The Killing – ‘I know what you did’

While I bitterly complained about last week’s episode moving at a glacial pace, this week’s installment of The Killing, the second-to-last episode, of the season moved like a spaceship blasting into hyperspace.

After playing cute and coy with several characters, trying to make us believe that this person or that person could be responsible for Rosie Larsen’s death, could it be true that The Killing’s writers have finally told us who the murderer is and all that’s left for the season finale is to gather the requisite evidence? It can’t be that easy, can it?

While I long to find out the answers to this mystery, I felt as though we were abruptly slapped across the face with reveal after reveal in this episode, maybe to make up for the odd, slow-moving episode last week. Hey, Aunt Terry is a highly paid escort. And guess what else? Rosie logged onto that highly paid escort service’s web site and separately made a series of deposits into a bank account. Does this mean Rosie was an escort too? Oh, and Gwen received an envelope full of photos of her boyfriend/mayoral candidate Darren Richmond, from Darren’s opponent of all people, looking as though Darren had been amorous with a woman (or women, it wasn’t clear).

Then viewers quickly learned that an escort who saw some dude named “Orpheus” warned her colleagues about him because he had asked her if she ever thought about what it would feel like to drown. That dude was our mild mannered, high-minded pol Darren who also happened to be marking the two-year anniversary of his wife’s death. The night that Rosie, the same girl seen shaking Darren’s hand in a campaign video, was killed, drowned in the trunk of a Richmond campaign car that’d been plunged into a lake, Orpheus closed his Beau Soleil account. Coincidence?

The compelling scene of Linden hearing the “ding” indicating that an e-mail had been received, only to discover that her “I know what you did” e-mail to Orpheus was delivered to Darren’s computer was deliciously tense, exactly what I love about the show. Does all this mean Darren killed Rosie, or simply that he was sad about his wife’s death — his crediting his potential campaign victory to her indicates she’s on his mind, especially now that the drunk driver who killed her is up for parole — and that sadness prompted him to take up with escorts (a la Eliot Spitzer)?

Out of curiosity, I looked up Orpheus and learned some interesting info about the Greek myth about the charming lyre player. Orpheus’ beloved wife Eurydice died after being bitten by a poisonous snake, according to a BBC summary of the myth. Orpheus, overcome with grief, went to the Underworld hoping to see her and bring her back to the world of the living with him, however it was not to be. And the bereft Orpheus was eventually torn to pieces. Huh, is that an analogy for a political campaign? Next week’s finale is entitled, “Orpheus Descending.” Does that mean Darren will be descending into hell? Into a place where he’ll be ripped apart?

I’m hopeful that, in the end, it will turn out that Darren is not the murderer and that it’s someone else who’s affiliated with his campaign. It would just be too easy to have it be Darren. As for the money problems the Larsens are having and the whole business with the mob ties, it all seems tangential right now, almost a distraction that’s getting in the way of the main story … unless it’s not. But at this point, if The Killing turns around in one episode and has the killer be someone other than Darren or someone related to the campaign, I’m gonna be mighty steamed.

Anyone have a favorite suspect they want to nominate as Rosie’s killer before next week’s season finale?

Clacked by Meredith O'Brien
on Jun 13, 2011 @ 15:00 EST5EDT