REVIEW: The Killing “A Soundless Echo”

Pin It

Things are beginning to unravel a bit up in Seattle as our eerily calm lead detective and her jittery partner/replacement dig deeper into who stuffed poor Rosie Larsen in the trunk of a car. The action on The Killing unfurls at a glacial pace but feels much more like how I would imagine a real murder case would unfold. I’ve watched more than my share of The First 48 and this show nails it. If you aren’t already watching this amazing show then you should be.

Councilman Richmond (Billy Campbell) got a lot of screen time this week as he worked to reinvigorate his flailing campaign. We learn that he can play the political game with the best of them when he plants a mole in the mayor’s campaign to find the real source of the leak in his team. The revelation that Jamie (Eric Ladin) wasn’t really the leak caught me completely off guard. I get the sense that Richmond suspects who his leak is but isn’t saying yet. The narrative wants us to think it is his lover Gwen (Kristin Lehman) but at this point I’m questioning everything, which is how it should be.

The Larsen’s are still going through the process of burying their daughter and this week we see them picking out caskets and talking to the priest about the service. The grief here is palpable and I applaud Michelle Forbes and Brent Sexton for their heartbreaking performances. When they find themselves faced with crime scene photos of their daughter while at the police station the outrage and terror is conveyed without either actor speaking or moving. Everything is in their eyes and that is a hard thing to do well. Reminds me of a quote from Sunset Boulevard when Norma Desmond is explaining to Joe Gillis what is wrong with Hollywood’s talking pictures.

“In my day we didn’t need voices…we had FACES.”

Preach on Miss Desmond.

Later on when Linden catches Stan Larsen smelling his daughters clothes he is almost embarrassed by it. Why? His past isn’t nearly as clean either apparently. There is an allusion to some possible mob connections there that I suspect will bite him in the ass.

Linden (Mireille Enos) and Holder (Joel Kinnaman) have brought Jasper (Richard Harmon) and Kris (Gharrett Patrick Paon) in for questioning after seeing the video they shot of their escapades in the “cage”. Kris and Jasper both insist that the video is not what they think but Linden isn’t convinced. She is stone-faced during the interview until she tells freezes the video on Rosie’s smiling face and tells Kris to tell Rosie directly that he did not kill her. It’s obvious this case has gotten to her and a comment by her fiancé Rick (Callum Keith Rennie) later in the episode alludes to a “ghost” from her past that I’m sure we’ll learn about soon enough.

The Killing is weaving a web of secrets very effectively. I hate to keep bringing up Twin Peaks but I am consistently reminded of it while watching this story unfold, and I don’t mean that in a “OMG THEY COPIED LYNCH” way. The Killing has captured the undercurrent of despair and the sense that something isn’t quite right with this community in a way I haven’t seen since Twin Peaks. Other shows tried to beat us over the head with their “atmosphere of weirdess” and they failed miserably. The Killing let us, or me, think it was one thing while slowly becoming another and I’m thrilled.

There was one seemingly glaring Twin Peaks moment this week that I feel I must mention. Maybe I’m crazy and looking at this stuff too closely, but when Linden was going through Rosie’s room again she found a drawing of a large log beside a lake. Linden stares at it for a minute before putting it away. My immediate thought was the log that the body of Laura Palmer was found next to in the opening scenes of Twin Peaks first episode. There were other moments but I won’t bore you with them.

I have to wonder where the narrative will go once Rosie’s killer is found. I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. The Killing returns next Sunday at 10 on AMC.