The question in the picture above, supplied in all the promo materials and on the AMC series website, is supposedly the central question of the show. But it went unanswered! Matthew Gilbert at the Boston Globe’s Viewer Discretion blog puts it well:
That was part of the deal we made with the show, when we stuck with it across 13 episodes, some of them a little twistier and emptier than necessary. We believed that at least this one case about Rosie Larsen would be solved. And we were robbed.
Read it all for his thoughts about Holder as villain (maybe?) and other aspects, pretty measured. On the other hand, Mo Ryan of AolTV and Pop Culture Nerd’s blogs let their steam valves burst with “frothing at the mouth” and “shouted profanities.” PCN notes the show hadn’t even been renewed when they wrote this episode, which makes it even more daring or indefensible. Mo Ryan calls her own analysis “the angriest television-related screed I think I’ve ever written.”
Did you find the lack of solution a forgivable misdirection that whetted your appetite for the second season, now that we know there’ll be one?
Are they trying to go all Twin Peaks, having the case of Laura Palmer Rosie Larsen become something more like the ignition key of the series and not its engine?
Are you disappointed or peeved enough to let the case stay open without you?
I believe in fair play. This isn’t it!!
Count me as one of the disappointed. I generally hate the use of cliff-hanger season finale device to get users back next year. There was no reason to drag it out over two seasons. Like most viewers, I went into the episode thinking we would know the killer. Mo Ryan’s analysis and the subseqent comments pretty much nail it. I can’t say that I won’t watch next season but I know I won’t be as invested. AMC seriously alienated a lot of viewers.
I’m so tired of lazy writers substituting would-be irresistible cliffhangers for quality ploting to keep their audience. I stopped watching this show around ep.5 but tuned in last night to see the finale. Needless to say, I won’t be back next year. What a waste of my time!
I live in the UK so have not seen the US version, but in the original Danish version (which I have seen) we get to know who did it.
The Danish version was wonderful. 20 episodes for each day of the investigation. I hear the Danes are making a second series.
The finale hinges on a photo-shopped picture? Great detective work. I thought the show was sloppy all the way through, and the “mystery” should have been solved in 2 episodes. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I will not be made a fool. I’m out.
I gave up on this show around the 4th or 5th episode. I thought the pacing was awful. Also, I quickly had the sense it was going to be a show with lots of unfair cliffhanger-y red herrings and twists pulled out of thin air. After hearing about the finale, I’m glad I didn’t keep watching it.
“I stopped watching this show around ep.5 but tuned in last night to see the finale.”
All you missed was a bunch of driving around in circles, metaphorically speaking.
I was disappointed in the finale, and I doubt I’ll watch next season. If my wife dvr’s it so she can watch it, I’ll probably keep up with it some.
I think everyone needs to calm down. Give the writers a chance. This is no different than any other cliff hanger we’ve been given before you just thought you would have an answer without that being what they were offering us. The show needs tweeking in some areas, I love the cast and hope that they keep me hanging again. They’ve gotten what they wanted, tons of press and by the time the show comes back you will all want to tune in.
I was disappointed because like everyone else, I was led to belive that there would be a resolution in the finale. Don’t know if I’ll stick with it next season.
I talked this series up on FB, thought it had a chance to be something special and it was until the writers decided to bail out, instead of sticking to thier principles. American network writers, make a choice and stay with it, not matter what.
To all the disappointed fans out there. I feel your pain. I would have liked to have known who did it.
On the other hand, the beauty of the series for me is in not finding. This TV series “Stretched” the boundaries of television. I will give you just some of my highlights that I have discussed on other boards as well:
1. Holder – This was a character we totally hated at the beginning. In fact the writers made us “love to hate him”. Yet, as time passed, our perceptions of him changed, just as Sarah Linden’s perceptions of him changed. At the end, we were IN LOVE with his character, only for him to betray us. Is that refreshing enough for you?
2. We have felt Linden’s pain about this murder throughout this investigation, and it became more obvious in the last two episodes. It has become personal for her. If you have not felt her pain. then you don’t understand the medium of television.
3. What reason was there for the campaign to be featured in the series other than the fact that there was a tie-in to the murder. We might not now what that tie-in is yet, but the connection was explored and kept the mythology alive through-out.
4. The personal character profiles were one of the strongest elements of the story, both for the family that lost Rosie, the Politician and the police detectives.
Yes, we did not get a resolution, but we did get a resolution! I know that Linden is not satisfied with what was doen to her. She can not move on with her life, having just been “stabbed in the back” so blatantly. But how do you fight City Hall. I am thinking the second season of “the Killing” is going to be bigger and brighter. The question of course is going to be, are there going to be any viewers?
The problem in this country is that we want everything “tied in a neat little bow” and even life is not that way.
I hate the word “mythology” when applied to any tv show. From personal experience it just means that the writers will throw everything in, plus the kitchen sink, to keep the plot ‘real’ and end up in a quagmire that cannot be escaped. As a consumer, too many shows have left me deeply disatisfied with their “mythology”. I don’t want things neatly tied with a bow, I want a show to deliver what it promised. Furthermore, I think the biggest problem with American writers is their tendency to ‘improve’ upon source material from other countries.