I haven’t bothered with spoiler warnings thus far in these The Killing episode recaps, but seeing as how this is the last episode of season one, I just want to issue a warning:

SPOILERS. THERE ARE SPOILERS BELOW.

Now. Normally, at the end of these recaps I’ll lay out a little suspect list. I’ve been sold on Gwen being the culprit for the past several weeks, and as we’ve gotten closer to the end of the season, I’ve been asking Kris who she thinks is the killer. She’s been pretty noncommittal, thinking the killer wouldn’t be revealed in the first season and imagining the mystery would spill over into season two. I just couldn’t believe that: how could a single-season murder mystery show not lay all its cards on the table at the end of the season? “Who Killed Rosie Larsen?” was the question posed to us, and surely, while every plot thread might not be addressed in the finale, they must at least answer that question.

Well, Kris was right: though the finale shows the detectives finally making an arrest, another last-minute twist springs itself on us, and it looks like we’re going to have to sit here and wait for season two to find out what really happened.

What we’re led to believe at the end of the previous episode, and all the way up until the closing moments of this final episode, is that Richmond did it. Linden’s accusatory e-mails to “Orpheus”, the john who apparently threatened an escort with drowning, arrive at Richmond’s computer where Linden finds them. Disturbed, she leaves with a new suspect, the earnest though now scary mayor-to-be.

Linden and Holder set out to nail him properly. Holder amusingly (to us and to Linden) starts doing math, trying to calculate how much gas the campaign car would have had after a trip to the casino and back, and where the driver would need to refill the tank. This leads them to a gas station near the lake where Rosie and the car were found, and to a gas station attendant who heard a girl screaming and saw the car peeling out (the driver unseen), but didn’t bother to tell anyone.

Meanwhile, Gwen, my main suspect, is acting jealous and fishy all night. After finding out Richmond is still apparently nailing yet another brunette behind her back, she spills some details to Linden: on the night of the murder, Richmond was gone until morning, coming back soaking wet, “like he’d been in water.” She also gives Linden proof that Richmond knew Rosie: the videotape of a rally where they are seen talking to each other. So, Gwen, apparently, comes up clean. Apparently. More on this later.

Also along the campaign car’s projected route is a toll booth, and after Holder requests footage from its camera, a picture surfaces, showing Richmond driving the car early the morning of the murder. That’s all the detectives need to arrest Richmond in the middle of one of his press events, always a bad idea on cop shows, because if you’re wrong, which the detectives have been several times already, you could completely destroy the reputation of the person you’re arresting.

But hey! How could they possibly be wrong this time? As far as the cops are concerned, this wraps up the investigation. Richmond knew Rosie and lied about it, was in the car all night and lied about it, and came back wet. Wet with water. As for motive, who the hell knows? But it’s done! Over! He’s super-guilty, which is the worst kind of guilty.

However, we’re left with a couple cliffhangers. Linden, finally on the plane with her stupid kid to go live with her stupid fiancee, gets a call from the highway patrol telling her that the camera at the toll booth has been out of order for months, meaning it could not have taken the picture of Richmond that Holder produced. We also see Holder getting into a car, driven by an unseen person, to whom he states, “The photo worked,” meaning the damning image of Richmond driving the campaign car in the middle of the night on the evening Rosie was killed was not on the up-and-up.

This seems to indicate Holder is framing Richmond, which is pretty unnecessary, given all the other evidence against him. It’s also stupid: if the case went to court, there’s no way faked photos would hold up and Holder would be committing career suicide. After all his careful notepad calculations, why undo the entire investigation with a fake picture? If he was involved in a frame against Richmond, it must be a new development, because at the end of the previous episode he seemed genuinely alarmed to find out Richmond was Orpheus.

Even worse, Belko, mourning the destruction of his surrogate family, picks up a gun and prepares to kill Richmond during his perpwalk. Did he pull the trigger? We don’t know; that’s where the show ends. We’re left again with something potentially terrible happening to someone who may have not killed Rosie, just as how the moment Bennet turned out to be innocent he got his head smashed by Stan.

Did Holder doctor the photo himself? If not, who gave it to him, and why did Holder use it? Was it from The Evil Mayor, hoping to finally win the all-important, all-consuming mayoral election that only 20% of the populace will even participate in? Linden and Holder’s boss, under pressure from The Evil Mayor to solve the crime already? The rich jerk who have Richmond five million basketball dollars?

We don’t know. We won’t know, until next season.

I’m not sure how I feel about all this. On the one hand, inter-season cliffhangers are an acceptable bit of business in TV, and I don’t feel like I should criticize The Killing simply for trying to keep us on the hook until season two. On the other hand, it totally sucks that we’re on the hook until season two. I would have watched anyway: while The Killing had a lot of problems, I was interested enough to keep watching even without being jerked around by the last two minutes of season one. But, if anything, the final plot twist annoyed me and made me want to watch season two a little less, just out of annoyance.

As far as the entire first season itself, what did the show get right? I thought there were great performances throughout (though also a few clunky ones, like the rich jerk), and it did a good job with the overall atmosphere, mood, and pace. Most importantly, it showed something we don’t often see on TV: the disintegration of a family as the result of a murder. Most shows only depict the murder victim’s family in fleeting glimpses, but The Killing lingered, showing Stan and Mitch struggling to pick up the pieces after Rosie’s murder.

This turned a bit sour toward the end, where the grieving Mitch became completely unsympathetic as she first sent Stan to kill Bennet, then criticized him for doing it. In the finale, she leaves him altogether. Uh, what? He’s out on bail and will most certainly go to prison for years for almost murdering Bennet. Which you told him to do. And you still have two other kids. Where the hell are you going, exactly, and what are you going to do? Let your prostitute sister to somehow raise your two kids alone?

As for what the show got wrong, the list is a little longer. Who the hell was Rosie? I had no real impression of her throughout the series. I guess she was a hooker, though. Um, thanks? The police work was pretty shoddy throughout: Holder and Linden did some decent investigating, but it was always too little, too late. They waited almost to the end of the season to even dig into Rosie’s movements the night she vanished and they didn’t bother chasing down simple leads until the plot demanded it. Holder’s subplot about dealing with his addiction was okay, but Linden’s constant side-tracking to deal with her kid and fiance were just sort of annoying and frustrating. Plus, Linden wasn’t much of a cop, making tons of blunders, and while I’m okay with Holder being dirty, the revelation at the end makes him look dirty and stupid, which kind of sucks.

The entire political plot was a disaster. Politics can be downright fascinating when done right, and I have to call back, once again, to how engrossing the mayoral election was on The Wire. The Killing didn’t have an interesting political story to tell. What were the stakes? What were the issues? What does it mean for Seattle to have one mayor over another? I couldn’t really tell you after thirteen weeks. A delayed construction project, some accusations of illicit affairs, and the opening of some basketball courts try to pose as important, savvy political maneuvers and fail terribly. I think the political plot existed solely so Richmond could be arrested at the end of the show.

I also think Bennet’s story could have been handled better. The show was preoccupied with trying to make us believe that Bennet was guilty, which I doubt most of us really believed, and so I think they missed a real opportunity. They could have shown us what life is like for someone falsely accused: if the cops had suspected him initially, and then cleared him, we could have seen how rumors and suspicion don’t just vanish overnight. Show us Bennet struggling to retain his job and his friends and his reputation when we know for sure he’s innocent and we might have developed some sympathy for him. As it was, when Bennet was having his head caved in I didn’t feel for him at all. I felt for Stan, a seemingly good guy making a terrible mistake.

Ah, well. Now, we wait for season two. I hope this season one business will all be wrapped up immediately in the first episode. I hope it won’t drag on and on, giving us more twists and turns. I hope the next murder will show up quickly, and not be tied into this mess. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.

Whoops, accidentally drove onto the set of The Shawshank Redemption. Anyway. I suppose my odds-on suspect, Gwen, could still be guilty. The same jealously that led her to murder Rosie could have led her to lie about Richmond being gone all night and showing up wet. After realizing he was still making time with his former flames, she could have decided to let him hang for the murder of Rosie.

She could still be the killer! Frustratingly, we just won’t know for another year, and by then, I’m not sure I’ll be all that interested in speculating.

As if to make up for weeks of lost time, The Killing ratcheted up its pace in the penultimate episode. The show began with the current Evil Mayor’s campaign apparently coming to an end, because the waterfront restoration project he’s been touting has been stalled because some Native American remains were found on the construction site, which means he can’t keep building, which means suddenly no one in Seattle will vote for him. That’s how elections work, right? Voters will all suddenly abandon their candidate because his construction project hits a snag, and they’ll all vote for the other guy instead automatically. Buh.

We also see Mitch being mad at the imprisoned Stan. You know, I’ve read on some forums about how much people hate Mitch’s character, but I’ve remained pretty sympathetic to her this whole time. After all, she just lost her daughter to a horrific murder 12 days ago; it’s understandable that she would be a mess, that she’d make mistakes, that she’d lash out inappropriately. But last night, she had a go at Stan, whom she bullied into beating the innocent Bennet into a pulp, which landed him in prison, and here she was giving him shit because she thinks he lost all their money gambling (he’d really bought them a house in secret).

Mitch thinks he’s been involved with the mob again, which angers her because he’d promised her he’d change his underworld ways, even though she TOLD HIM TO GO MURDER A TEACHER just a couple days ago. She is just plain not making any sense at all anymore, and I’m done sympathizing with her. Buh.

As far as the detectives, they do some detecting, discovering that Rosie had been making big cash deposits into a secret bank account, discovering that she’d been visiting an escort website, discovering that Terry had been working as an escort from the same site, and discovering that some guy with the handle “Orpheus” had been dating brunettes from the escort site, and had scared one of them badly enough to cause her to warn the other call hookers about him. Linden has a cop send a message to the Orpheus e-mail account while she’s visiting Richmond’s apartment, and ‘You’ve Got Mail’ goes the dynamite: the e-mail arrives on  Richmond’s computer, and Richmond is Orpheus.

Prior to its last few moments, the show threw new revelations about old suspects at us seemingly every few minutes, which was kinda nice, actually. Among them:

Tom: The annoying caricature of a billionaire, shown partying with (apparently) underage girls, and is tied to the call girls, and stated that he gave money to Richmond so the mayor-to-be would clean up his messes. Because mayors are all-powerful and can clean up murders whenever they want. Implied: Tom can kill all the girls he wants because he is so gosh darn rich, thus, he is the murderer.

Gwen: She tries to redirect a question about Richmond’s dead wife during an interview, and seems less than thrilled when Richmond talks about how much his dead wife meant to him. Implied: She’s jealous of Richmond’s dead wife, and wants to be her replacement, to the point of killing anyone he is interested in, thus, she is the murderer.

Jamie: He’s around, again, for some reason. Implied: He’s around again, and they can give him a motive if need be, thus, he is the murderer.

Terry: Is secretly a call girl (explains, I guess, how she knows Jasper’s dad), was seen on a website wearing the same shoes as Rosie, let Rosie borrow her I.D. Implied: Had a secret call girl life, and didn’t want that secret known, but maybe Rosie knew, thus, she is the murderer.

Stan: When questioned by a psychologist in prison, reveals a dream he has about his family, where another man was sitting at his dinner table, and he didn’t care. Implied: He spoke coldly of his family, thus, he is the murderer.

Richmond: We see photos of his dead wife (a brunette), we learn that he contacts call girls by e-mail, and he drove one of them (a brunette) down to the water and asked her if she ever thought about drowning (presumably that’s how his wife died). We also see some photos the Evil Mayor has of Richmond having dinner with a brunette. Implied: Richmond hired call girls who looked like his dead wife and drove them to places where they could be drowned, and talked to them about drowning, and thus, he is the murderer.

By the end of the episode, all signs point to Richmond, which, again, unfortunately, probably means he didn’t do it. Yes, he was seeing call girls, but we know from other movies and TV shows that sometimes when a guy with a dead wife employs a hooker that looks like his dead wife, he’s not doing it for sex or murder but because he wants to briefly imagine his dead wife alive again

Sure, sometimes these things can go sour or get a little intense: like, the hooker doesn’t brush her hair in the same way as the dead wife did, and the john gets all upset and maybe caves in her head with a pipe wrench or something, but I’m thinking Richmond just misses his wife and was trying to reawaken her spirit with a series of expensive prostitutes. And who among us hasn’t done something similar? When my dog Sandy died I spent months paying hookers to chase tennis balls and chew up my Star Wars action figures. It’s a harmless coping mechanism.

I’m still banking on Gwen being the killer, because it makes the most sense to me. As far as what makes sense to the show’s writers, we’ll find out in a week!

Last night The Killing delivered an episode that contained what I’ve been asking for since the beginning of the series: several nice long scenes of Holder and Linden talking to each other. In fact, the entire episode pretty much consisted of nothing but that. This is both great and horrible.

Great, because we finally get to see the two detectives sharing some real quality time, and we learn some new stuff about them both. After Linden’s stupid kid Jack goes missing, Holder and Linden take a break from the investigation to try to track him down. During the course of the day, Linden opens up considerably, and we learn that she’s more messed up than we knew: she’s a former foster kid, her fried Regi (the lady with the houseboat) is actually her social worker, and the case that haunts her so much involved a guy murdering his wife, going to jail, and leaving his kid to navigate the same damaged foster care system that Linden grew up in.

As for Holder, we learn more about his addiction: while working narco he became addicted to meth, which caused a rift between him and his sister and her kids. He’s been working to make amends, and even had planned to visit his family the same day Jack goes missing, but he cancelled his visit because Linden needed his help to find Jack. Linden eventually realizes that Holder is making a big sacrifice for her, and while they spend plenty of time sniping and fighting, they wind up closer by the end of the day when Jack, who was visiting with his unseen and unnamed father, returns.

So, it was a great episode in that respect. I really enjoyed Holder in this episode: he’s a weird mix of immaturity and goofy ideas (he’s a vaguely spiritual vegetarian who doesn’t consider pork rinds to be meat, because it’s junk food), but also fiercely loyal and selfless. And Linden is much more sympathetic now that she’s let her guard down and shown some emotions.

It was a horrible episode simply because it’s so damn overdue. For it to arrive so close to the end of the season, when we should be closing in on Rosie’s killer, tying up loose ends, and finally cracking the case, it’s hard to just accept it for what it is: some welcome character development from the series’ two main figures. Since it comes so late, though, it’s a bit frustrating to see the forward momentum of the murder case stall while all this character development happens. It was nice to get a break from the boring political plot and the heartache of the disintegration of the Larsen family, but that break should have come mid-season instead of at the end.

In fact, I actually spent most of the episode thinking that Holder and Linden’s Jack-tracking would somehow tie back into Rosie’s case — after all, the initial investigation revolved around the teenagers that Rosie knew, and here once again were Holder and Linden trying to penetrate the world of sullen sk8r kids. I kept expecting them to stumble upon something Rosie-related or for one of the original teen suspects to turn up. It didn’t happen, though, so we’re still left with the frustrating mystery of which adults Rosie was mixed up with, and why one of them would want her killed.

As for the actual investigation, we only learned something we already pretty much knew: Rosie did indeed take the Adela ferry to the Indian casino the night she disappeared. Though the casino owner was less than helpful, Linden and Holder got some footage from an ATM confirming she made it to the casino. Since she got there on the last boat, that leaves the question of how she got back, and we can assume it was in the campaign car where her body was ultimately found. Which leaves Richmond, Jamie, and Gwen as suspects, simply because they would have had access to those cars. I still like Terry as the killer, because she’s weird and pointless and ever-present,but I can’t really imagine at this point how she did it or why.

With two weeks to go, I’m going to make a brash prediction:

Richmond: 0%

Jamie: 0%

Gwen: 300%

Motive? Jealousy, I guess. Rosie was going to meet Richmond, potentially for something other than sex, but possibly for sex (though it seems kind of shitty to paint the nice murdered girl as some kind of slut this late in the game). Gwen learned of the meeting, and drove over to intercede because she’s in love with Richmond’s penis. She somehow wound up driving Rosie home, or maybe just followed her, but at some point there was a jealous confrontation and Rosie fled, then Gwen found her and stuffed into the trunk of the car. Somehow. No, it doesn’t make any sense to me either, but that’s all I’ve got until next week.

For weeks, The Killing, to my mind, has been steadily losing altitude, and while the latest episode wasn’t outstanding, at least the series seems to have leveled off and even powered the engines back up a bit. The detectives got to do some long-overdue investigating and interrogating, and their new suspect, though pretty obviously not guilty simply because he looked completely guilty, was at least discounted within a single episode instead of it being dragged out for several.

So, where are we, with only three episodes left?  Bennet is alive and in the hospital (boooo), and Stan has turned himself in for savagely beating an innocent man (and while he’s in jail, Mitch discovers that their bank accounts are empty). Belko is investigated, and while it turns out he’s a violent weirdo creep with mommy issues and pictures of Rosie above his bed (gross), and that he used to hang out in the Larsen’s home when no one was there (yuck), he at least didn’t kill Rosie.

Holder and Linden, meanwhile, finally get around to, like, investigating Rosie’s murder (hooray!). They establish a timeline of Rosie’s activities the day she went missing, something they probably should have done about nine episodes ago. They discover that after dropping off a book at Bennet’s place, she took a cab home. Belko had been masturbating in the Larsen’s kitchen (or whatever he does in there, I just assume it’s masturbating), and after hiding from Rosie, he overheard her having a phone conversation (maybe now is a good time to get the Larsen’s phone records, something else they should have already done.) The conversation involved “Adela”, a name that matched a note that Rosie had: “Adela 11:45.” So, who is Adela?

Linden discovers, while jogging, that “Adela” is the name of a ferry. Ho-kay. First off, I hate the trope of the all-knowing cops, like on CSI or Law & Order, where they’ll find a clue, like, a picture of a suspect wearing some kind of athletic shoe. And one cop is always like, “That’s a high-end special-order custom Nike Air Jordan Basketball Impulse Jumpshot Basketdunk Swishdribble Limited Edition athletic shoe! They only manufactured thirty-three pairs of them, and only one place in the city that orders them, Clemson’s Sporting Goods, on the East Side!” Like, how the fuck would you even know that. Shut up.

On the other hand, Linden or one of the other cops probably should have known the names of the Seattle ferries, since they live in Seattle and should be familiar with the city by now, and failing that, Linden should have at least Googled “Adela Seattle 11:45” at some point, which would have pulled up a ferry schedule. But as we’ve established, Linden is a pretty terrible cop.

Linden takes the ferry and discovers a casino that shares the logo of the keychain found in Rosie’s possession (again, this is surely something someone could have discovered by now — someone in the police department must gamble from time to time, and would have recognized it). So, Rosie had plans to meet someone in a casino hotel room the night she vanished. Finally, we’re getting somewhere, though we really should have gotten here a while ago.

Meanwhile, an intern on Richmond’s campaign discovered videotape of Rosie and Richmond at a rally, finally establishing a connection between the mayor-wannabe and the murder victim. They appear to have known each other, at least casually, and knowing Richmond, probably way more than that. Also, Linden’s stupid kid acts up again so she moves them into a hotel, and her stupid fiancee returns to make her feel guilty about doing her job and to remind us needlessly that Linden tends to get obsessed with her cases (we already know this, you whiny loser, now go away).

What does all of this tell us about the murder? Um, a little? Time to look at the suspects, a list that is rapidly shrinking as we approach the end of the season.

Bennet/Amber/Belko: Innocent/Innocent/Masturbating in the kitchen (but innocent!).

Evil Mayor/Evil Mayor’s Aide: They were no-shows this week. And if they wanted to frame up Richmond, they probably wouldn’t have hidden the campaign car in the lake, now that I think of it. Innocent/Innocent (but both still evil!)

Richmond: For a guy nearing an election, he sure spends a lot of time listening to jazz and drinking hooch. Shouldn’t he be out shaking hands and making bullshit campaign promises? There’s now a link between Richmond and Rosie, so yeah, he was probably boinking her, and who else would she be going to meet in a casino, if not Richmond? 50%

Terry: We know Rosie was going to a casino to meet someone, and that someone wouldn’t be Terry. But did the person she met (Richmond) kill her, or did someone trying to protect Richmond (Jamie) kill her when she got back, or did someone jealous of her and Richmond (Gwen) kill her, or did someone completely uninvolved with the political stuff (Terry) kill her for other reasons? If it was Terry, how does the campaign car figure in? I have no idea.

Still, she told the kids that sometimes you do what you think is right and it ends up being wrong, which could be some sort of admission of guilt. 50%

Jamie/Gwen: Jamie (Richmond’s campaign manager) and Gwen (Richmond’s aide and sex partner) both had a strong reaction to seeing the videotape of Richmond and Rosie. Jamie quickly dispatched the intern who found the tape, and wants to hush the whole thing up, but this could simply be his desire to protect Richmond’s campaign. At the end of the episode, we see Gwen watching the tape alone. This could mean a few things: she’s worried Richmond could be tied to the murder, she’s worried he killed her, she’s worried he was sleeping with Rosie, and sleeping with Richmond is something Gwen likes to do.

The question for both of them is still, if one of them killed her, why dump her in a campaign car? Unless they simply had no choice. Jamie: 50%, Gwen: 50%

With everyone having a fifty-percent chance of having done it, we’re up to 200%! That’s enough suspicion to dig Rosie up and kill her again. While I think it’s good that I’m feeling there’s an equal chance anyone could have done it, it’s not really to the show’s credit. I’m mostly suffering from a lack of information and making wild guesses, rather than having an overload of information and making educated ones.

Okay. I’m going to have to admit that this show is not nearly as good as I’d hoped, and it has gotten clunkier by the week. Still, I’m invested at this point, and I’m going to see it through, and I’m going to pretend I’m still really enjoying it, when I’m only really sort of enjoying it.

This week we got some fairly unsurprising news: Bennet is not a terrorist. Like I had mostly figured out with my huge intelligent brain, what appeared to be some Muslim terror plot was actually a Muslim rescue plot: a little girl was being spirited away to protect her from an unwanted marriage and female circumcision. Bennet is clean, actually, more than clean: he was risking a lot to protect an innocent girl.

Linden, meanwhile, continues to do absolutely everything wrong: she may have signed Bennet’s death warrant by stupidly telling Mitch that she was going to arrest Bennet, only to have to let him go after a judge wouldn’t sign Holder’s illegal wiretap warrant. Mitch gets upset, yells at Stan for not taking care of Bennet himself, Stan and Belko abduct Bennet (again), and this time they beat the living shit out of him. Mitch finds the shirt that supposedly tied Rosie to the Muslim center, meaning maybe Rosie had nothing to do with the not-terrorists, but it’s too late to call Stan off from his mission of punching a teacher in the rain (and in the face).

Two things: first, Bennet better be dead. Not because he deserves it, but because this show needs to develop some balls, and fast. We’re going in slow circles at this point, and I want some real shit to happen. I don’t want to see Bennet all bandaged in the hospital with tubes sticking out of him, and a doctor listing his injuries and saying shit like “Frankly, he’s lucky to be alive.” He needs to be dead so things can happen, things like Stan and Belko being arrested for murder. I’m tired of being jerked around by cliffhangers that don’t turn out to mean anything the following week. Commit to something, The Killing, or I will lose even more respect for you.

Secondly: While Stan was whomping on Bennet, we saw Belko, my prime suspect, going absolutely apeshit in the background. He’s shown signs of wanting to return to his criminal roots in the past, repeatedly urging Stan to take care of Bennet, like in the old days. And now, freed from his menial job as a mover, he exulted in the violence, whooping and jumping around like an uncaged monkey, and even mimicking Stan by punching a boulder with his bare fist while Stan punched Bennet. Chilling in his sheer bloodlust, Belko demonstrated that he is a natural born killer.

Which probably means he didn’t kill Rosie.

Looks, it’s the rule of murder mysteries. The most likely suspect is probably not the guy. Belko has been my number one suspect for most of the show, but by nakedly demonstrating he has the ability to kill Rosie, it probably means he didn’t.

Richmond, meanwhile, went to the annoying rich dude to ask for five million dollars, which I’m pretty sure you can’t do. I think Hopeful Earnest Mayor Donation Laws are probably capped at, like, a few grand. But, whatever! The rich dude was like, “Sink this basket and I’ll give you millions of monies or don’t and you’ll have to quit trying to be mayor forever!” And the mayor was all, “Swish! Monies! Pwned!” This was the stupidest scene ever written. I don’t know what’s going on with this show.

However, I still do want to find out who killed Rosie, so let’s update the suspect list and get guessing!

Bennet: He’s super nice, good husband, friend to children! And maybe dead! 0%

Amber: She turned in Bennet for suspected terrorism, probably not something you’d do if you were a murderer. 0%

Belko: He’s super crazy and violent! And so, probably not the killer. 0%

With those three out of the picture (at least in my mind), who’s left?

Richmond: I’m so bored with this guy and his stupid campaign. And now he’s moping around in bars, playing mopey music out of mopey jukeboxes. Still nothing tying him directly to Rosie, so even if he did it, I can’t imagine why. But he’s on the show for some reason, and if he didn’t kill her I don’t know why we’ve been forced to watch his incessant mooning for 9 weeks. 20%

Evil Mayor/Evil Mayor’s Evil Aide: We saw the evil mayor this week, telling his evil aide to pay off the girl he was having an affair with as well as paying off a doctor to fabricate medical files to prove he didn’t father a child with the girl. So, he likes young girls, and is willing to do evil stuff to remain evil mayor. Was he involved with Rosie? Is evil mayor’s evil aide willing to kill to safeguard his boss’s job?  20%

Terry: She’s become my prime suspect, now that I’ve counted Belko out. Dunno why she’d kill Rosie, but she’s deeply involved with pretty much every aspect of the family. She found some of Rosie’s books in her car and returned them to Mitch, so she used to drive Rosie around, which might mean something about something or something. Something is up with her. Something. 60%

Jamie: He’s still around and I hate him. 10%

Whatserface: The female Richmond aide. They’re having an affair, and so if he was involved with Rosie maybe she did it out of jealously or whatever. I don’t know. I really have no idea. A good murder show should give everyone a motive, The Killing, at this point, has given practically no one a motive. 20%.

We’re up to 130%! That’s a lot of percents. Many more than you’ll even find on AMC’s suspect tracker website.

Last Sunday’s The Killing didn’t do much to advance the murder investigation, focusing instead on the terrorism B-story, the Larsen family’s continuing downward spiral, and some long-overdue business between Linden and Holder.

First, Linden and Holder seem to have resolved their differences, their differences being that I thought Holder was awesome and Linden did not agree with me because she’s stupid. She didn’t trust Holder, because he was flashing wads of cash and having secretive meetings with some guy, and photos of Rosie’s body had been leaked to the press. She tailed him, and it turned out he was in a support group and his sponsor has been doling out his paycheck in chunks because Holder can’t be trusted with money because of whatever addiction he has (maybe gambling?).

Thankfully, Holder didn’t seem pissed that he had followed her. Why was he not pissed? Because, as I’ve said, he is awesome. Hopefully this will all mean they’ll start working together on the case and have some actual conversations instead of just being snippy with each other all the time.

This episode also highlighted a bit more about Linden. First, she’s kind of terrible, about everything. We’ve known she’s terrible with relationships, as she’s still leaving her fiance hanging in San Diego with no explanation, but now we learn that she’s also kind of a terrible cop: she had files about Rosie on her laptop and her stupid whiny son has access to it, and he went and sent all the pictures of dead Rosie to all his friends, which then made it onto the news. And, she didn’t even punish him, so she’s also a terrible mother. This is all okay: I prefer my heroes with flaws, and she’s certainly got her share.

But we saw some good stuff from Linden too! The Feds have taken all her crime scene stuff in conjunction with their anti-terrorism investigation, which led to this totally believable scene:

LINDEN: I need to see my crime scene stuff about the crime so I can solve the crime!

FBI GUY: No way. I’m in the FBI, and I say you can’t see the crime scene stuff, ever! Now, wait here alone with all the crime scene stuff while I immediately walk away to tell someone how obsessed you are with seeing the crime scene stuff that I’m leaving you alone with!

LINDEN: I am totally looking at the crime scene stuff now!

So, okay, that was pretty dumb. But at least it showed that Linden will break the rules when she has to, so maybe she and the lovably unconventional Holder will genuinely team up and get some shit done. Some murder shit.

We also saw the continuing disintegration of the Larsen family. Stan is feeling overwhelmed, what with having to work AND make sandwiches for his annoying, non-murdered children. (I actually approve of the boys being annoying and stupid and not treacly-cute saddened moppets, as they would have been portrayed on most other shows.) Stan’s wife is still in limbo, clinging to Rosie’s memory and unable to function, and now she and Stan are starting to blame each other for Rosie’s death (something that I am certain is extremely accurate in real marriages when a child is killed.) It’s all very harsh and horrible.

The only new clue we got towards Rosie’s death was that Linden saw a shirt at the Muslim safe-house that belonged to Rosie, but it doesn’t mean Rosie was ever there. She may have just donated some old clothes to the Muslim center or something. This is the continuing problem with trying to figure out the show: we still know very little about Rosie herself, what she was into, what she was like, or who she really was. Was she the type of girl to get romantically involved with some of the adults on the show? We have no idea, and that makes it hard to determine what motive some of the adults might have to kill her.

Okay, on to determining what motives some of the adults might have to kill her!

Bennet: In addition to being the prime suspect in Rosie’s killing, he’s now mixed up in some sort of terror plot the FBI has been following. I’m not buying any of the terror plot at all. There appears to be some definite illegal stuff going on with the Muslim safe-house, but I bet it will turn out to be, like, smuggling poor abused Muslim children into the country, or finding new identities for Muslims who have been falsely accused of terrorism or targeted by actual terrorists, or something like that. Illegal stuff, sure, but not murder or blowing-things-up illegal.

Anyway, Holder tapped Bennet’s phone, which immediately led to Bennet talking to someone about getting fake passports (how stupid is Bennet, anyway — you’re a murder suspect, so don’t use your phone to do other illegal stuff, you dope). So, I’m sure he’ll finally be arrested, and his side will all come spilling out, though it won’t be that he’s guilty of murder or of being a terrorist. He is possibly a sleaze, but not a monster.
Motive: He has a motive if he was involved with Rosie, but he’s gotta be just a red herring.
Likelihood: 0%

Amber: Bennet’s wife. I’m still coming up short on means. She’s super pregnant, so I can’t see her managing to chase Rosie through the woods, or being able to throw her into the trunk of a car and push the car into a lake. She would have had to have help, but I can’t imagine from who, unless she knows some seriously shady pregnant women from Lamaze class.
Likelihood: 5%
Motive: Jealous that her husband was taking an interest in a female student, as Amber was one of Bennet’s students as well.

Belko: Weird bearded guy who hangs around with Stan, being weird. We didn’t see him this past week, at all. Are you hiding him from me, Television Show, so I won’t continue to suspect him? Nice try.
Motive: In love with Rosie, tried to get fresh with her, killed her to cover it, tried to get Stan to kill Bennet to cover that.
Likelihood: 35%

Richmond: He punched a mirror and then looked at his fractured reflection. Big mistake. Don’t ever punch a mirror and then look at your fractured reflection, that will indicate to anyone watching that you are broken inside. And a bunch of people are watching because he’s on a murder show. (I once punched a door and then looked at the hole. That meant I had to buy a new door, and then buy four other doors so all the doors matched.)
Likelihood: 30%
Motive: How about: he knew Rosie through the youth center, and she looked exactly like his dead wife, so he got all obsessed with her, tried to get kissy-kissy, she freaked out, and then he killed her to hide it.

Terry: It seemed, for a moment, that Stan and Terry might get it on this week, but instead, Terry just told Stan that Mitch (Rosie’s mom) had almost killed the boys by leaving them in the car with the engine running and the garage door closed. Terry is still suspicious because she shows up in every single episode.
Motive: In love with Jasper’s dad, who was seeing Rosie. Killed Rosie to get her out of the picture so Terry could get with Jasper’s Dad. I have nothing to back this up besides her acting weird around Jasper’s dad. Neither Jasper or his dad have been seen in a while, so I’m not confident.
Likelihood: 15%

Jamie: Richmond’s weaselly aide. He’s pushing hard for Richmond to run negative attack ads. Still suspicious for having more screen time that most everyone else on the show. His big bombshell? The current Evil Mayor had an affair. Whoopee. Still, it shows he’s happy to ruin a young woman’s life if it helps the campaign.
Motive: Jamie killed her because he will stop at nothing to achieve the all-powerful position of being a mayoral aide because mayoral aides get 10% off subs at this one deli near the capitol building. See, Rosie liked butterflies, and she knew that if elected, Richmond would approve an overpass being built right through the butterfly sanctuary which would result in dozens of butterflies being hit by cars. Jamie had to shut her up to protect Richmond’s secret anti-butterfly policies.
Likelihood: 20%

Rick: Linden’s fiancee. He hasn’t been around for a while and isn’t answering his phone… because he’s busy killing people?
Motive: Likes to kill people, and Rosie was a person. Coincidence?
Likelihood: 5%

Rain: Rosie’s cause of death was drowning, which is easy to understand because it’s always fucking raining. We get it. It’s wet in the Pacific Northwest. You’ve made that clear.
Motive: Rosie was an anti-rain activist, knowing that Seattle would get more tourism if it wasn’t raining all the goddamn time. Rain don’t put up with that shit. No way.
Likelihood: 5%

Wow, that’s 115%! That’s just how damn sure I am that Rosie Larsen was murdered. You heard it here first.

So, we’re still watching The Killing Sunday nights on AMC. It’s mostly still very good, though a half-season in, some of its flaws are starting to show.

First of all, the glacial pacing. At times, the show appears to be hanging around and checking its watch, waiting for the last five minutes to slap a revelation or cliff-hanger into our faces. It’s mostly forgivable, because it’s a full-season mystery, and if it was throwing suspects and clues at us every commercial break, it would be obvious that none of them would turn out to be legit. Still, it could use a little more content, more substance. Mood will get you only so far; some of the gaps could use a little filling.

Second, the “political” stuff. The Richmond campaign is boring, uninvolving, and poorly explained. I still don’t have any feel for Richmond’s politics despite his campaign crap taking up about half of the show, and it’s growing less interesting all the time. The Wire was brilliant at weaving politics into the story, but The Killing just isn’t.

Finally, Holder. Jesus. PLEASE give this guy more scenes, more airtime, more to say, more to do. He’s great — a former vice cop, used to manipulating and conniving people into telling him things they shouldn’t be telling him. When he’s set loose he’s great, but I’m tired of seeing him trailing Linden around like a puppy. Last week he got tired too, and started literally kicking down doors, and I hope he continues to get off his leash.

Anyway, here’s a list of suspects, and my odds on who seems the most likely killer (subject to change, of course).

Stan: Rosie’s dad, who it was revealed has mob ties and possibly did some “wet work” in the good old days. I initially thought (like, in the first episode) he might be the culprit, but it’s pretty clear he’s not at this point: he’s genuinely torn apart about Rosie’s death. I later thought that perhaps Rosie was killed as revenge due to his former dabblings in the underworld, but it doesn’t feel like it at this point, or at least they haven’t given any clues to suggest it. 0% Chance

Richmond: The mayor wannabe. Hum. Super earnest, but a bit of a sleaze. He’s tied to several aspects of Rosie’s murder: she was found in one of his campaign cars, and he’s linked to Bennet, the prime suspect, through a youth group. There’s probably more there. He’s so front-and-center to the show that even if he’s not suspicious, he’s gotta be a suspect. 10% Chance

Bennet: Prime suspect, which probably means he didn’t kill Rosie, simply because there’s so much more show to go. Still, he’s got a history of romancing his students, he’s lied to the cops several times, and if he was involved with Rosie he could have killed her to keep his wife from finding out. The thing that mostly exonerates him is that he looks so darn guilty, which is weird, but that’s how mysteries often work. 5% Chance

Amber: Bennet’s preggo wife. If a married man is cheating, and the other woman turns up dead, look no further than the dude’s wife. Which is probably why Amber is a false lead. She’s super pregnant, which makes it doubtful she’d be up for chasing a teenage girl through the woods. On the other hand, if she did kill Rosie, Bennet probably knows and might be trying to protect her. Maybe she killed Rosie, and he cleaned it up? 10% Chance

Rick: Linden’s long-suffering, clingy, whiny fiancee. I have no reason to suspect him of killing Rosie, other than that he’s played a gross creep a bunch of times before, and the murder happened just before Linden was supposed to leave. It’s refreshing, at least, to have the cop’s whining spouse be played by a dude for a change. 5% Chance

Belko: This is the bearded guy, Stan’s old mob buddy, who has been hanging around not doing much for the entire show. There was a scene where he tried to reassure one of the Larsen kids about wetting the bed, but it came off more creepy than sensitive (he was apparently a bed-wetter himself — isn’t that common among serial killers?). He tried to push Stan into murdering Bennet after learning from his “friend at the school” that Bennet was a suspect. Did he bump off Rosie? Did he then try to get Stan out of the way, or deflect suspicion from himself? Does he have designs on Stan’s whole family? He’s number one on my personal suspect list. 35% Chance

Terry: Rosie’s aunt, who has also been hanging around the entire show, not doing much. There’s nothing really pointing at her as a suspect except she’s around all the time, often for very little reason. There was one weird moment where she acted like she knew Jasper’s father (Jasper being Rosie’s sort-of boyfriend), but I don’t know where that ‘s gonna go. 10% Chance

Jamie: The little whiny Richmond aide. This guy gets a shitload of screen time for no reason I can figure. I can’t think of a motive, unless Richmond banged Rosie and Jamie decided she needed “hushing up” to protect the campaign. Still, nothing has really linked Richmond directly with Rosie, and leaving her body in a Richmond campaign car would be a weird thing for Jamie to do. 25% Chance

Everyone Else: There are a ton of minor characters, like Gwen (if Richmond was seeing Rosie, Gwen would be jealous), The Evil Mayor or one of his staff (to keep Richmond out of the race), Sterling (Rosie’s friend, who lived in Rosie’s shadow), and there may be characters we haven’t even met yet (though I hope it’s someone who has already been on the show). 5%

Note: I think that adds up to 105%. But that’s the kind of effort I put in.

The Killing: The excellent two-hour premiere is airing again, followed by a new episode in this season-long murder mystery, featuring a teenager killed in the woods near Seattle and the two detectives who are tasked with solving the crime. The show has its share of cliches: one detective is weary and seasoned and a day from transferring to another city, the other is a rookie, formerly a vice cop, and has questionable methods. Still, it all works and it’s a breath of fresh air when compared to most murder-of-the-week shows. In other words, it’s closer to The Wire than CSI. (AMC)

Human Planet: From the makers of Planet Earth (the amazing high-def documentary about animals eating each other), a new series focusing on humans and their interactions and struggles with nature. The first of eight episodes features surfing, diving, fishing, and whale hunting. (Discovery Channel)

America’s Next Great Restaurant: Six contestants design food trucks and hit the road to see who can sell the most food. If this is like America’s Next Top Model, the winner will never be seen or heard from again. (NBC)

My Future Boyfriend: An original movie about a hunky guy from THE FUTURE who travels back in time and meets a romance novelist who teaches him about love, which doesn’t exist in THE FUTURE. As a visitor to our time (from THE FUTURE) he does kooky things like talk to lamps and doesn’t understand what kissing is (“May I please press my lips against yours?”) Barrrrrf. (ABC Family)

The Comedy Awards: Hey, it’s an awards show. Another one. Just what we needed. Yay. (Comedy Central)