bittersweet and incomplete
We’re really getting down to the bottom of things...
with the arrest and apparent confession of Joe Mills. But what did he confess to, exactly? This is The Killing, after all, and it still seems a bit early to wrap it all up with a bow two weeks out. Though the final eps look to be focused on settling the question of who killed Tricia Seward, will they solve it before Ray marches to the gallows?
While we seem to be looking at two killers instead of one at this point, I wouldn’t count Linden’s instincts out just yet. The explanation that Adrian picked Joe’s photo - a 1-in-6 chance (though I’m sure there’s some psychological statistic about placement of the image on the card) - because he had seen Mills on TV doesn’t quite sit right. Even if TV stations had already been reporting his arrest and flashing a mug shot, Adrian was in school all day, wasn’t he? And he still wants to see his father, another indication that Ray didn’t kill his wife.
So, listening to Linden’s gut and continuing to assume that Tricia Seward’s killer and the Pied Piper are one and the same, the top suspect is still Joe Mills. The hole that opened up in Linden’s theory - Danette’s mention that Joe was in Alaska at the time - is pretty easily dismissed. We only know that Joe told Danette that he was going to Alaska, but maybe he was actually in Seattle at least part of that time. If that’s the case, I predict that it will be one of the toys he gave to Kallie that unravels the lie, since there was a fair amount of detail in the description.
But another bit of misdirection may be at work, implicating one of Seattle’s “finest”: Reddick was the one who brought the box of rings to Skinner, saying they’d been found in the search of the storage space. He also mentioned to Holder that the autopsy revealed that Bullet had fought her attacker, and Reddick had a large bandage on the back of his hand, which we saw most prominently when Holder punched him out. (Of course, it was just a flesh-toned bandaid, which might only mean that the actor had had a mole removed the day before filming.) I’ll have to go back and watch the early scenes with Mills to see if there are any visible wounds before he gets double-teamed by Holder and Linden.
There’s also the matter of Reddick failing to pass on Bullet’s messages, which could have been mere neglect or purposeful obfuscation . I’m wondering if there could be a link between Reddick and Seward. Was Reddick involved in either the Seward murder investigation, or in whatever got Ray locked up while his wife was pregnant with Adrian? It would certainly be keeping with Killing precedent if there’s more than one culpable party involved in the deaths and/or cover-up of those responsible. In that vein, here’s a real, but plausible, long-shot: Reddick and Becker working together, somehow. Linden mentioned to Pastor Mike that she had worked in the jails - it’s common where I live and in other large metropolitan areas that rookie cops spend their first year or so on guard duty. Reddick and Becker are of the same generation - chronologically, and certainly in terms of attitude - so if it turns out that they are connected, I’d lay money that it traces back to working the jails together years earlier…maybe with Becker getting kicked off the force and ending up as a career prison guard.
Back to those ignored messages. I feel like the gambit with Bullet trying in vain to get Holder on the phone and then becoming the next victim was a little cheap and predictable. If Angie told Bullet who attacked her, and Bullet was so desperate to get that information to Holder, why didn’t she leave it in his voicemail, or y’know, do what every other teenager would’ve done and texted it to him?
But of course, the tried-and-true narrative trope of bonding two characters, then making one feel responsible for the other’s death, is a trope for good reason: it works just about every freakin’ time. And, as in countless other stories, it serves here to deepen the emotional intimacy between the leads (just as the near-death experience of one of them did the previous week). Of course, in true Killing fashion, that intimacy is awkward, bittersweet and incomplete. In the conversation with Danette immediately preceding this scene, Kallie’s mom bemoans her lousy choices in men, a parallel Linden undoubtedly, and unhappily, picks up on. Her two most recent relationships that we know of involved her boss and her shrink, so it’s no wonder that she’d deflect Holder’s moves, even if she were inclined to respond in kind. That immediate refusal is pure instinctual self-preservation on Sarah’s part, but I get the feeling that in a quiet scene with Skinner a bit later, her resolve is strengthened by being reminded that getting involved with Holder would not only jeopardize her professional life, but make her a two-time, partner-snogging homewrecker. The layers of humanity in this show are numerous and complex, which is what sucked me in and keeps me glued to the screen.
with the arrest and apparent confession of Joe Mills. But what did he confess to, exactly? This is The Killing, after all, and it still seems a bit early to wrap it all up with a bow two weeks out. Though the final eps look to be focused on settling the question of who killed Tricia Seward, will they solve it before Ray marches to the gallows?
While we seem to be looking at two killers instead of one at this point, I wouldn’t count Linden’s instincts out just yet. The explanation that Adrian picked Joe’s photo - a 1-in-6 chance (though I’m sure there’s some psychological statistic about placement of the image on the card) - because he had seen Mills on TV doesn’t quite sit right. Even if TV stations had already been reporting his arrest and flashing a mug shot, Adrian was in school all day, wasn’t he? And he still wants to see his father, another indication that Ray didn’t kill his wife.
So, listening to Linden’s gut and continuing to assume that Tricia Seward’s killer and the Pied Piper are one and the same, the top suspect is still Joe Mills. The hole that opened up in Linden’s theory - Danette’s mention that Joe was in Alaska at the time - is pretty easily dismissed. We only know that Joe told Danette that he was going to Alaska, but maybe he was actually in Seattle at least part of that time. If that’s the case, I predict that it will be one of the toys he gave to Kallie that unravels the lie, since there was a fair amount of detail in the description.
But another bit of misdirection may be at work, implicating one of Seattle’s “finest”: Reddick was the one who brought the box of rings to Skinner, saying they’d been found in the search of the storage space. He also mentioned to Holder that the autopsy revealed that Bullet had fought her attacker, and Reddick had a large bandage on the back of his hand, which we saw most prominently when Holder punched him out. (Of course, it was just a flesh-toned bandaid, which might only mean that the actor had had a mole removed the day before filming.) I’ll have to go back and watch the early scenes with Mills to see if there are any visible wounds before he gets double-teamed by Holder and Linden.
There’s also the matter of Reddick failing to pass on Bullet’s messages, which could have been mere neglect or purposeful obfuscation . I’m wondering if there could be a link between Reddick and Seward. Was Reddick involved in either the Seward murder investigation, or in whatever got Ray locked up while his wife was pregnant with Adrian? It would certainly be keeping with Killing precedent if there’s more than one culpable party involved in the deaths and/or cover-up of those responsible. In that vein, here’s a real, but plausible, long-shot: Reddick and Becker working together, somehow. Linden mentioned to Pastor Mike that she had worked in the jails - it’s common where I live and in other large metropolitan areas that rookie cops spend their first year or so on guard duty. Reddick and Becker are of the same generation - chronologically, and certainly in terms of attitude - so if it turns out that they are connected, I’d lay money that it traces back to working the jails together years earlier…maybe with Becker getting kicked off the force and ending up as a career prison guard.
Back to those ignored messages. I feel like the gambit with Bullet trying in vain to get Holder on the phone and then becoming the next victim was a little cheap and predictable. If Angie told Bullet who attacked her, and Bullet was so desperate to get that information to Holder, why didn’t she leave it in his voicemail, or y’know, do what every other teenager would’ve done and texted it to him?
But of course, the tried-and-true narrative trope of bonding two characters, then making one feel responsible for the other’s death, is a trope for good reason: it works just about every freakin’ time. And, as in countless other stories, it serves here to deepen the emotional intimacy between the leads (just as the near-death experience of one of them did the previous week). Of course, in true Killing fashion, that intimacy is awkward, bittersweet and incomplete. In the conversation with Danette immediately preceding this scene, Kallie’s mom bemoans her lousy choices in men, a parallel Linden undoubtedly, and unhappily, picks up on. Her two most recent relationships that we know of involved her boss and her shrink, so it’s no wonder that she’d deflect Holder’s moves, even if she were inclined to respond in kind. That immediate refusal is pure instinctual self-preservation on Sarah’s part, but I get the feeling that in a quiet scene with Skinner a bit later, her resolve is strengthened by being reminded that getting involved with Holder would not only jeopardize her professional life, but make her a two-time, partner-snogging homewrecker. The layers of humanity in this show are numerous and complex, which is what sucked me in and keeps me glued to the screen.