Review: The Killing ‘Head Shots’ – I’m A Modern Woman

Without much momentum in the murder investigation to report on, ‘Head Shots’ has to lean heavily on its characters and interactions to carry the weight of the episode. And as with last week’s episode, some of this material works (anything with Holder) and some of it doesn’t (male rape, Reddick’s relentless douchebaggery) – but the improvements from last season remain consistent, despite the worrisome bits around the edges.

One thing that’s clear is that The Killing is still struggling at times with its subtlety: most of the problematic components of ‘Head Shots’ come when the show is trying to reinforce an idea without finding a new angle to it. For example, the show’s portrayal of “hard life” on the streets: so far, this has amounted to multiple rapes and not much else – in this episode, throwing on the extra despair of Twitch’s rape coming at the hands of a parole officer. I understand that the show wants to paint these groups of kids as lost souls, people that can’t get a leg up on life because everyone is trying to take advantage of them (even the people trying to help them), but those that are given a chance to prevent some of the evil invading their world don’t: Bullet continues to hold in the trauma of her rape when she’s around Lyric or Holder, refusing to let Goldie turn her into a snitch (even though it sounds like her story would send a man with multiple adult and child convictions to jail for a really, really long time).

To be fair, while I don’t necessarily like how Bullet continues to remain silent about the issue (it sells her short as a human, holding onto this immature ideal that being a “snitch” holds some kind of meaning in the homeless community), I do like how they give her some strength in this episode. Having her raped was a poor decision by the writers (which now forces her to cower all the time in her emotional and physical pain), but they’re slowly redeeming it by showing her at least trying to reach out to people and be strong – though not too strong: Twitch getting the shit beat out of himself in the skate park wasn’t something she could control.

But even though he’s technically her adversary (and her enemy, seeing that he’s stealing Lyric’s money for selfish things like hair dye and heroin), she’s there to carry him home after he gets walloped on, returning him to his little squatting home. There really isn’t much drawn between them to justify why Bullet cares about him so much in this particular episode – but then again, The Killing‘s struggled with even the most surface characterizations, so it’s not unexpected that there’s some head scratching when she continues to chase after him. Is it intuition? Is it Bullet being scared to be alone? These things are never really explained (or even subtly acknowledged), so I suppose we’re supposed to just rack it up to ESP from one rape victim to another.

The same kind of lack of motivation spreads to other characters, as well. Some of these are simple and mostly meaningless (like why the woman who owned the hotel who knew there was raping going on being defiant, even after she was screwed… though I suppose this parallels her with the homeless kids she lets stay there as people who don’t trust authority), but there are a few that are given some prominence in the episode that feel forced. Chief among these is Reddick, who is just being the veteran dickhead because… well, he’s the veteran dickhead, and has a problem with the one woman working in his office. Sure, she’s got a spotty record as an investigator (let’s talk about her track record during the Rosie Larsen investigation), but there’s enough people recognizing her talent that Reddick’s boneheaded approach to “co-working” kind of undermines. I suppose Reddick could be jealous – but in previous episodes, he’s been presented as a punch-the-clock-and-go-home kind of guy… why is he so dedicted to his job and position in this specific situation (in fact, only when Linden is talking or being involved?)

It paints Reddick as this vapid misogynist – and distracts from what are otherwise enjoyable scenes in the police department, as Holder, Linden and company watch “porn tapes” (how many times did they have to say that phrase?) and try to make a connection between Goldie and Tiffany. The reveal at the end is a little bit vague – Mills is most likely the porn director, leaving Goldie to just be a rapey dude who gets away with the rape of a lesbian girl (because there’s no justice in rainy Seattle, damnit!!!!) –  and it kind of undersells the tension leading up to that moment, putting aside an overt Seward story (he’s suffering and isn’t 120% evil, as the black prisoner explains to us in numerous scenes, calling him Spartacus 48 times) to lead to a moment that doesn’t quite feel like a Rosie Red Herring, but doesn’t quite feel like the vital bit of information it’s presented to be.

But even a mixed The Killing is an improved one, and ‘Head Shots’ continues to take slow steps in the right direction – when it stays with the police, at least – as it really, really slowly (seriously… we’re already a third of the way through the season) starts to draw out the details surrounding the death of Kallie (because the show is called THE KILING people… if she’s somehow found alive, they’ve deceived us all). It’s still struggling with its minor characters, but when The Killing is focused on the investigation, it’s become a much more compelling and subtle experience. Unfortunately, there are two other major components of the season (Seward and the homeless kids) and it’s there that season three is still finding its footing, finding uninteresting ways to fill the time before the show starts shining real light onto what’s happening to young girls in Seattle. But hey – one week at a time, right?

Grade: C+

Other thoughts/observations:

– “The Pied Piper”? Are you fucking kidding me – you had a year to think up a name for the media to give your fictional killer and that’s what you choose?

– Linden basically replaces the phrases “gets raped” with “given a Happy Meal.” Really disturbing.

– Internet, bring me a .gif of Holder eating carrots immediately.

– speaking of that scene, the show once again plays Bullet’s “hard” angle a little too heavily… her insults were both a meaningful little moment of bonding with her and Holder, and a very poorly written bit of “comedy” that felt a segment of the old MTV show Yo Mama! (with host Wilder Valderrama) .

– Linden finds a blue teddy bear in the bedroom, to remind us that KIDS WERE RAPED HERE.

– Bullet was in boarding school?

– Seward: “Hope and faith… that bitch’ll kill you faster than prison.”

– the whole subplot with the sadistic boss bringing his guard over for a beer felt so out of place. The wife comes in and basically says “Prison jobs kill marriages!” to which Becker (the big, burly guy) just kind of nods his head mindlessly.

– Linden to Reddick: “23 years, and all you do is get in the way.” Shots fired!

– Gregg Henry’s first scene is shot really awkwardly: as he talks to Holder, the camera appears fixated on the roll of skin protruding over the side of his shirt neck.

– Bullet stands in the rain, because The Killing wants you to feel some fucking pain, damnit!

– after fighting the police for his entire prison stay, killing one the day he arrived, he gives up after they beat his fellow prisoner until he takes his pill. “They won a long time ago” he says in the dark to himself and the beaten prisoner, who calls him out for selling out.