Review: The Killing ‘Reckoning’ – Did I Do Something Wrong

Generally speaking, the emotional stakes of The Killing are pretty low: even though the show’s dramatically improved its narrative form, it’s still struggled at times to find meaningful arcs that move beyond predictable character beats. But the show’s always had one huge ace stuffed in its back pocket, only flashing it at times during the first two seasons: Joel Kinnaman. Where many characters suffer from common blandness or a lack of dimensions, they’ve always found ways to explore Holder’s life, whether it’s with his nephew, his addiction, or trying to make a career in the police force. By putting him front and center in ‘Reckoning’, The Killing is able to deliver a powerful, heart-wrenching hour – easily the best in the series.

For the most part, Bullet has fit the mold of other characters on the show – but the one thing that’s separated her from the other thin ancillary characters on the show is her bond with Holder, which took a big hit after last week’s fallout from her lies trying to save Lyric (who didn’t need to be saved after all). While some of their earlier interactions felt a little forced, there was a camraderie between the two that had a lot more life than his and Linden’s – their interactions being mostly one-sided as he cracks jokes and Linden looks around, stressed in her big sweaters. With Bullet, there’s some bite to their back and forth – and quietly, it forged a connection between them and the audience, providing the emotional center where other plotlines (ahem – Kallie and her mother) couldn’t.

It takes about six or seven minutes for ‘Reckoning’ to get going: but once Holder and Linden arrive at Joe’s storage bin, it takes off, and mostly keeps a relentless pace for the rest of the hour (save for those damn prison scenes; we’ll get back to those). When Joe arrives, the show delivers its most dramatic sequence ever, flashing between Linden struggling with Joe and Holder rushing to where they’re fighting. After they whip his ass for a bit (a very satisfying moment, given the state of Linden’s face and their frustrations with the case), ‘Reckoning’ lulls us by bringing in the feds and the evidence bags, usually the sign on cops that the drama’s over for the time being. But then Linden opens up Joe’s memento box, and punches the audience in the gut when she pulls out one of Bullet’s chains.

The next ninety seconds immediately raises the bar the previous scene set: Linden trying to prevent Holder from opening the trunk of the cab is the single best scene The Killing has ever produced, and ends with the haunting image of Bullet’s bloodied hand and ‘Faith’ tattoo poking out of the shadows. And ‘Reckoning’ doesn’t waste that image, connecting it later to Holder himself, a man who struggled with his own demons, adorning his body with a single motivational phrase (his is ‘Serenity’, across his chest) just like Bullet.

It’s an important symbolic connection: one point The Killing‘s harped on all season is how everybody turns their back on the downtrodden – and once that last person turns their back, you can be lost forever. Friends, family, every single bureaucratic organization in the country: when you’re homeless or hopelessly addicted, the people you can lean on grows shorter and shorter everyday. Holder may not have been homeless – but like Bullet, he’s felt the hopelessness, and is the one character on the show who seems to have finally found peace with the help of others (Linden and his girlfriend, primarily).

But in a moment, it’s shattered – and for the rest of the episode, Holder is haunted by the parallels that were so easy to ignore when Bullet was alive. And it’s devastating: Joel Kinnaman brings his performance to another level, condensing the pain and anger into this dark shadow that looms over him, whether he’s sitting in his car or attacking Reddick at his home out of frustration, beating his face in for not telling him that Bullet had called him again.

Smartly, Holder and Linden are kept apart for the majority of the episode – it allows their one scene together show how far their relationship has come, even if it has the lame, totally predictable beat of Holder trying to kiss Linden in his moment of pain. Linden’s adventures aren’t as interesting (she talks to Adrian, who lies and fingers Joe as the murderer, putting her back at square one with only a day before Ray’s death), but it allows us to watch Holder struggle to process what happened, and Linden’s ability to at least contain it for a few moments (though he explodes when he leaves).

Linden’s discoveries and Ray’s presence in the episode’s second half are easily the episode’s weakest points: sitting around while a fellow prisoner has his jollies with Ray’s mind only takes away from the tension of the other scenes, regardless of how well the scenes are shot. Neither does the whole “prison guard whose wife banged another prison guard, and kid just shot someone”, which just seems like a way to pad the last three episodes with some extraneous drama – something that the show might unfortunately have to deal with in the final hours.

The case isn’t solved and Ray is still alive – so there’s plenty of answers to be revealed and conclusions to come to in the last three episodes: but it’s going to be hard for them to match the intensity and focus of ‘Reckoning’, which is a daring episode that piles on a lot of information (both intriguing and incriminating) while it’s delivering the best scenes and character beats of the entire series. ‘Reckoning’ is so well executed and narrows the focus of the season down so much, it almost feels like the scene where everyone’s inspecting evidence in the tight hallway of the storage facility: a lot of shit floating around, but not a lot of places left to go. Either way, ‘Reckoning’ is a great hour of television – and more importantly, the first wholly satisfying hour The Killing‘s ever delivered.

Grade: A

Other thoughts/observations:

– that’s right: despite the boring prison scenes and the weird prison guard subplot, The Killing delivered the goods for the first time and earned the shit out of that A.

– IT DOESN’T RAIN ONCE IN THIS EPISODE.

– in the last scene with Holder and Bullet, we learn her real name was Rachel – every homeless person was somebody once, before they were forgotten by the world.

– on the side: Lyric and Twitch get an apartment, can’t fully enjoy it because Bullet is dead.

– so if Joe Mills isn’t the serial killer, who is? well, all we have in front of us are cops: if they go this direction (please don’t), Reddick or Becker could end up being the killer. Particularly Becker: there’s been a weird attention paid to the decaying of his family that doesn’t quite seem to serve a purpose yet.

– round of applause for Silence of the Lambs director Jonathan Demme for his camera work in this episode: every shot is sharp, expertly framed, executing sequences swiftly with simple movements and lots of close-ups. Great stuff.

– “I’m killing you with my words… I’ve been doing it since the day you got here.” *sigh*

– Holder doesn’t want to share butts with Linden anymore: everyone hates the “let me get one” person.

– Joe trashes the house before Kallie’s mother arrives home, just to further prove his point, I suppose.