Review: The Killing ‘Seventeen’ – You Let Him In

I was willing to secede last week that this ‘new’ version of The Killing was at least more intriguing than the last, but I wasn’t ready to buy into Linden and Holder’s semi-reunion to hunt down a serial killer of young, homeless girls. ‘Seventeen’ certainly doesn’t convince me, but it does bring me one step closer: an episode that focused much more on character than on the sillier aspects of the plot, ‘Seventeen’ is a marked improvement over the silliness of much of what preceded it: focused, dark and meticulously paced, this is the kind of The Killing I would match more of.

There are still problematic moments in the episode – but these are bound to happen on The Killing, and they come out of more ambitious attempts at storytelling and characterization than what came before. Like the Rosie Larsen case, this new series of murders is used both as a driving dramatic force, and a window into the past to explore characters like Linden and Seward a bit further. It may be a little telling that Holder – the character most tangentially connected to much of the stuff beyond the actual case – is still the most interesting character on the show, but there’s at least an attempt to make the ancillary characters more intriguing, even if it’s working to mixed results.

The lesser returns early on are coming from the homeless crew: although Bullet is a more appealing character than she was in the premiere, there still isn’t a lot to her than an abused girl falling in love with a girl who isn’t given much intelligence or depth by the writers in Lyric (whose boyfriend clearly doesn’t care about her; she seems very willing to attach herself to Bullet despite her apparent love for him). Let’s be honest: The Killing is a dark show, and the two of them falling in love probably only means one of them is going to die, especially with the suspicious – and bound to be utterly pointless – Goldie the pervy pimp hanging around.

I really like how the show is taking its time with drawing out details of the case (though this happened in season 1 until episode four, when the red herrings started flying around), but I think there’s some thumb twiddling happening in the case of Goldie, a character who is nothing but a sick fuck videotaping himself raping underage women – which the police are willing to let him go for, because Skinner wants to hurry and attach these murders to someone before the connection is made to the about-to-die Seward, and questions start being raised all around.

Let’s be honest: is Goldie going to be the key to anything this season? It doesn’t appear to be – although this may speak to the skepticism I hold onto after being so deeply betrayed by The Killing time and time again through its first two seasons. But there’s a methodical pace to ‘Seventeen’ I found comforting, and it made scenes that felt inconsequential (Kallie is in one of Goldie’s videos? woo fucking hoo!) more watchable, even when it felt like ‘Seventeen’ was leading us down a dark, shadowy dead end.

Save for the details surrounding Goldie I don’t care about (and some of the wonky character development with Bullet and Lyric), ‘Seventeen’ finds a way to be a lot more interesting than a typical rain-soaked hour in the murder-filled world of Seattle. Director Kari Skogland finds a way to make the drab colors a lot more inviting with her camera work in the episode – highlighted by a scene of Bullet gathering herself in front of a broken mirror, and Linden walking into the morgue full of decrepit skeletons. And with less time spent on Linden’s personal hang ups (I was afraid her and Skinner’s affair was going to become this huge thing; it hasn’t, at least not yet) and more time spent with Holder talking shop and hitting the pavement, ‘Seventeen’ joins the small pantheon of watchable The Killing episodes. Baby steps!

Grade: B

Other thoughts/observations:

– there are a few ways to interpret Ray’s self-mutilation: a sign of innocence, or the desperate attempt of a man trying to escape the horror he placed upon his family. Linden’s comment about Aiden wanting to see his father certainly suggests that the latter of these possibilities is at least in play (though a super-traumatized kid who assumedly remembers nothing is not  reliable source of innocence).

– speaking of Ray: how the fuck did he find a razor in his soap? Is anybody going to explain that?

– why is the black homeless boy the super gay one? I feel like I’m seeing a lot of black drag characters on television these days, and not in a favorable light.

– Lyric sucks a dick for a breakfast sandwich and hashbrowns, just to remind us how grim the world of homeless teenagers is.

– Holder likes to smoke with the windows closed, which is just gross.

– Does anybody think Becker survives the season?

– here are the facts we have: 17 victims killed within a 6-month period, three to five years ago. All with broken (or removed) fingers, all buried in this pond inside hazardous waste bags. three victims identified, and the rest could take “weeks”, which usually means “seasons” on The Killing. Unfortunately, they’ve only got 10 hours of television to do it, having to admit to audiences that they wouldn’t leave them hanging again this time around (which I think is a mistake: if you like multi-season mysteries, keep doing them: just try to make them BETTER the next time around).

– Need some more shock value? LISTEN TO THE RAPEY PORN.