The Killing by Alberti John;

Author:Alberti, John;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wayne State University Press

Although season one of The Killing began with her murder, Rosie Larsen is very much alive in her final appearance at the end of season two, providing a hard-won sense of hope and possibility with her film “What I Know.”

Beginning and ending the final episode of the “Who killed Rosie Larsen?” case with the living Rosie is startling. As viewers, we have come to regard her as simply the victim, or in Alfred Hitchcock’s sense the MacGuffin, an excuse to set the procedural plot in motion. Seeing Rosie alive brings us back to the “real cost” of murder by returning Rosie’s agency and identity to her. Our final scene of the Larsen family finds them seated in front of the television, smiling and weeping at the images of a joyful, loving Rosie. This scene is not one of any simple “closure,” however. It follows closely the revelation that it was not the happenstance outsider Jamie who is solely responsible for Rosie’s death but her beloved aunt Terry acting more out of desperation than malice, herself another “lonely wolf” terrified about her future. The director Patty Jenkins, who also directed the pilot for The Killing, visually links the opening sequence with the later scene in which Linden and Holder confront Terry, as the camera ominously patrols the seemingly empty hallways of the Larsen home, horror-movie style. In the first case, we are relieved when the tracking shot is interrupted by the playing Larsen children; in the second, we approach the door to Rosie’s room, inside of which we find the distraught Terry.

The final scene with the Larsens, then, works not to assure us that the family will recover or that love will conquer all but simply to reinforce the importance of connection, however vulnerable or fragile. The final scene of the episode concludes with Linden and Holder again in (or trapped in) the car, receiving a new assignment to investigate a body found near the airport. Rather than continue on her crusade, Linden silently exits the car and, we assume, her career. She and Holder have the same sardonic exchange about the ultimate value of police work—and by extension the police procedural genre—“We got the bad guy.” “Yeah, who’s that?” With that, Holder bids her good-bye—“Hey, keep in touch. You’re my ride”—before driving off, leaving Linden staring at the outside of the Larsen home before she begins walking away.

Because the program was slated to be canceled, “What I Know” was originally meant to function as the ending to the series.3 The cancellation was widely seen as a consequence of the program’s failure to provide a conclusion at the end of season one, as borne out by declining ratings throughout the second season. What happened next points to the rapid changes in the television industry in the digital era that we will explore further in chapter 4. While AMC was ready to jettison The Killing in search of higher ratings, Fox Television, the producers of the series, was finding financial success with international distribution of the show.

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