Review: The Killing ‘Scared and Running’ – He’s A Good Boy

I wondered how long it would take The Killing to get to one of its reveal-y moments – and all season, I’ve been curious to what my reaction would be to it. Could a show that betrayed my trust time and time again earn its way into my heart? Could the show I’ve consistently laughed and rolled my eyes at, really provide me with a real moment of revelation? That moment arrived at the end of ‘Scared of Running’ – and surprisingly, it worked: for the first time since the cell phone sex tape was revealed to be useless back in episode three or four, I believed something The Killing told me, a testament to the remarkable improvements the show’s made this season.

That’s not to say everything is running smoothly on the show; as the season continues, it feels like Seward and the serial killer story lines are growing farther and farther apart, to the extent that they feel like two different shows in ‘Scared and Running’. While Linden and company are out chasing a girl they believe to be Kallie (the episode’s opening begins with a girl getting hit by a car and running away), Seward’s in prison, dealing with his two inmates, both of whom are seeking forgiveness. There’s really nothing tying the two of them together: and with all our attention invested in the slowly-progressing investigation, Seward’s soul-searching doesn’t hold the same impact. I suppose there’s some irony to the reveal that Alton killed his parents, only to have his family forgive him – but without anything tethering us to his character or Seward’s story line (except that things are obviously connected in some weird way), there isn’t much to glean from Seward rejecting the forgiveness his son’s given him.

But what is working, is working really well. The investigation to find Kallie leads them to another girl, her body shredded and stitched up by a vet who supposedly takes in patients, no questions. This odd little detail raises some questions: did some random person drop her off – or did the killer? One thing the show’s been keeping close to the vest is an actual character profile of the killer – that is, what they think the point of this all is. He’s killing girls and taking their jewelry: lost amidst their weekly bread crumb chase for clues is Linden and Holder trying to make sense of this man’s motivations. Getting into a killer’s mind is often the way to catch him (HANNIBAL!!!!), and there hasn’t been much attempt to do that, beyond “he’s a sick fucker who is preying on girls and torturing them.”

With such focus on the investigation at hand, the serial killer’s character is also not the only one’s who are getting lost: Holder and Linden are less unique characters this season, the writers sticking mostly to familiar Holder gags (the hoodie returns this week, and we get some vegan food jokes) and having Linden stare longingly at things she can’t have. It’s not to say nothing is going on with them: Holder’s girlfriend is frustrated (a woman we’ve met…. once before this episode) and Linden’s apparently sad that Jack’s happy in Chicago. But these plots felt more like tent poles, contained to one scene and never mentioned again in the episode (Holder never says anything about his girlfriend after they leave the house… does she even matter?)

But despite these flaws, The Killing is drawing me in with what appears to be confident story telling (I shouldn’t have to say this, but spoilers ahead). If Joe Mills is really the serial killer, I’ll look back on this episode fondly as the moment I embraced this season of The Killing: showing us the killer near the halfway point of the season gives them hours to expand his personality, and really dig into this cat and mouse game that’s sure to follow once the Seattle PD begin drawing closer. Of course, if he’s not the killer than it’s right back to “fuck you, The Killing!” because the episode’s final moments (where Dannette calls Kallie and finds her phone in Joe’s bag) does a lot more than suggest that he is the killer.

Without the two previous seasons clouding my judgement, I would be standing up and applauding the move to reveal the killer (a character integrated into the main story) this early on. But remember the school teacher, and the drug dealers, and the casino, and the Larsen’s semi-retarded friend who paralyzed the mayor and killed himself? It’s an interesting position The Killing is putting itself in: the end of tonight’s episode screams “Come into our arms: we’ve changed!!!!”, but after the Rosie Larsen debacle (and the many flaws still bubbling underneath the surface of this season)… can we trust The Killing?

At the end of the day, the most important thing is that one enjoys the episode; and regardless of how things turn out in the future, I’ll remember ‘Scared and Running’ more fondly than most The Killing episodes: the character development will never really be there, but if they can continue providing this methodically-paced plot and continue finding satisfying beats to progress it, I’ll keep watching.

Grade: B

Other thoughts/observations:

– Henderson’s not interested in volunteering for the hanging… which is a scene, but doesn’t appear to be something the show’s doing something with.

– Holder is a dog whisperer, by the way. You know, in case you were wondering or something.

– where’s Lyric and Twitch?

– Linden: “people like you shouldn’t have kids.” So Linden: are you the pot or the kettle?

– we meet another prison named Dale, who has filed 11 appeals and is still breathing. He also asks for forgiveness, and thinks he has received it. That’s about all there is to him.

– wouldn’t Linden recognize the daughter of his boss and affair-sharer? She’s only been gone a couple years, not a decade.

– one of the foster home employees bitches about the “system being broken”… and the show goes nowhere with it, not even mentioning it again, despite the heavy weight and background silence given to his complaints.

– Holder and Bullet snuggle a little, which is a nice moment.

– why is Linden interested in Holder all of a sudden?

– The Valentine’s Day joke was hilarious – first time I’ve laughed genuinely at The Killing in awhile.

– Bullet would give Linden a North Star tattoo in this week’s winner of the Awkward and Mostly Pointless Scene award.

– Dannette is “for real” worried now.

– the elderly owner of Rape Motel turns out to be Joe Mills’s mother, something they would’ve learned, had they looked at her maiden name and/or their basic information.

– Linden starts walking in the woods when nobody knows where to look because… she’s magical? Really weird.

– Seward calls his wife a whore… that’s not very nice.