AMC’s ‘The Killing’ season 3, episode 4 review: This is not a happy story

It’s almost a good thing that “The Killing” comes on before “Mad Men,” mostly because you need some sort of chaser to get your mind off of this gritty, depressing, but also well-acted show. This storyline this year is so dark, it makes the Rosie Larsen case in some ways feel like “Bananas in Pajamas.”

The big movement this week in the case of the murders is that we’ve seemingly formed another suspect here in “Mills,” a man who has some serious connections based on what one of the former young prostitutes wrapped up in all of this mess had to say. We saw what we believed to be his face at the very end of the episode … and he’s dating Kallie’s mom? This is so weird that it’s really hard to know where to start, given that this is the same woman that seems to be the poster child for both apathetic mothers and what their children do in their spare time. Pretty gross, to say the least.

Linden and Holder seem to be closer now to working together full-time after she put the verbal smack-down on his new partner, but this really all feels somewhat secondary to what is really going on here: Linden is realizing that she cannot get out of this without answers, regardless of how much trouble it is for her.

Sadly, she’s not getting much help from Seward in prison, since the man seems to be desperate to accept death despite the fact that she believes he does not deserve to die. How uncomfortable was everyone else sitting there, watching one of his fellow inmates get roughed up just because he didn’t want to take his medication?

Then, we have the children. This story with Lyric, Bullet, and Twitch is interesting, but there are also admittedly times in which we feel like it borders on the unrealistic. Would Twitch really want to kiss anyone after what happened earlier in the episode, and would neither one of the care that Bullet is literally standing right there while they “comfort” each other? This story somehow may be the saddest of the three right now, mostly because these are people who really should have ambition.

We really do admire and respect what “The Killing” does, but we also have to admit that this show is so dark, we want to take a shower after watching it to feel clean again. Yet for whatever reason, we find ourselves coming back the very next week to see what happens.

If you want to check out some more news related to the show, you can do so over here.

Photo: AMC