7/2/13
View Logs: The Killing S3 Episode 6
Episode Title: Eminent DomainGreat TV dramas have a lot of talking because people in real life are never straight with each other, and TV is a great medium to display that. Implications and suggestions drive a lot of great dialogue in TV but there comes a certain point where a show can become so passive aggressive with its material that it starts to wander and stagnate in its own cleverness. Season 1 of The Killing occasionally moved the detective plot a little too quickly by shoving in contrived plot twists (such as Rosie Larsen's teacher...) while letting other plot lines meander (As good as Michelle Forbes' acting was... her character went nowhere through most of the first season).
Season 3 started out more focused. Each sets of cause and effect between the large cast of characters connect better than those in Season 1. You understand that Linden is gradually becoming obsessive because she put away the convicted killer Seward, but evidence is starting to show up that she might have gotten the wrong guy. You see subtle hints of Holder's discontent with his apathetic partner Reddick, which leads to Holder trying to work with Linden as much as he could and thus encouraging Linden's obsession. As the episodes move on, the two's entangled desires pushes them to jump at any incomplete information the vagrant minors are willing to confess. Which leads to a lot of "doh" moments and misunderstanding cliffhangers. But atleast the cause and effect is more establish and grounded than in Season 1.
Really, so far, what I'm getting out of the story seems to be one of two detectives struggling to balance themselves psychologically while following a case they both have personal needs in. A lot of the other character's side plots are there to really complement that and serve as ways to tempt them into unproductive tangents due to their character flaws. The world of The Killing isn't one like CSI where cases are so cleanly sectioned off from society. It is a world where murder is a very messy crime that embeds itself in a labyrinth of debauchery and corruption.
Which is an amazing direction by the way... So, naturally the show spends a lot of time developing characters and relationships that's not really totally relevant to the killings of 17 vagrant youths or the missing, potential 18th victim, Kallie Leeds. But this season's interesting treatment of crime is starting to undo itself because, yet again, the show is gradually starting to stagnate by Episode 6.
I'm most baffled by the sequences with Seward as some of the scenes seem to be somewhat or totally inconsequential to the overall web of corruption that Linden and Holder deals with trying to find Kallie. The show's dialogue is very well written, but the internal character arc of Seward seems so obtuse at the moment that I'm starting to find myself a little bored. He started off as a seemingly Hannibal Lecter like killer; even killing the prison chaplain by bashing his head in. Then suddenly he developed a friendship with a fellow cellmate? Who ended up killing himself? Then there are long scenes of angst and hate between Seward and the warden Becker... that isn't really going anywhere. I'm sure something is going to happen that forces itself into the main plot line. Maybe Seward's son is the actual killer and he's just protecting his son while secretly ashamed of him? That would explain why Seward cut off a tattoo with his son's initials on him earlier in the series.
Either way, if it does eventually feed back into the main detective plot line (and it should... otherwise it'd be a lopsided show) it's a little late for that to happen now. I'm really starting to feel a disconnect and it almost feels like I'm watching two spinoff shows forced together. Seward even occasionally gets enough screen time to almost become the main plot line of an episode. But yet, he doesn't get quite enough development nor relevance to warrant that.
As I said in the beginning of this log, the way dialogue develops in tv dramas is amazing because people are rarely straight with each other in real life. It's ok to tease the audience with implications of a character's thoughts and motivations (and in fact subtle subtext is what makes stories great). But we still need to see it lead somewhere otherwise it's a bit of a navel gaze... which is something that I hope this show doesn't fall into. All we need to repeat the messiness of Season 1 is to start pulling out wild plot twists and continue to leave Seward underdeveloped and irrelevant to the main detective plot...
