The Binge-Watch Report :: The Killing, Season 1
Episode 2 :: “The Cage“
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
About the Show: The first season of The Killing is set in Seattle, Washington, and follows the investigation into the murder of local teenager Rosie Larsen, with each episode covering approximately 24 hours. The first season covers the first two weeks of the investigation and has three main story-lines: the police investigation into Rosie’s murder, the attempts of her family to deal with their grief, and the fluctuating electoral fortunes of a political campaign that becomes embroiled in the case.
Episode Synopsis: With Rosie’s body now identified, Detectives Linden and Holder begin the painstaking task of recreating her movements, learning about her circle of friends and tracing her movements after she left the Halloween dance at her high school on Friday night.
They question Councilman Darren Richmond who says he has no knowledge as to why Rosie would have been in the trunk of a car registered to his mayoralty campaign. He refuses to play politics with the situation.
Linden interviews Jasper Ames whose father interrupts the questioning. We witness Jasper’s Father slap his son in a way that suggests the violent reaction is not unique.
At Rosie’s school, Holder learns about “The Cage” by utilizing his past experience in undercover Narcotics investigations. “The Cage” appears to be a place in the school basement where the kids go for privacy. It may also be the crime scene.
The Larsons tell their two boys that their sister is dead and Mitch Larson, Rosie’s Mother, breaks down, as we see her comatose in Rosie’s bedroom, unresponsive to her husband and sons.
We witness Sarah postpone leaving for 24-hours, and then at the final scene we assume she has pushed leaving again.
My thoughts in three sentences: I am so into this show already, so invested, and so interested in story, and characters. There is so much going on in this episode that I wanted to run it over again as soon as it was over, there are nuances and unspoken moments, and details that I feel like I pick-up in a peripheral sort of way, but want to take in completely. I find Holder so interesting, full of contradictions and complexities that make his character so vivid to me, and so intriguing, and Sarah, too, who seems so locked up, so internal, as if a well of emotions are burning just under the surface threatening to erupt.
Best: The way the weather and the lighting and the city and landscape play such a part to the mood of this show, how it sets a tone of unease and darkness that is both hard to take, and impossible to step away from. The unspoken moments, the exchanges in cars, and the way so much of the emotion is held back in this precarious, one wrong move and every feeling will bleed out, kind of way. I love the pace of the storytelling, too, the perfectly slow reveal.
Worst: Seriously nothing except not having time to push “next episode”, or “repeat episode”.
My predictions: Too soon to guess at, but I feel like there’s more to the Mother’s (Mitch’s) relationship with Rosie than we see on the surface, something more complicated than the already complicated dynamic that exists between most Mother’s and Daughters.
Rating (out of 5): 5+
Well done Laura. I think I felt the same way by this episode-just too early to predict, I was looking for clues and then would realize it was too early, still being so many episodes left but my looking led me notice all the little character details which is what I was drawn to the most in the series, looking back.
I may be repeating myself from a previous comment but I like that the show follows so much of the case instead of condensing it…we see leads, false leads, mistakes, dead ends, break-throughs, all of it. It’s easy to watch the typical 1 hour dramatic procedural & say “okay that’s the killer” right away but it’s not clear here.