For every step forward Sarah Linden makes in her investigation, she takes three steps back. Earlier seasons had notes of this, but it was more Sarah being an idiot than her being a thoughtful investigator. In ‘Eminent Domain’ it’s a different story; she’s on top of her game and still can’t get anywhere, running into a brick wall every time she thinks she’s looking at an open window. She’s not the only one: everyone from Holder to Kallie’s mom is struggling to maintain their composure as the murder case begins to feel more and more like chasing a ghost.
When its focused squarely on Linden, ‘Eminent Domain’ delivers one of the best episodes of The Killing I’ve ever watched, as her growing desperation to be heard pushes her into making more mistakes. The biggest of these is telling Seward she “knows he’s innocent”: all she’s trying to do is get him to open up to her and provide access to his son, the key to unlocking the mystery around who really killed Seward’s wife.
The moment she realizes what Seward’s son saw is easily the best scene The Killing‘s ever done. It finally opens up Linden a little as she sits in the closet, contemplating what Adrian saw the night his mother died. We get to see her mind working, the wheels churning as she desperately searched for some kind of insight that would push their manhunt forward. However, the stunt she pulled that led to her finding all the bodies (Adrian’s drawing) is now preventing her from getting to see him again, with the foster parents denying her the chance to interview him.
It’s really a fascinating little bit of fuckery: Linden doesn’t find the bodies without visiting Adrian at school – and if she doesn’t do that, he doesn’t start sleeping in the closet again and giving Linden her next bread crumb. Now, this could eventually be an issue: if Adrian is our single source of knowledge, the young seer who draws pictures of the clues and holds the key to the entire case, it’s going to feel a bit silly in the end. But the way it’s currently being constructed is really interesting: it exemplifies Linden’s well-meaning, borderline rogue personality much better than during the Rosie Larsen killing.
Again, this could also turn into an issue. If we’re being told she put an innocent man on death row, then her skills as a murder cop really do have to be questioned. Everybody makes mistakes, yes, but Linden doesn’t really make “mistakes”: she deliberately entangles herself in professionally dangerous situations because she’s driven to find the answer, damned what her bosses or the law might say. Holder notices it: as she’s breaking into the old Seward home, he notes that what she’s doing is super illegal. Even though she gets valuable information, she’s crossing the line to do it – and even if she manages to solve this case, there’s bound to be a point near the season’s climax where she goes way too far.
On the other side of Seattle, the prison story line briefly crosses with the homeless murders when Linden visits Seward and proclaims his innocence. They’re still a little too separated from each other, though: Seward visiting his father (who is staying in the same prison) and watching Alton commit suicide feel like some isolated adventure, biding time until Seward’s real activities and motivations come to light.
Alton’s death at least gives us an interesting scene: prison’s finally broken him, the sight of his family forgiving him on the other side of the glass releasing something in his mind. Maybe it’s the thought of his family coming to terms with who he is, or finally realizing that his life is coming to an end, but Alton seizes an opportunity late at night to hang himself. He tells Seward he can call the guards, but Seward chooses instead to “shepard” him (an important phrase later on) into death, soothing him from across the aisle and telling him that it’s ok for him to let go.
In some way, Seward has to be jealous. Here is a man who got to go out on his own terms, without the world watching and relieving himself of the mentally, physically, and emotionally claustrophobic world that is prison. Alton’s not dealing with the pain, and doesn’t have to face the cop who imprisoned him telling him 12 days before he dies that she made a mistake. But if Seward was going to take that way out, he could (remember the razor blade, which we find out came from his father), and hasn’t. He wants to punish himself for something: just another mystery that Linden’s got to unravel in the next six episodes.
Now, the ending of the episode again goes for a cliffhanger (like last week’s) – and again, it’s a little too vague to see if the show’s fucking with us (ala seasons one and two) or is really starting to shine the light into what’s going on. The final scene sees Holder and Linden visiting the hospital Angie used to go to, looking for her after she runs out of the hospital. And as they’re standing there in his office in front of a wall full of young girls’ pictures, Holder thinks about his creepy (awesome) dialogue about the killer being a shepard for the lost girls, putting them in the backseat as if it was a confessional. Then Pastor Mike walks in the room, the music blares, and the episode ends.
In other words, The Killing is sticking to its finicky endings this season, and it’s hard to tell if they are true reveals, or distractions and red herrings. Putting Joe Mills on the run is a little worrisome: it leaves doubt in a place it could be erased, as if it’s being strung out to only keep us confused and on our toes as to who is guilty. He can only disappear for so long, though: and in ‘Eminent Domain’, his absence festers in Holder and Linden’s eyes in every scene, driving the episode in a focused direction. Is it the right direction? I suppose we’ll found out.
Grade: B+
Other thoughts/observations:
– the things on the fringes of the episode are the weak spots. Skinner and Linden sharing sex eyes was lame (as was much of Skinner’s ham-handed dialogue), as was Lyric being rejected by her boyfriend and ridiculed for no apparent reason except to put her and Bullet together.
– Holder bums a smoke from a man in a wheelchair with a tube in his neck.
– why does everyone want to know where Becker is? And why do we keep getting scenes with personal information about the prison guard? Feels like he’s going to play some kind of importance in the final episodes, the seeds of which are being planted in tonight’s scenes. Either that or Hugh Dillon just couldn’t film this episode.
– 12 days until Seward’s execution, a reminder of the timeline for the final six episodes of the season.
– we now have two people of interest: here’s to hoping The Killing doesn’t try to add too many more.