The Killing

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mfunk9786
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The Killing

#1 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Apr 04, 2011 12:12 am

[Please use spoiler tags in this thread, even if posting about the original Norwegian series.]

After two episodes, it is already apparent that AMC's American adaptation of The Killing is a truly stunning piece of work. I was a bit nervous that this was the work of Veena Sud, creator of Cold Case, which is one of a number of redundant network crime shows, and one that is plotted, cast, and written in a way that is more on the nose than a blackhead. But here is a truly special piece of work, and it is all thanks to how well cast, well written, and heartbreakingly real it is. I have seen numerous reviews note that it is slow-paced, but I honestly didn't find it to be anywhere near something like Rubicon (which I find inscrutable to this day and may never crack far enough into understanding it to decide whether I enjoy it or not) or even Twin Peaks, which despite its frequent levity, has the slow pace of its opening credits sequence, particularly in the long-form pilot episode. The Killing is no Twin Peaks, mainly because it is absent of that levity and therefore doesn't allow for much of a display of creativity on the part of its writer, but luckily, the murder plot we're given here is juicy enough.

The cast is excellent, particularly premium cable's finest character actresses, Mireille Enos and Michelle Forbes. Enos was devastating as Jodeen and Kathy Marquart in Big Love, using her rural beauty and deep stare to equal effect as polygamist twins who went on to suffer different tragedies that sadly paralleled one another throughout that series. She was a standout in her small role, and in The Killing she is given the opportunity to put her talents on display in a fine piece of work, rather than being lost to the very type of series that Sud has been responsible for in the past. She is perfect for the restrained career woman role, much like an up-and-coming Gillian Anderson was such a revelation as Dana Scully in The X-Files. There's something about red hair and a skeptical straight face. As for Forbes, she plays the mother of the victim who seems to have something to hide so well that it's easy to forget that she was the far-too-excessive villain throughout the second season of True Blood.

Joel Kinnaman, relative newcomer to American television and film, is very good in his role as the more freewheeling and creative of the two investigators (Sound familiar? He plays Detective Holder, and I swear I hear "Mulder" every time Enos calls his name.) who decides to utilize nontraditional methods and his rugged I'd-swear-he's-a-criminal-too looks to his advantage and simultaneously amuses and infuriates his partner, as well as the viewer.

I am looking forward to seeing how the remaining 11 episodes play out, and I am glad to hear that this series (or at least this particular case) is going to be kept to a one-off, considering how badly things went off the rails in Twin Peaks once Laura Palmer's killer was revealed. I am doubtful that Rosie Larsen will ever be another Laura Palmer (or perhaps not even another Lilly Kane), but I am looking forward to finding out where this series plans to take us.
Last edited by mfunk9786 on Fri Mar 23, 2012 10:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#2 Post by ianungstad » Mon Apr 04, 2011 2:03 am

I thought the first two episodes were pretty solid and am looking forward to watching future episodes of The Killing. The writing, direction, acting is solid across the board. It's refreshing to see a fairly strong female lead that isn't hypersexualized. There's a lot of great shows on television right now...but it's very male dominated. We still aren't seeing a lot of great roles for women. Both Michelle Forbes and Mirelle Enos are blessed with material far better than most actresses get.

A mild complaint but I wish these episodes had been a little more creative. The series didn't seem to set up it's own identity very well. In fact, it often felt too familiar and borrows too heavily from other series. The opening sequence of her jogging in the park recalls Clarice Starling in the beginning of Silence of the Lambs. The Twin Peaks parallels are rampant beyond the series logline. You have the focus on Rosie's butterfly necklance (Laura Palmer's was heart shaped). Detective Cooper and Holder are both these very eccentric characters with unconventional approaches to their work, we even have two of the high school kids looking like they might be updated verisons of Donna and James. (Too early to tell but it seems to be setting up that way) Even the scene of Stan Larsen screaming into the phone when he arrives at the crime scene is very similar to the way Leland finds out about Laura. The two series are vastly different in tone, so I don't see why they are spending so much effort mirroring small details from Twin Peaks.

It feels like Veena Sud or the brass at AMC looked to that series to see what works and borrowed ideas liberally from that series (and others) hoping that this somewhat familiar element would help attract an audience and that the success of those series would rub off on The Killing. I was hoping that The Killing was going to be a bit more fresh and original than it turned out to be. There are some scenes like Holder lighting up a joint and offering it to the kids which really piqued my interest. It's something different that they would never attempt to do on network television.

We are pretty early in the game and I'm cautiously optimistic. The series didn't impress me as much as I had hoped but it's solid entertainment. Certainly it's not a dud like The Prisoner or Rubicon but it didn't come close to wowing me the way Mad Men, Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead did with their initial episodes. The Killing is somewhere in the middle.

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#3 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Wed Apr 06, 2011 12:32 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:I am looking forward to seeing how the remaining 11 episodes play out, and I am glad to hear that this series (or at least this particular case) is going to be kept to a one-off, considering how badly things went off the rails in Twin Peaks once Laura Palmer's killer was revealed. I am doubtful that Rosie Larsen will ever be another Laura Palmer (or perhaps not even another Lilly Kane), but I am looking forward to finding out where this series plans to take us.
Any links to back this up? If that is the case, it's a great idea.

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#4 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Apr 06, 2011 11:54 pm

For some reason, finding one is proving difficult. But I do know for sure that this mystery will be wrapped up by season's end - it's a 13 day investigation, with each episode comprising a day of it. And the main character will presumably be moving out of town on day 14, since it's her wedding day and all.

So unless the show takes off and AMC decides to do one murder mystery per season (wouldn't that be terrific?), this season will likely be all she wrote. But I swear I read that definitively somewhere at some point.

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#5 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Apr 07, 2011 12:34 am

I'm hoping it's all she wrote. I like the idea of expanding a mini-series into something resembling a regular season run.

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#6 Post by dx23 » Thu Apr 07, 2011 12:41 am

I read somewhere too that it was a 13 episode mini series, yet I can't find a link or a source to that. By the way, am I going crazy or did someone here posted earlier today something along the lines that this series was dumbed-down for the "dumb" Americans, etc. ?

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#7 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Apr 07, 2011 1:01 am

I remember that too, but I'm unsure as to where the post went.

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#8 Post by swo17 » Thu Apr 07, 2011 2:09 am

WHY IS NO ONE USING SPOILER TAGS IN THIS THREAD???

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#9 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Apr 07, 2011 12:17 pm

Oh shove it

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#10 Post by Paul Moran » Thu Apr 07, 2011 6:03 pm

The excellent original Danish series Forbrydelsen finished its UK run on BBC4 a few weeks ago. Even after 20 episodes, there were a few loose ends -
SpoilerShow
the serial killer angle, and hints of a wider, high level, conspiracy
- but, hopefully, those will be addressed in Season 2, which we are promised will be shown on BBC4 later this year! (According to IMDB, a third season is in the works.)

I don't know whether the USA remake is quite as good as the original, but I'll probably watch it anyway, when/if it gets shown on UK "free" TV. It can't be as bad as the dire US remake (Kingdom Hospital) of Lars Von Trier's Riget (The Kingdom)!

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#11 Post by frankiecrisp » Fri Apr 08, 2011 4:05 am

Paul Moran wrote:The excellent original Danish series Forbrydelsen finished its UK run on BBC4 a few weeks ago. Even after 20 episodes, there were a few loose ends -
SpoilerShow
the serial killer angle, and hints of a wider, high level, conspiracy
- but, hopefully, those will be addressed in Season 2, which we are promised will be shown on BBC4 later this year! (According to IMDB, a third season is in the works.)

I don't know whether the USA remake is quite as good as the original, but I'll probably watch it anyway, when/if it gets shown on UK "free" TV. It can't be as bad as the dire US remake (Kingdom Hospital) of Lars Von Trier's Riget (The Kingdom)!
It can be as bad as Kingdom. The US has a terrible record of remakes of European TV and film. The Killing is the latest. I can never understand why Americans cannot read subtitles or have them dumbed down. I saw Let The Right One In in the US a few months after seeing it in Europe and the subtitles were completely different, http://iconsoffright.com/news/2009/03/l ... make sense

It would be stupid for Europeans to try and remake anything as good as the Wire or The Sopranos so why do americans think they can remake our programs, watch the originals not some tame remake.

The potentially most depressing remake is going to be the american version of the Millennium Trilogy.

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#12 Post by mfunk9786 » Fri Apr 08, 2011 8:33 am

There's your post, dx23!

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#13 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Apr 08, 2011 1:54 pm

The first series of the Danish version has also just been released on DVD in the UK.

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#14 Post by ianungstad » Fri Apr 08, 2011 8:33 pm

It is not a miniseries and each season (if the show is renewed) will be a new case. Veena Sud has also stated that the killer in the US version will not be the same as in the Danish series.

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#15 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Sun Apr 17, 2011 11:38 pm

Thoughts on the last two episodes? I was not as stunned, but am seeing a snowball effect of intrigue starting with tonight's show.

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#16 Post by ianungstad » Mon Apr 18, 2011 12:43 am

I thought the revelation about Stan Larson's previous occupation in tonight's episode was a tad silly.

The Killing still holds my interest. For a show that is suppose to be character driven rather than plot driven, there actually hasn't been much character development and most of the cast is a little one dimensional.

The show is also subdued to a fault. There has already been some rather interesting plot twists in the first four episodes but they don't seem to hold much of a punch. A thriller that doesn't offer much thrill.

Next week's episode holds some promise that things are about to get a lot more interesting. So far, it's easily the weakest series on AMC that isn't cancelled. If the show doesn't step up it's game soon, I think viewership is going to continue to slowly decline week after week and we might not get a second season.

I was hoping for better. The Killing hasn't lost me yet and it's still above average televison.

EDIT: I also wanted to offer a comment about the pacing. The almost glacial pacing works on a show like Mad Men because there are multiple subplots developing at the same time. While you may not get any pay off until the end of the season, in each episode you get a little of one subplot then a portion of another. It still manages to mix things up a bit. The problem with the now canned Rubicon and The Killing is that everyone's arc is developed around the central premise, the conspiracy and the murder of a young girl. It makes things less interesting and threatens to be tedious.

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#17 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Apr 18, 2011 10:10 pm

I don't mean to seem pretentious, but I feel like another episode or two has to elapse before I post again about this show. I am still enjoying it, but never have I wanted the Twin Peaks comparisons to come true more. The Killing needs a backwards talking dream sequence, now.

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#18 Post by ianungstad » Mon Apr 18, 2011 11:31 pm

I am hoping that the explanation we got from Sterling this week that all the blood in the cage came from a nosebleed proves false. If the writers seriously reveal that it was a nosebleed and the blood in the cage was just a red herring/cliffhanger for last week's episode, the show will have thrown any credibility it has out of the window. It looked like someone was slaughtered in there with bloody handprints everywhere. I'm not a bleeder but it seems rather excessive to say the least.

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#19 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Tue Apr 19, 2011 12:03 am

I can actually buy that. If she was on that bed for awhile, and let it bleed, that much could have been accumulated.

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#20 Post by MichaelB » Tue Apr 19, 2011 8:03 am

frankiecrisp wrote:It would be stupid for Europeans to try and remake anything as good as the Wire or The Sopranos so why do americans think they can remake our programs, watch the originals not some tame remake.
Actually, I don't see any reason why Forbrydelsen can't be legitimately remade.

Language aside, there's nothing specifically 'Danish' about it, and there's not even very much that's especially original - it's a 20-episode police procedural of a kind that we've all seen countless times before. Its great virtue is that it does what it does exceptionally well, but I really can't think of anything that wouldn't translate to a US setting, or indeed to any other modern urban environment.

Which I'd argue is not true of The Sopranos or The Wire, which are set in far more specifically American milieux.
mfunk9786 wrote:I don't mean to seem pretentious, but I feel like another episode or two has to elapse before I post again about this show. I am still enjoying it, but never have I wanted the Twin Peaks comparisons to come true more. The Killing needs a backwards talking dream sequence, now.
If it has anything even remotely like that, it will have utterly departed from the original, which is scrupulously realistic to its core. In fact, that was one of its great strengths - by taking 20 hours or thereabouts to depict a single murder investigation, it could indulge in unusually rich character detail, especially when it comes to the victim's immediate family (the kind who'd normally get a scene or two, if that).

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#21 Post by ianungstad » Mon Apr 25, 2011 6:52 pm

So two episodes ago the detective finds out that Rosie Larsen was still alive when the car was pushed into the pond (she had ripped off her own fingernails trying to claw her way out) and this week we find out that apparently the killer had cleaned her body with ammonium hydroxide to get rid of incriminating evidence. (Implying that she was already dead). How exactly does that happen? Even if there was a plausible explanation, the lead detective should be smart enough to figure out that MAJOR contradiction right off the bat. (Didn't happen)

This show is getting increasingly stupid and it still doesn't have any suspense or tension. (Or characterization). I still think last week's revelation that all the blood in the cage was from a nosebleed to be a little hard to swallow. Even if someone was bleeding from the nose for a significant period of time, I don't think they would wipe gore all over the walls into a visceral, nasty display. (with dripping bloody handprints!)

AMC should stick to picking up series in turnaround from HBO/Showtime! All their shows developed in house have been letdowns (Prisoner, Rubicon, Killing)

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#22 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Mon Apr 25, 2011 7:36 pm

I have to say I didn't even bother being interested in the repeat after watching the Treme premiere.

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#23 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Jun 13, 2011 1:49 am

I have a lot of this show to catch up on and I don't really care. Bad sign.

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#24 Post by MichaelB » Mon Jun 13, 2011 2:59 am

ianungstad wrote:This show is getting increasingly stupid and it still doesn't have any suspense or tension. (Or characterization). I still think last week's revelation that all the blood in the cage was from a nosebleed to be a little hard to swallow. Even if someone was bleeding from the nose for a significant period of time, I don't think they would wipe gore all over the walls into a visceral, nasty display. (with dripping bloody handprints!)
This sounds radically different from the Danish version, which is low-key and scrupulously realistic.

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Re: The Killing [Please use spoiler tags in this thread.]

#25 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Mon Jun 13, 2011 7:07 am

Judging from the comments on the A.V. Club's reviews, not to mention the reviews themselves, it does seem to be getting and more formulaic. It's a pity, because I couldn't tell any of that from the premiere episode.

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