Looking at all of the stellar reviews for this AMC remake of the original Scandinavian noir from 2007, I can only conclude that most viewers don't care about character consistency or even internal logic. I'm not going to delve too much into the plot, which you can get from countless other reviews and synopses - instead, let me try and explain why this could have been a great show, but ultimately frustrates.
So it's a police drama that centres around Seattle PD detective Linden (Mireille Enos) and her new partner Holder (Joel Kinnaman, the absolute highlight of the show and one to watch for the future). Seasons 1 & 2 follow the arc of a murder mystery of a young girl which is finally solved in the season 2 finale, and closely mirrors the plot of the original show. Season 3 gives us a new murder case, this time of a serial killer, and I have no idea about season 4 because the final twist and resolution of season 3 is so absurdly nonsensical, I immediately vowed to forget all about this stupid show as soon as I shared my frustrations in this review.
What made the original so great, along with the sinister tone and appropriately eerie yet beautiful cinematography, was two things: 1) the roller-coaster ride of twists and turns that ultimately resulted in the killer's identity being revealed as someone who had been under our noses the whole time, and despite being impossible to predict, made perfect sense. And 2) the confluence of police mystery, political thriller and family drama all intersecting to show us the underbelly of a whole city, and how everything is connected - not too dissimilarly to "The Wire". And while this US version of The Killing certainly faithfully captures the mood, suspense and intrigue of the original, it utterly fails in the two key areas that I mentioned.
As in the original, the audience gets led on a wild goose chase of shifting suspicions and surprising twists, but this time - perhaps because the show-runners feared its audience may have seen the original - it decided to construct a vastly different and more complex conclusion to the original murder case (seasons 1 & 2). That could have been a great decision. Indeed, I was excited when I realised that I had been misled to believe the original show's counterpart was not the killer here. However, while the conspiratorial reason for the victim's murder makes sense, the identity of the killer doesn't. On the one hand he/she is supposed to be a normal, non-psychopathic person whose action is totally out of character, and yet they behave throughout the show like nothing is bothering them at all. Are we really supposed to believed that a regular person who does something terrible like murder will just be able to continue with their day to day life totally unfazed by the most traumatic of experiences? It annoyed the hell out of me, but I was curious to see what season 3 would bring, with no blueprint (the original only had the one season).
Alas, the ending to season 3 is infinitely more egregious. This time, the fact that the killer was functioning normally throughout the show makes more sense. It's clearly a psychopath, and although it's still a stretch to imagine such a high functioning psychopath who can be a loving family man and consummate professional by day and butcher dozens of children by night, I'm willing to suspend disbelief given it's a TV show. (Let it be noted though that the show strives for a very realistic, even mundane, depiction of the real world.)
Where the wheels fall off is in the season finale where our hero Linden finally confronts the killer and (SPOILER!) executes him/her. Now, we've gotten to know Linden extremely well over the past 36 episodes. The writers have, to their credit, created a complex, well rounded character. Which is why it's painfully ludicrous that she would do something like this which is so out of character it would be like Walter White from Breaking Bad suddenly turning himself in to the police, or Cersei in Game of Thrones admitting defeat and retiring to the countryside.
There are myriad other minor annoyances that smack of lazy writing and/or poor research - like why are the characters using flip phones and physical maps in 2013? And since when do meth dealers spend their days skateboarding? Not to mention why do all the meth users have perfect teeth? (Breaking Bad is seriously guilty here too.)
So in conclusion: go watch the original instead. Don't be put off by it being in Danish. It's captivating and within just minutes you'll forget you're reading subtitles at all.
So it's a police drama that centres around Seattle PD detective Linden (Mireille Enos) and her new partner Holder (Joel Kinnaman, the absolute highlight of the show and one to watch for the future). Seasons 1 & 2 follow the arc of a murder mystery of a young girl which is finally solved in the season 2 finale, and closely mirrors the plot of the original show. Season 3 gives us a new murder case, this time of a serial killer, and I have no idea about season 4 because the final twist and resolution of season 3 is so absurdly nonsensical, I immediately vowed to forget all about this stupid show as soon as I shared my frustrations in this review.
What made the original so great, along with the sinister tone and appropriately eerie yet beautiful cinematography, was two things: 1) the roller-coaster ride of twists and turns that ultimately resulted in the killer's identity being revealed as someone who had been under our noses the whole time, and despite being impossible to predict, made perfect sense. And 2) the confluence of police mystery, political thriller and family drama all intersecting to show us the underbelly of a whole city, and how everything is connected - not too dissimilarly to "The Wire". And while this US version of The Killing certainly faithfully captures the mood, suspense and intrigue of the original, it utterly fails in the two key areas that I mentioned.
As in the original, the audience gets led on a wild goose chase of shifting suspicions and surprising twists, but this time - perhaps because the show-runners feared its audience may have seen the original - it decided to construct a vastly different and more complex conclusion to the original murder case (seasons 1 & 2). That could have been a great decision. Indeed, I was excited when I realised that I had been misled to believe the original show's counterpart was not the killer here. However, while the conspiratorial reason for the victim's murder makes sense, the identity of the killer doesn't. On the one hand he/she is supposed to be a normal, non-psychopathic person whose action is totally out of character, and yet they behave throughout the show like nothing is bothering them at all. Are we really supposed to believed that a regular person who does something terrible like murder will just be able to continue with their day to day life totally unfazed by the most traumatic of experiences? It annoyed the hell out of me, but I was curious to see what season 3 would bring, with no blueprint (the original only had the one season).
Alas, the ending to season 3 is infinitely more egregious. This time, the fact that the killer was functioning normally throughout the show makes more sense. It's clearly a psychopath, and although it's still a stretch to imagine such a high functioning psychopath who can be a loving family man and consummate professional by day and butcher dozens of children by night, I'm willing to suspend disbelief given it's a TV show. (Let it be noted though that the show strives for a very realistic, even mundane, depiction of the real world.)
Where the wheels fall off is in the season finale where our hero Linden finally confronts the killer and (SPOILER!) executes him/her. Now, we've gotten to know Linden extremely well over the past 36 episodes. The writers have, to their credit, created a complex, well rounded character. Which is why it's painfully ludicrous that she would do something like this which is so out of character it would be like Walter White from Breaking Bad suddenly turning himself in to the police, or Cersei in Game of Thrones admitting defeat and retiring to the countryside.
There are myriad other minor annoyances that smack of lazy writing and/or poor research - like why are the characters using flip phones and physical maps in 2013? And since when do meth dealers spend their days skateboarding? Not to mention why do all the meth users have perfect teeth? (Breaking Bad is seriously guilty here too.)
So in conclusion: go watch the original instead. Don't be put off by it being in Danish. It's captivating and within just minutes you'll forget you're reading subtitles at all.