THE KILLING: What Did You Think of the Final Season?

[This post contains spoilers for the entire final season of THE KILLING. If you’ve yet to watch it, please don’t read this post, because you will get spoiled on the ending.]

After THE KILLING was canceled (and uncanceled) twice, the series had its official conclusion with the six episodes that debuted on Netflix on August 1st.

And it was odd. Some of the final season was good/great; some of it was bafflingly dumb. But I finished it and I had some thoughts about it, and I’d love to hear what you guys thought about it, too…

• I can wholly buy Linden and Holder opting to try and hide what they (she) did to Skinner. And I understand the guilt. But given how smart they had been in the past, their repeated unbelievably dumb decisions in the aftermath was just shocking — really, Holder is going to semi-confess in NA? Linden is going to go back to the freaking scene of the crime?! It may have been an issue where if this had played out over 12, 13, etc. episodes, it wouldn’t have felt as obviously ridiculous. But since it was condensed to six hours, oy. It was a whole lot of stupid in a short amount of time.
• I don’t think the show necessarily needed the extra minutes being on Netflix afforded them, but the ability to say “fuck” on the show? Some of the best/most authentic use of language I’ve seen in a while.
• If the show didn’t want us to instantly suspect Joan Allen’s Margaret Rayne had knowledge/something to do with the Stansbury murders, maybe they shouldn’t have cut to her the way they did during the initial conversation between Kyle/Holder/Linden.
• Tyler Ross (Kyle) was by far the best part of the season. Heck, Kyle was the only character I had sympathy for the entire season, too. His final scenes (as he recalled being the one to kill his family) were absolutely heartbreaking.
• Speaking of Kyle actually being the one to pull the trigger, I am glad that if he had to be the killer, that he truly had repressed it the entire season, versus him just being a total sociopath.
• The kids at the military school were so unbelievably horrendous, they almost seemed like caricatures.
• Anyone else laugh out loud when Billy Campbell’s Darren Richmond popped up in the finale to essentially void Linden’s confession? Oh, show.
• I honestly don’t know how to feel about the Linden/Holder ending. I loved their partnership, and what the show did to them — especially in that final year — was pretty brutal. (I had that thought that if the final scene the two knowingly shared was Linden pulling her gun on him and accusing him of betraying her, that would be a pretty freaking atrocious way to end for them.) In some ways, their final scene “together” in the show’s timeline worked well — Linden confessed to killing Skinner, took all the blame, and then was let off the hook…while Holder watched from behind a pane of one-way glass. But the show didn’t end there — instead, we got a flash forward, where Holder had a young daughter (with Caroline, who revealed her pregnancy early on in the final season, and the duo quickly got engaged), had stopped being a cop and was now a counselor and was greeted at work one day by a visiting Linden. She told him that their work together was the home she had been searching for her whole life (her poor kid), and he asked her to close her eyes and maybe she’d see what was in front of her the whole time. She intended to leave again, but after driving out of the city, she changed her mind and returned to a delighted Holder.
  
  And, look, there are a ton of problems I have with that. First of all, it was years since we last saw these characters — did Holder get married to Caroline, and then get divorced? Did they never get married? (Since it was established he and Caroline weren’t living together when he and his daughter were walking to school.) Was he currently with someone? Had Holder and Linden even spoken since she confessed and left town? (Because, seriously, would you be so buddy-buddy immediately after everything that went down?! But based on their convo, it sure seemed like they hadn’t kept in touch.) I’m not opposed to romance for the duo (never needed it, but it wouldn’t have been a deal-breaker for me if it had been done right), but it ending on a quasi-rom-com note where despite all the things you went through, suddenly you’re OK with each other and are going to go off into the sunset, just felt so out of place for the show.

But maybe you totally disagree with me. What did you think of THE KILLING’s final season?

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