The Killing ‘Sayonara, Hiawatha’: Angry Sauce

The second season of The Killing is beginning to gain steam towards its finale, something I thought gave the show a lot of momentum in last week’s episode that was missing throughout most of the season. ‘Sayonara, Hiawatha’ wasn’t as strong or coherent, leaning too heavy on its tendencies towards the over-dramatic and outlandish, although a few good Holder scenes can always offsets some of the weaker points.

I was a little worried with all the action and tension in ‘ Off the Reservation’, ‘Sayonara’ was going to be nothing more than a boring, placeholder episode, setting up the dominoes to fall in the final four hours of the season. And on the surface, ‘Sayonara’ was a very slow moving episode until the last three minutes: for once in their season and a half run, The Killing actually manages a few subtle dramatic moments to drive things forward, and most of them work well.

Linden’s entrance to the tenth floor is one of the most powerful sequences of the series… until she opens up her mouth. Linden spends the entire episode hunting down the disappeared case files with Holder and figuring out a way to get upstairs, and is talking on the phone with Holder as she investigates the dark, abandoned renovations on the tenth floor. One one hand, it opens with a fantastic dramatic sequence of Linden in the elevator, quietly displaying her anxiety and adrenaline as she stared at the floor number changing on the elevator screen. On the other hand, the phone call that follows is a very preachy scene that deliberately draws in a lot of evidence that’s been buried underneath the nonsense for the last 15 (or so) episodes. It uses Linden as a mouthpiece of all the unanswered questions on the tenth floor, reminding us of what’s happened and how that shapes what we know about what happened in the room.

Either way, it led us to some more discoveries, and even more questions. We all know Chief Jackson and the Mayor were involved together somehow, it’s just a matter of connecting the dots with the ID card that fell into the floor (which I have to ask, why didn’t that person notice it was missing when trying to get back into City Hall the next day and come back to retrieve?), and how whatever was happening on the tenth floor that led to Rosie being shut up permanently plays into the waterfront properties. At this point, it looks like Rosie’s death was a mere byproduct of political corruption and bad luck, not sick perversion or personal vendetta.

It certainly fits the show’s morbid motif, although the reality and irony of that situation doesn’t mesh well with some of the show’s goofier, less realistic tendencies. Mitch is a great example: what the fuck is she even doing on this show right now? Did we need eight episodes of her sitting in a hotel room, fucking random dudes and getting ripped off by teenagers , all so she could see her baby daddy and lie to him about Rosie? I continue to be dumbfounded at the pointlessness of her presence on this show – something the phone call with Stan didn’t do anything to alleviate. Mitch continues to act aloof for the sake of keeping her on the sidelines, and it makes her scenes feel absolutely pointless.

Gwen herself is feeling just as pointless at this point, as we reveal more disturbing information about her childhood that doesn’t really pertain to the plot at hand much. Sure, the Mayor liked to have some fun with little girls, but did we really need Gwen to be the 14-year old he was doing weird sex stuff to? And what kind of politician uses her daughter as a sex object to gain political favor…. unless this what John was doing with Meghan McCain, then I’ll eat my words with a smile.

I could also talk about Stan, but he’s dealing with the same tired issues as he was when Rosie died three weeks ago. Tommy is acting out, killing birds and tormenting his brother, acts which cause Stan to say he hates his son, only to reconcile with him a few hours later. Yes, their relationships are bound to be tumultuous, but I feel all children on this show are just angry, whether they’re young like Tommy, or older like Alexis. The kids on The Killing are hardly nuanced – and the reason why I don’t miss good old Jack’s whiny ass one bit now that his presence is reduced to cell phone conversation I don’t have to listen to.

Tommy killing birds, Gwen banging senators in eighth grade… in other words, The Killing is improving in some aspects (mainly atmospheric), but still continues to stretch plausibility with some of its completely unbelievable plot threads. Would the entire evidence package of the most public murder investigation of the year in Seattle simply go missing, without anyone raising an issue? No matter how big the conspiracy, a move like that begs for someone to call you out, and feels too risky of a move in a tumultuous public situation like this case, which is turning out to be one that could define the careers Linden, Holder, and a number of other people above them.

One thing The Killing has always done well – even if it usually does so in shitty fashion – is present the audience with tidbits about the past that characters are forced to examine in the aftermath of Rosie’s death. Why wasn’t she close with her parents? Why did she want to leave? How did she feel about the information she learned about yourself… we may never learn her motives or what she wanted from life, but we’re getting to see everyone re-interpret their definition of who Rosie Larsen was, and without the weird sexual deviancy possibilities of season 1, actually raises some interesting questions about her increasingly unsettled feelings about her life before she died, or why her parents didn’t catch on (although in Mitch’s cases, her being a shitty parent pretty much answers it).

‘Sayonara’ ends on a predictable note, with Linden taking a shot to the back of the head, similar to the same one she got Holder into a couple episodes ago. Certainly, things aren’t going to end well for Linden whether the case is solved or not – her troubled psychiatric background we got another clue on tonight suggests that she’s out of second chances in the department, an avenue I hope a sudden solving of the murder doesn’t change for her. With four episodes left however, its time for Sud and company to put all their cards on the table, and give us some damn answers to this case.

Grade: C

Other thoughts/observations:

– I love angry sauce on my pasta, don’t you? Or do you prefer pissed off sauce, instead?

– What is the over/under on Holder and Linden doing it by the end of the season?

– “Ain’t no party without no tramp.” the true motto of the casino-going crowd.

– who is on the ID card? If it’s not Gwen or Jamie, I’ll be pissed… and if it is them, I’ll be kind of pissed, too.

What did you think of ‘Sayonara’? Leave your thoughts/comments below!