‘The Killing’ 2.08 Recap: “Nothing Personal, Detective, But I Don’t Like You”

‘The Killing’ is just getting weird. The Evil Indian Tribe still looms over the proceedings, but now Linden has gone rogue. Well, she was forced to go rogue, but if Jack Bauer taught us anything, it’s that you can get more done without a bunch of red tape weighing you down.

After watching this week’s episode of ‘The Killing’, I couldn’t help but wonder if someone at AMC is formulating a spin-off series lightly based on the Evil Indian Tribe, called ‘The Reservation’. It’d be like ‘The Sopranos’, but with a gang of ruthless Native Americans who rule their reservation with the kind of intimidation and cunning that made Tony Soprano such a feared character. Couldn’t you see casino owner Nicole Jackson as the head of this powerful organized crime syndicate that operates outside the power of normal U.S. law enforcement? “Their land. Their rules.” See, even the tag line writes itself. Someone get the network executives on the phone right now!

It’s just so hard to buy this whole Indian organized crime syndicate. ‘The Killing’ started out as a realistic, down-to-earth type of detective investigation with lifelike characters. Now, since the story has ballooned into a second season (we’re on Day 21, for heaven’s sake), creator Veena Sud and company have been forced to come up with a new storyline more befitting a show like ’24’ or ‘Prison Break’. Here, the sudden inclusion of a group of malevolent Indians seems rather heavy-handed and lacks the genuineness that the show tried so hard to possess in the first season.

It only gets worse in this episode since the precinct’s new lieutenant, Carlson, has morphed into every red-tape-loving, by-the-book bureaucrat that Jack Bauer ever had to deal with. Carlson is a one-note character, who’s been placed in front of Linden for the sole purpose of drawing out the storyline just a little bit more. Taking Linden’s badge away seems ridiculous and I still don’t get why it happened, especially when they found Holder lying half-dead in the woods anyway. She was obviously right about that. “But,” exclaims Carlson, “you shouldn’t have been there in the first place!” (In other words: “How dare you do police work, you naughty girl!”)

Speaking of the search for Holder in the woods, the writers of ‘The Killing’ need to watch the ‘Mythbusters’ episode that totally debunks just about every myth known to man about how to disguise or mask your sent to sniffer dogs. Simply crossing a river does not cause dogs to lose the trail.

We haven’t seen Mitch for the past couple episodes, and I can’t say that I’m really all that busted up about it. Do we really care all that much about what she’s up to, or whether she’s still dragging poor souls off the street to take Rosie’s place? Ugh. Just thinking about this storyline gets me all worked up.

Finally, there’s the Richmond campaign, which is floundering. But you know that he’s going to come out on top, right? I mean, at some point, the campaign will join forces with a now-disgraced Linden and they’ll find out who’s really behind this whole thing. Someone else may die in the process (my money is on Jamie), but I think that’s how this thing ends up getting solved. That, or Nicole Jackson firebombs everyone’s homes and laughs maniacally as she watches them burn… ‘The Reservation’ would be great TV.

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2 comments

  1. I couldn’t keep my head on straight after this episode.

    Holder was HALF-dead up-against a freakin’ tree on Res land. Why is there no DOJ or DHS investigation? And Linden getting her badge taken, WTF? CARLSON.

  2. Mariel

    What’s more, a day or so after being found HALF DEAD up against a tree, he’s at the airport with Linden, looking none worse for the wear.

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