View Logs: The Killing S3 2-Part Finale

8/5/13

View Logs: The Killing S3 2-Part Finale

Let me get one thing straight before I talk about the finale (and inevitably... about the show overall).  I am not a writer.  I probably will never be a writer.  I don't have the talent or the skills to be paid to write like the pros in the industry.  I mean... I'm a machine that is built for observation... no more no less.  With that said... that doesn't necessarily mean that I have to be complacent as an audience.  If there is something that I personally feel is poorly executed, I won't shy away from expressing it just because I probably can't do better.

Complacency on both the artist's and the audience's part will never develop art in any form period.  Actually complacency has never developed anything in anything ever.  Just look at the guys at Aperture Science.  Do you think they'd be the massive scientific juggernaut they are now if they were complacent in just creating shower curtains?  Absolutely not.  And now we can bend space and time itself thanks to some ambition.

So when I complain about The Killing, I'm not actually trying to put the people involved in the production down.  Any creative endeavor is a massive commitment and takes a lot of guts, will-power, and talent to see through.  That said, the difficulty of the process shouldn't excuse any lapses in quality in the result.  Again... complacency doesn't develop anything.

So let's get down to the finale.  To be frank, the series suck.  Season 3 didn't become irritatingly bad like Season 1.  But the basic core problems did rear itself again towards the final half of the season.  The first thing to note is just how it's developed as a mystery.  Cheap paperback airport mystery novels generally have a bad reputation due to the story being written in such a procedural way that it doesn't allow the readers to dig into the mystery themselves.    The Killing is basically the same thing.

The best mystery stories are ones where the clues connect to an inevitable end.  In other words, a good mystery story is obtuse in experience but obvious in retrospect.  There's some exceptions to this, but generally speaking mysteries need to avoid seeming like the writer pulled contrivances and conveniences willy-nilly.

The Killing as a show is basically this episode after episode:
Linden and Holder chase after a suspect that looks better and better for the crime as they find clues.  The show takes a break from this to either explore a B plotline or to have character scenes with Linden and Holder.  Just when all the clues seem to perfectly accuse the episode's suspect, suddenly there's either a plot twist or a sudden new clue that points to a different suspect.  Repeat.

There... I just saved you time from watching Season 1 and Season 3.  This is basically exactly how the show is formatted.  Also notice that the show doesn't necessarily weave in character development during the clue searches.  Often times the show will literally halt progress to explore character or navel-gaze before starting again.  This is something you'd expect from a cheap airport paperback mystery.  Not TV and definitely not AMC.  Don't get me wrong.  Not all mysteries need to be ingeniously enigmatic.  I recently have watched BBC's The Bletchley Circle and Whitechapel and those weren't exactly "masterpiece" puzzles.  But at minimum, a mystery show should develop a logical mystery that is possible to predict without being predictable (sounds like a contradiction but really it shouldn't if you understand when and how to reveal information to the audience) interwoven with competent treatment of characters is all I ask and honestly I don't think that's too much at all

Surprisingly, a lot of shows fall below that mark.  You'd figure that those who write mysteries as a career would understand the theories behind what makes a good mystery story (or at least "efficient").  Maybe that's just the academic in me but I've always believed that critical analysis can help develop art and aren't just mere snobby stuffy people complaining.

But back to The Killing, the way the show is written isn't even remotely possible to predict.  The show is pretty rampant with false or misleading information; which is generally fine in moderation. But The Killing is basically all misinformation.  There's no real intrigue here, you're really just waiting for the show to tell you when it's lying to you.  So the way the story is written as a result is less like a mystery and more like a duck duck goose game.  It seems to have to go through almost all of its cast as a "prime suspect" in each episode before it ends and decides arbitrarily on who the real killer is.  Again, that's how poorly written mysteries are put together.

Also, it's funny how the prison plot line was literally there for no other reason than to serve as a character catalyst.  I've said this before in previous view logs and I'll say it again here because it needs to be repeated... if that's all your B plotline is going to do... don't spend so much time on it.  In fact it probably shouldn't be a B plotline at all.  There was no twist with the prison.  Seward's death doesn't mean much (again, beyond being Linden's catalyst for further emotional damage), and the prison guard characters don't really develop all that much.  Was there really a point to any of them?  It just feels like padding at the end of the show and makes it overly drawn out.

 Sooooooo you turned out to be pointless to the story...

Finally, the ending is a straight rip from Se7en... except without the kidnapped victim actually being dead.  It's almost literally the same type of resolution scene as Se7en and it didn't even execute it as well.  The final dialogue between Linden and the actual killer in the car ride is just... lackluster.  The writer(s) tried to be smart there but nothing was really achieved or explored.  All that was there was an obvious exchange between an emotional but moral protagonist against a cold and calculated monster killer... I didn't learn anything more from these characters except that the cold killer had a misguided mission and the protagonist's "good side" could only be pushed so far before becoming destructive... you know... sorta like Se7en...

Looks... familiar?... Seriously just watch this movie over the show...

In the end, The Killing is a show that tries too hard.  I have no idea if the writers overstretched their talent or if there were production issues that muddled the script and story.  Could be both actually... but the actual result is far from satisfactory.  So with all due respect AMC, this show sucks.  Mood and atmosphere alone can't carry a story.  Especially in TV.

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View Logs: The Killing S3 Episode 10

7/28/13

View Logs: The Killing S3 Episode 10

Ummm... so there was no plot twist regarding the Warden (yet atleast) or Seward.  Except for the fact that he didn't kill his wife... which we kinda already knew.

God what a mess of an episode... which pains me to say because almost everything about this show is perfect so far... The directing, the acting, the cinematography.  Top notch stuff... The thing that completely doesn't work is the schizophrenic writing... At the end of the day, Seward as a character was just meant to further develop Linden.  Which is fine, I mean that's what supporting cast characters are suppose to do.  But since that's all Seward's character lead up to... why was so much screen time devoted to him?  Remember the side plot with him and his prison friends?   One of which is was an actual friend the other was a bored sociopath.  Was there really any point to all that?  Was Seward suppose to grow some humanity or courage to see his son based on those two encounters?  If so... I totally didn't see it...  One was nice to him and... he kinda didn't really care.  The other was a dick to him and... he also kinda didn't really care.  He didn't even seemed to remember either of them by the time he started to talk exclusively to Linden.  So again... was there suppose to be character development here?  Was Seward suppose to do more than just to serve the main characters?

Regardless of Seward's seasonal development (or rather a lack thereof), the episode alone held a lot of problems that I just hated with The Killing in general.  The writers are very liberal with writing all these really quick plot and character reversals.   Most of them come across as cheap twists that are written in without much or any consequences  It reminds me of the final movie of Pirates of the Caribbean when characters just constantly switched sides for no real overarching reasons.  So that came to an extreme with this episode.  You'll have one scene when Seward goads Linden into believing that she's helping the wrong man.  Then suddenly in the next scene Seward is this docile remorseful victim.

I understand that people can be like that in real life... but fiction is a craft... it's something that actually needs to be developed.  I kept being confused throughout the entire episode trying to figure out whether the writer intended for Seward to be sympathetic or not.  It reminds me of the same type of character whiplash that the Evil Queen had in Once Upon a Time.  There's just no consistency here in Sewards character and some reversals came across so comical that I'm questioning whether I missed and episode or something.

By the time of the "sad" (for some... reason... need I remind you that Seward has done monstrous things even if he's innocent of his wife's killing) execution I just found myself happy I didn't need to see this character in the last two episodes.  So far... Season 3 of The Killing is solid plot wise.  Some twists seem a little unnecessary to me but nothing as extremely outlandish as Season 2.  But character wise it seems that the writers aren't on the same page with each other at all.  The only real solid and consistent development here is Holder and I've greatly enjoyed his arc so far.  Linden was good until this episode... when the very defeated but collected Linden just regressed into an almost mirror version of Season 1.  So much for her development throughout this season...

Also... I called it... I think the killer is a cop... I'm going to guess Reddick... I hope I'm wrong... cause that would make it too predictable...

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View Logs: The Killing S3 Episode 9

View Logs: The Killing S3 Episode 9

Episode Title: Reckoning

Yeah ok... This show is officially the worst thing ever for killing off my favorite supporting cast character... Sorta... well ok.  I know that's a pretty biased assessment but goddammit... I liked Bullet so much more than Lyric or Twitch.  It just seemed like all the pair did was be idiots throughout the series so far and Bullet's really the only person on the streets who was aware and active.  Yet Lyric and Twitch get their happy ending, moving into a comfy home while Bullet winds up brutally slashed in some guy's trunk.  Ugh.  I can't say this is specifically bad writing but that ending left a bad taste in my circuits.  This show is primarily about how every little action can have such severe consequences and yet Lyric and Twitch seems to be the only two characters who made bad decisions and the consequences were positive.  Twitch, through little development, decides to grow up and give up his dream of moving to LA to "act" and "model".  And Lyric has just gotten lucky this whole time.  Admittedly, there's still three episodes to go so I'll have to wait and see what happens.  But I would like to see them grow a lot more rather than things suddenly going their way.

Well... atleast Danielle's character has developed tremendously since the beginning of the show.  While her character arc is a little obvious, it's still fairly intriguing to see how she gradually realized what an absentminded mother she was to Kallie.  The writers this time around decided to develop her character through interacting with people which was a good decision in the long run.  Part of the problem with the mother of Rosie Larson in Season 1 was that she spent nearly all of her time alone and sobbing and those scenes ended up dragging and stagnating.

Of course, people who withdraw from the world can make great characters.  But it seems like every time the show decides to apply this kind of treatment to it's characters it just ends up stewing within it's own writing... never really going anywhere.

Speaking of never really going anywhere... Seward... I'm still utterly confused and baffled by this character.  Maybe I'm missing something?  But at the beginning he seemed like such a cold hard criminal... going as far as killing a prison chaplain by beating his skull in... and now suddenly he has all these regrets?  I understand that the show is trying to display Seward realizing more and more that he's going to die and it's making him change.  But the extremes of his actions and mannerisms between first few episodes and the most recent ones just don't really match and feel contrived.  There wasn't nearly enough development to warrant a character change this drastic... what... he let his friend hang himself in jail?  And... that's it?  To be honest when that happened he didn't really seem to care too much so you can't use that as a catalyst for his character change.

Going back to the plot... I think I'm right... the killer might be someone in a position of authority.  Either the warden or Reddick.  I still think I might be right.  If I am, I'm going to be very mad.

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View Logs: The Killing S3 Episode 8

7/15/13

View Logs: The Killing S3 Episode 8

Episode Title: Try

I wonder if the writers of the show are starting to realize how much of a deadweight Seward's plotline is. I know it's going to be tied into the main storyline of the show eventually and there'll probably be some kind of twist with the guards and Seward.  I just hope it won't be contrived like the previous seasons.  Seward only has a few scenes in this episode and all of them are meant to serve as either foreshadowing or extra motivation for the main characters.

Keep in mind that the prison plotline started out fairly equal to all the others when the show started.  How much this plotline has scaled back should be an indicator that there wasn't enough there to really make it a major sideplot to begin with.  Seward as a character himself continues to baffle me.

Why does he suddenly not want to hang when at the early part of the episode he wanted to go out with as much trouble as possible?  Was he just merely throwing a tantrum at the beginning of the series because he was unfairly convicted?  Maybe it's plausible that a person will actually self-destruct if they are innocently condemned to death, but the way Seward was written he seemed to want to convince the world that he could do more damage to society.  I mean he bashed the fricking prison chaplain's head in.  That's not something an innocent man would do.  That's something a serial killer would do just to prove a point.

Now suddenly he has this great fear of dying, he desperately wants to "stop the hanging", and he starts begging Linden to try harder?  Excuse me?  There's character development and then there's character 180s.  Sometimes the difference is subtle but that subtle difference is the line between great writing and just contrived sloppy writing.

The best character twists are ones that you don't see coming while experiencing it but you do see it in retrospect.  This show just seems to have a general problem with setting up and executing twists when it comes to its characters.

BTW, Pastor Mike... (spoilers... he's not the one...) is another great example.  The way he was shot during the last episode was genius.  The sinister lighting, the intimidating blocking, everything was well executed except the way he was written.  What I mean by that is the dialogue and his character direction is just a more minor version of Seward's character sloppiness.  His dialogue is so suggestively evil in the previous episode and now at the end of this episode he spills his history as a misunderstood priest.

So there's nothing actually creepy about him?  There's no real closet skeletons?  He's secretive because he was falsely accused and people just assumed he's a perverted pastor?  So why did the previous episode's dialogue sound so sinisterly creepy?  See what I mean by this show having a problem setting up and pulling off character twists?

It's such a shame because this show is so well shot.  But the writing is just goddamm schizophrenic sometimes that it takes me out of the show.

So yes this episode is a step back... despite that Linden and Holder remain as strong characters.  In fact, Linden's dialogue with Pastor Mike during the car ride is surprisingly interesting on Linden's side.

I haven't written anything about Bullet before because I didn't think there was much to write about.  I'm starting to like Bullet more and more.  She seems as just a random street punk in the beginning but she now has developed quite a bit of depth.  She's one of the few side characters that the show hasn't been ruined with sloppy writing.  (Lyric IS one btw... don't get me started on her.  I'll complain about her later).

The plot twist at the end of the episode is fine... although at this point it's very obvious that this is the show's formula... so every episode I expected a huge "reveal" cliffhanger.  I tolerated that with Battlestar Galactica... but in this show almost every single episode ends off with that kind of cliffhanger.  It's now annoying... anyways the twist is that Bullet finds out who the killer is.  She tries to contact Holder but he doesnt respond to her because they had a spat in this episode... so she is waiting at a random diner thinking what to do and the final shot is of someone driving in a car scoping her out.  It's heavily implied that it's the killer (although with this show you never know...)

I have a theory... I'm going to guess it's either a cop (Reddick?) or Seward's warden... Actually the ladder would make dramatic sense since Seward's plotline is obviously setting up for some kind of twist near the end of the season... If I'm right on either one... this show will be the worst thing ever...

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View Logs: The Killing S3 Episode 7

7/8/13

View Logs: The Killing S3 Episode 7

Episode Title: Hope Kills

There we go... the Core is a little happier now.  I started this endeavor... as a machine designed for aesthetics analysis out of some bet/joke my human superiors placed... a little late into The Killing and thus my displeasure consuming it was fairly under-described.  As written in the prologue of this View Log, I found the first half of the series to be underwhelming.  Most of the episodes just had too little going on both plot and character wise and it just felt dragged out.  The Killing is almost a show that is mostly filled with atmosphere and not much else... a bit like a mediocre David Fincher film (if you didn't know what I'm referring to because you're a puny human... I'm referring to Zodiac...)

I'm pleased to see that episode seven started to buck that trend.  Since the reveal of Pastor Mike as a possibility for the killer, both plot and character development reached a new level.  The reveal of Pastor Mike's suspicious nature almost seemed to trigger something in Holder's character as he spiraled into an obsession that he used to make fun of Linden for.  In fact, it seems Holder is starting to take this case more personally than Linden; which culminated into a great scene of Linden warning Holder about the path he's going down.  This reversal is quite interesting as it developed so quickly but, somehow, doesn't feel very forced.  It would have been nice if this development was set up more in the earlier episodes, but episode 7 handled it by itself fairly well.

Actually, this leaves some interesting suggestions about Holder's past.  If Holder is this easily angered by the hint of a corrupt pastor... he might have been taken advantaged of by a person in a position of power as a kid.  For once, I was actually interested in Holder as a character and wanted to see how the case would further effect his dialogue and mannerisms.  Linden, right about now, seems absolutely convinced she got the wrong guy in Seward.  Interestingly, the way her character's dealing with it right now seems as if she's given up on trying to find out if she's was right.  She seems to be pushing on out of a sense of guilt rather than a need for closure as her character has always been for the past 2 seasons.  This would explain Linden's gradual levelheadedness in contrast to Holder's emotional descent into anger.

Plot wise, the twist of Pastor Mike being the likely killer makes sense.  It's good that season 3's twists and turns are a lot more grounded and seems less worried about shocking you.  It currently strikes a good balance between being surprising while maintaining plausibility.  Seriously, I still consider Ahmed's potential terrorist links in Season 1 to be one of the worst twists of the series.  And no I'm never letting that go...  Yet, unfortunately, it seems this reveal came a little early.  There's still 5 more episodes to go and I have a feeling there's a lot more to play out with this reveal.  I'm ok with that, but I do hope that the series doesn't dive into camp and revert back to Season 1 because there's still a lot o opportunities for that to happen.

But overall, if this episode is any indication, Season 3 has gotten quite a bit better.

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View Logs: The Killing S3 Episode 6

7/2/13

View Logs: The Killing S3 Episode 6

Episode Title: Eminent Domain

Great 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...

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View Logs: The Killing Season 3 Prologue

7/1/13

View Logs: The Killing Season 3 Prologue

I'm a little late to the party with The Killing.  But you'll have to forgive me as this blog was activated after Season 3 of the Killing has started.

I'm just going to put it out there that I really disliked Season 1.  I know most people hated the series because the killer of Rosie Larsen wasn't revealed until Season 2.  But the most problematic aspects I found in Season 1 was the really weird twists and turns the case went through that seemed to get more and more contrived.  The cinematography, directing, and acting were great.  But the writing was very sloppy at times.  The pseudo-terrorist twist with Rosie's teacher was especially out of the blue as it felt like the writers were running out of ideas on a very simple case.  Another issue I had was Rosie's parents.  They started off as the strongest scenes in the show but gradually their grief stagnate.

I don't want to sound callous and cold but I wanted to see their character develop beyond than just grief.  I know Rosie's Dad eventually did something with his grief but that's just not enough.  A lot of screen time was dedicated to the parents and if that is the case I'd want to see these characters develop.  It's ok for certain, or even most, of the characters in a TV show to not undergo character development.  But if you dedicate a lot of screen time to certain characters you better lead them somewhere beyond occasional plot contrivances.  The flip flopping of the politician also got on my nerves at times.

So yes, I really wasn't impressed with the show.  I skipped season 2 because I just lost all interest in the Rosie Larsen case.  The atmosphere, directing, and acting of the show is spot on.  But the writing is just too weak and that's not ok for a TV show.

I've decided to give the show another chance with Season 3 that is currently running.  So I will jot down thoughts and analysis of the current season of The Killing.  Hopefully it'll be better than Season 1.

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