Monday, April 09, 2012

Three Up, Three Down: The Killing

Three Up

3. Jack Linden. After getting dragged all over Seattle in the last couple of episodes, he and Sarah have finally landed somewhere they can cook, and he shows some independence as he continues watching a meal Sarah started before getting a work call. He also adds a bit of background to the investigation when he talks about the anime character whose tattoo is on a mystery guy in one of Rosie's movies. He also gets to tweak Sarah when he notes that she bought him the anime book at some point in the past, and that it's full of sex and violence. Nice parenting!

2. Janek Kovarsky. Stan brings the Polish mobster back into the case when he asks him to kill Rosie's killer. Janek manages to get under Stan's skin by making contact with his sons, but then gets Stan back into his graces by providing him with details about Rosie's death that the cops didn't tell Stan. Janek also says that the Beau Soleil thing is a dead end, as they only used Russian women, But we learn later that Janek is involved with Beau Soleil, and may have used Stan's employees to torch the building that housed  the Beau Soleil servers just before a warrant was to be executed.  

1. Sarah Linden. Not only has she managed to find something that passes for a home for Jack, but she makes some decent progress on the case, between the anime tattoo, the footage that links Larsen's moving company to the Beau Soleil arson, and discovering Holder's double cross with Rosie's backpack. She even manages to talk Holder off of a Seattle highway, apparently restarting their partnership.

Three Down

3. Darren Richmond. He's working hard to get back to normal - he's stopped taking morphine, wants to start rehab immediately, and swears he felt the warmth of the sun on his legs. He's even planning to attend an event at the end of the week to get back into the election, spurred in no small part by a mayoral press conference. But he comes back to earth when a doctor's test leads him to report sensation when he's not being touched, followed by a nurse he's been flirting with being able to change his catheder without him feeling it. When he finally stabs himself with a campaign pin, only to find he doesn't feel it, he realizes the road back to the campaign is much, much longer than he wants.

2. Steven Holder. So much for whatever "up" he had from last week. He's in a downward spiral this entire episode, starting with blowing off a N.A. meeting, followed by having his son reject a ride to school because his mom doesn't want him taking rides from dad. After beating up a dealer and stealing meth from him, Holder has sex with one of the former junkies from his N.A. group and, realizing he's hit bottom, winds up walking out into traffic on a Seattle highway. Linden talks him back in and gives up Rosie's backpack, so hopefully he's going to build back up after coming way down.

1. Stan Larsen. Poor, dumb Stan. He's gone back to Janek for help, not realizing that Janek is going to use Stan to protect his own interests. Stan is also told by Terry that he's incapable of taking care of the boys on his own, which past experience suggests is pretty much true. And it turns out that he likely has Janek-connected arsonists - and perhaps Rosie's actual killer - working for him. And unlike Holder, who seems to have realized what direction he was heading in, Stan seems poised to lumber right into whatever ending Janek has planned for him. Or just randomly doing something stupid that'll put him back in the jug.

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