Holder was craving drugs and playing in traffic.
Linden was trying to be all domestic by making mac-n-cheese for her kid, only to get pulled away by a work call, of course, but hey, at least she didn’t miss another flight to California.
There was the mafia involvement, a mafia dude in a Larsen truck with a Manga tattoo, an escort service, a political campaign (featuring a suicidal candidate), another false murder suspect who remains paralyzed and a mother who hooked up with a stranger at a motel, that’s when she wasn’t affixing a hard stare at the murky motel pool. (Thinking about her daughter’s drowning? Contemplating drowning herself?)
Last year, I cared about all of this and all of these characters. I was thoroughly intrigued and urged friends to tune in and overlook all of that dreary rain. But as I watched the third episode of The Killing’s sophomore season, knowing that it’s very likely that there will be weeks of red herrings and bogus leads, my enthusiasm for this gray, taut series has waned.
After seeing that the computer servers for Beau Soleil were located in some room adjacent to Janek’s restaurant (and erased), after Janek lied to Stan about Rosie never working for Beau Soleil, then getting Stan all riled by mentioning that Rosie drowned in the car trunk, I found myself deeply ambivalent.
Actually, I’d already become annoyed by Holder throughout this episode, what with all his bizarre behavior (prompted by his guilt for allowing himself to be used to bust the wrong guy?) like beating up a drug dealer and his mother, stealing meth, creepily rolling up next to his nephew and offering the kid a ride, having pathetic sex in a car with a fellow Narcotics Anonymous member and ambling through heavy traffic, his eyes brimming with tears, just hoping to get hit.
The introduction of a Japanese graphic novel hero, a son who’s hell-bent on avenging his father’s death, and tying the dude with the tattoo of that comic book hero to the mobsters from whom Stan has sought help, made me shake my head, figuring that this will just become one of many discarded storylines in a week or so.
I don’t know that I have sufficient interest to follow this thing through anymore, to actually be there when Rosie’s killer is brought to justice. It feels like the middle of a bad season of 24 when the writers had to slog through a bunch of episodes containing mindless filler in order to get to the good stuff at the end of the season. It doesn’t feel as though any of this stuff is going to matter in the end, so why should I care?
Even the gritty power that Michelle Forbes brought to her role as the grieving mother Mitch Larsen, felt muted as she took refuge in a depressing motel and slept with a sad guy who appeared to be traveling on business. Watching her blow off her sister’s phone calls and stare at teenage girls who have a passing resemblance to her departed daughter (dead less than a month) didn’t move me at all.
The writers of the episode entitled “Numb” wound up making me feel just that. And that’s not a good thing.
Clacked by Meredith O'Brien 
on Apr 09, 2012 @ 13:19 EST5EDT
Nice episodes and all that but I tune in to watch Michelle Forbes. Why is management not listening to me?
When Mitch’s grieving process starts including doing the mattress Mambo with traveling salesman, I’m afraid my sympathy for her is down to nada. She seems determined to cause significant pain to everyone she supposedly cares about because she’s…unhappy. The writer of this episode and executive producer (both women, which I know is probably irrelevant)may have thought Mitch’s dalliance would just be viewed as a much needed escape from reality. Sorry, not buying it. That old excuse doesn’t work for a guy and shouldn’t work any better for a woman.
I’d view Mitch’s one-night affair as self-punishing/self-destructive, not as an escape, but that’s splitting hairs. I find I don’t care about the character at all when she’s not interacting with her family.
I’ll finish out the season, if only to see Linden and Holder investigating as partners.
If I don’t see something happen on screen, I assume it didn’t take place. I spent a week last season thinking Amber had offed Rosie with a hammer, that Bennett had rolled the body in a rug to dispose of it. If we didn’t see Mitch bed the textbook rep, she might have changed her mind. It was a reluctant seduction.
If you’re not interested anymore, then maybe find someone else to review the show. If you don’t care anymore, then what you say just doesn’t matter.