TV Review: THE KILLING Season 2 - Who Killed Rosie Larsen? Well, I Did Tell You In The First Season

Some of my more regular readers may remember that last year I reviewed Channel 4 crime drama The Killing, AMC’s remake of Danish TV’s Forbrydelsen, I enjoyed the first season but in the finale the show runners failed to deliver the answer which they posed at the beginning of the show, who killed Rosie Larsen? I can’t say I was overly disappointed but it would have been nice, however had they told us then that would have halted this second season which in my opinion was better than the first, I feel like the Raine's were taken off a little right from the start here, the action got more exciting and the danger to Detectives Linden (Meriele Enos) and Holder (Joel Kinnamin, the new Robocop) was a lot more prominent as they probed further to see just how high up this corruption went.

I enjoyed the chase a lot more during this second season, and I think that’s probably because it opened up a lot more alternatives as to who could be responsible. In the season finale we the audience learnt once and for all that season 1 suspect Councilman Darren Richmond was completely innocent of what was suspected of him, however he payed the ultimate price for having been suspected and was shot in the season one finale by Belko, Stan Larsen’s friends and employee. For this season that saw Councilman Richmond in a wheel chair and his campaign team trying to get him into the mayor’s office, convincing the public that he is still a worthy candidate. However Richmond will not release (at first) the one piece of evidence that will completely put everyone’s mind right, he was on a bridge the night Rosie Larsen died and contemplating killing himself. So, it wasn’t Richmond, but was it someone in his team, Jamie perhaps? Or maybe even Gwen?

Finally it was revealed who killed Rosie Larsen, but I’ll keep that one for now. First to Jamie, Darren Richmond’s most loyal aid, and boy did he go some way to try and prove it? In cahoots with property developer Michael Aames and native Indian casino owner Chief Jackson we discovered that Jamie was involved in the death of Rosie, he was there in the casino that night doing a shady deal with the Chief and Aames on a waterfront development on Navarro land which would all but land Richmond the Mayor’s job. However his plans went awry when he found Rosie in the so called abandoned floor of the casino and proceeded to brutally beat here in order that what she just heard could never be repeated. Jamie only put her in the trunk though before contacting Michael Aames to help him dispose of the body, a move which brought into light a big twist, and one which I theorised on during the first season before the link was established between Aames and Rosie’s very own Aunt Terry.

Yes that’s right, her Aunt killed her, the reveal finally coming in the closing 15 minutes of the season two finale, and I can only think of one other scene from TV recently which delivered so much emotion. The moment Terry revealed that she in fact pushed the car into the lake, such was her desire to run off into the sunset with Michael Aames, she was prepared to commit murder, however she didn’t realise that it was Rosie in the car, it was a very emotional flashback scene which saw Terry commit the act when Rosie was still alive and screaming in the boot of the car, one which was as uncomfortable as it was emotionally charged. I did put her name forward as a possible suspect during the first season like I mentioned but during this second run I had let that go by with my efforts concentrated more on Richmond’s opposition and his seemingly corrupt henchmen who were quite happy to trail Linden and Holder during their efforts to catch the killer.

Richmond took a whole different loop on his story arc from what I was expecting, a man who won his mayoral campaign thanks to always being up front and honest, he believed in the truth and even spoke it during his public speech’s, however in the finale his true colours were finally revealed as Jame’s little speech about doing whatever it took to win the campaign seemed to sink in as Richmond froze out Gwen, the woman who left a high powered job in The White House to aid the man she cared about. Richmond proved without saying a word that the nice guy does not always win.

What was always great about The Killing was the acting, the two main characters Linden and Holder were sublimely matched and they added real weight to pretty much everything, Mitch Larsen, who took off from her family for the most part of this season was brilliant and I made my thoughts on Stan Larsen perfectly clear during the first season when he beat Brandon J. McLaren to within an inch of his life, a brilliant effort all round I would say.

The Killing delivered a very satisfying conclusion in my opinion, it was a twist that during this second season I genuinely didn’t see coming. It was nice the way things finished up too, as Linden delivered the video which Rosie had shot herself and delivered it through the Larsen’s door. What about you? Were you satisfied with the conclusion of The Killing?