha srsly? serves you right for not speaking danish.

I just gave up on all of the absurdities in the last episode: How can you threaten to tell the husband of the wife who had the affair with Richmond about the affair when it is on the front page of the newspaper and would also, presumably, be the lead story on the 5 o'clock news? Why didn't Bennett Ahmed's wife recognize the man who nearly beat her husband to death? Why did the hospital let Stan into Bennett's room in the first place?

I know the answer: Not to further the plot, just to churn up drama. Such poor, poor writing. I can imagine many people who haven't seen the Danish version would be hesitant to watch it based on this show. (raises hand)

yeah to all those points.

I was pretty positive about halfway through blonde campaign worker woman did this out of jealousy. In fact I was positive it would turn out to be her until the ending when it looked like cop dude got into a car with someone else because she was with coucilman guy (sorry I can't remember anyone's name on this).

I'll still watch this next year even though it is ridiculous. It's like the early years of 24 where I excuse all kinds of dumb shit because it's still entertaining.

"blonde campaign worker woman did this out of jealousy" = killed rosie, that is

heh, people are SO MAD about this, guys, i was telling you for MONTHS to just download the danish one, and no one listened, and now look at you

I actually don't care so much that we didn't learn the identity of the killer; I've gotten the impression that some people think that AMC/Veena Sud betrayed some implicit promise by not revealing it in the final episode. But the writing on this show is so frustratingly sloppy -- and, as righteoumalestrom points out, always in the service of big dramatic moments and confrontations, even when such scenes makes little realistic sense. I have to think that a lot of people who honestly like this show have been fooled by the show's production value, narrative device, and network imprimatur into thinking it's "quality TV."

I'm not mad about it, it's just tv. The writing is sloppy but I'm still interested enough for s2

think this is being trailed on ch4 at the moment - they are being very oblique about it with the ads just saying 'who killed ... larson'

I have to think that a lot of people who honestly like this show have been fooled by the show's production value, narrative device, and network imprimatur into thinking it's "quality TV."

― Don Rickles on the Dime (jaymc), Monday, June 20, 2011 11:39 AM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark

kind of feel this way about every AMC show, personally, they're all pretty flawed, usually from a plotting standpoint, imo

curious if all the plot holes or lapses of logic/realism are unique to this version of the show or if some of them were carried over from the Danish version

kind of feel this way about every AMC show, personally, they're all pretty flawed, usually from a plotting standpoint, imo

I've only seen four episodes of Breaking Bad, so I don't feel qualified to comment on it, but I definitely don't feel that way about Mad Men.

Mad Men has fewer plot problems than The Killing/Walking Dead/Breaking Bad/Rubicon, but i don't find the plots compelling (though i know i'm in the minority on that)

curious if all the plot holes or lapses of logic/realism are unique to this version of the show or if some of them were carried over from the Danish version

― ForbezDVDelsen (some dude), Monday, June 20, 2011 12:50 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

iirc there are a couple hanging threads and unexplained bits and a plot whole or two but nothing so big or annoying that the show becomes unconvincing. the danish show is great, it does get pretty nuts-in-a-bad-way toward the last 4-5 episodes (probably more annoying if you have to watch it 1 ep a week instead of all in a row) but the finale is super satisfying

the gambit of ending the season right in the middle of the original's season is pretty weird -- i wonder if this means season 2 is going to stretch out the last 6 episodes of the Danish 1st season, or divert more into new territory. or maybe they'll just adapt every season of the Danish version into two years worth of shows so that they never run out of source material?

danish first season is 20 episodes, so ending it right in the middle sorta makes sense