The Killing ‘Ogi Jun’: Keeping It Complex

As the Rosie Larsen case expands in season 2 of The Killing, we’re starting to learn about character’s pasts and their connections to the case, and ‘Ogi Jun’ tried its hardest to make it all matter. I’ll give it some credit: like any basic, color by numbers police procedural, The Killing manages to make vague ties between just about every plot thread and character. However, without any organic dramatic tension to to add beef to these parallels and intersections, the impact of these overlaps and twists feel empty, more devices to shuffle characters and loyalties around until the dominoes of the season start to fall later on.

For all the pre-season promises of being different (and better) than its first season, ‘Ogi Jun’ reminded us what a wild goose chase every episode is with the long, convoluted (and still to be completed) hunt for Alexi, a young mobster whose arm is seen in Rosie’s 8mm film. Of course, Alexi is tied to the Larsen family in a number of ways: Stan killed his father to get out of the mob years ago, and thanks to a scratched out drawing of Rosie’s face found in his Ogi Jun manga comic, we know he’s connected somehow to Rosie’s death – that, and the title of this episode is a neon sign of its supposed importance.

But of course it won’t be: as soon as that page in the comic is revealed,The Killing makes one thing clear: not only did Alexi not kill Rosie, but he’s not going to have anything useful for the case except to point his finger in another direction. For those who still haven’t learned this show’s formulaic ‘anti-formula’ style, anything that has to be chased down for an entire episode isn’t going to be important – which, contrary to the beliefs of some, does not make it “brilliant”, “innovative” or “totally different than CSI.” Remember the teacher from season 1? We know what these writers are going to do: try to simultaneously paint the suspect as a human and a monster, then quickly disprove their importance and move along to the next thing in a few episodes.

So in reality, the audience’s reaction to everything Linden, Holder, and Stan did this episode should rightly be “Who gives a shit?”

Speaking of Stan (and lazy transitions), season 2 continues to turn Stan Larsen’s regression into massive idiot, after being the grounded one of the relationship in season 1. As his former boss points out, it makes no sense that after 17 years, Stan is ready to dig up a life he killed to get away from, just so he can teach his depressed kid to beat up some students. For each of the 17 days of the Rosie Larsen investigation, Stan has put his head in his hands, made angry faces, and done a whole lot of misguided yelling and screaming. But don’t forget: his best friend just died thanks to bad police info, so let’s show his emotional side a bit. With Mitch absent again, the Larsen family continues to be The Inconsistent Emotional Rollercoaster of Awful Parenting.

The chain of events involving Stan and Linden’s story lines were again, all table-setting the world around the conspiracy, allowing us a little insight into how things are connected, without giving us characters smart enough to ask the questions we’re watching the show to get answers to. Stan doesn’t try and pry into Janek’s knowledge of his family, or his activities with his equipment. By having him fly off the handle, we get both a dramatic moment and an excuse to delay explaining anything. Same goes for Terry’s phone call to her married government buns, and add Linden’s treatment of Holder’s inconsistencies and lying about everything to the list.

I just can’t help feeling like the show is wasting time before it actually starts getting to the point. Spending an entire hour (plus whatever it takes next week) to chase down a kid who is only going to have a small piece of the mystery (and like every suspect last season, a piece that leads to a piece, that misleads to another piece, and so on), why do we care?

Well, maybe we care about the characters: but does anyone feel bad for Linden when the call comes in that she’s entering a custody battle? Not really: we know she’s a bad parent, and all the show does with that is remind us that she didn’t have any parents, and came up in foster care, just like the kid they’re hunting for. Anything important about characters is only introduced when a plot line demands direct connection, or is trying to coax an emotion out of the audience, and it feels cheap and orchestrated every time (its no surprise Veena Sud’s two big credits to her name are writing for Cold Case and directing episodes of The Real World).

Finally, we can’t forget Darren’s storyline. He did nothing this week, exchanged barbs with the Mayor (who duh, is involved somehow), and sat around all paralyzed and depressed. Jamie continues to be a pointless mouthbox of hope – we all know Darren isn’t just going away, so let’s move on with all the pep talks and Darren being reluctant about it. It’s lame. I don’t have much else to say about those boring scenes, except how the show is going to manage Gwen as a character in D.C. is beyond me (although in reality, Gwen wasn’t much of a character in the first place, just something for Darren to have a sex scandal with, and provide some angry looks and sexual tension to season 1’s storylines).

So 17 days intoThe Killing’s investigation of Rosie Larsen, what do we  know? Well, the show isn’t telling us that Rosie’s died as part of a cover-up, but we know it already. Having a political storyline in season 1 that was only arbitrarily connected to the main plot (and felt so all throughout) shows us that the government is involved somehow, and with the introduction of the mob, probably has something to do with the intersection of the two. Beau Soliel continues to be pounded into our brains, so the business could be the intermediary bringing the two together – both of which correlate to Rosie’s death (because of some knowledge she had), along with a whole lot of crap somehow involving the Larsens . No real suspects, and no solid physical evidence to suggest anything I’ve written is true – which means the show is either fiendishly clever and subtle, or a show that’s deceiving both itself and its viewers. 17 hours of television in, and that’s all we’ve got.

Grade: D+

Other thoughts/observations:

– other arbitrary plot threads introduced: Linden banging FBI guy, Jamie’s been uber-loyal to Darren, Linden has foster care hook ups, the ex-wife of the guy Stan killed hates him, Linden’s mother sucked… am I forgetting anything?

– what kids bully other kids over their murdered sister? Pretty cruel, even for school children. And thank you for including a scene where the Larsen kids reject their stand-in mom: what’s a played out drama without “YOU’RE NOT MY MOM!!!”

– those Larsens are some shitty parents. I really can’t get over how stupid and irresponsible Mitch and Stan are on a regular basis. By the way, does anyone care that Mitch is gone? Stan seems to have accepted it, or at least, isn’t complaining and/or depressed about it at all this week.

– heavy snyths = sad faces = rain outside. This is The Killing.

– the writers continue their amazing inability to do anything interesting with children on the show. The Larsen kids are a joke.

– Red herring of the week? Obviously the note in the manga comic.

– don’t you hate when you go to pick up your dead brother from the police, and he’s already been sent to a funeral home by a Russian mobster? Something about legal procedure doesn’t feel right here. Then again, when do the cops on The Killing do anything realistic?

Did anyone like ‘Obi Jun’? Who is on the edge of their seats with every twist and turn? Feel free to leave your thoughts/comments about the episode in the comments section below.