"The Killing," another little watched, much discussed AMC show, might be the gloomiest and moodiest TV production ever. Every one of the characters possess such psychic pain that I half expect a mass suicide will be the final episode. Still the show, in which life-challenged Seattle detectives attempt to solve the murder of a young woman, holds a film-noirish appeal.
In keeping with the downer mood, the main character detective Sarah Linden, played by Mirelle Enos, is the least glamorous female lead that I can remember, although Enos somehow scored a picture spread in Esquire that sports a bare-butt shot. Joel Kinnaman, who plays her in-drug-recovery kooky partner, transcends the gloom and doom with crazy screen charisma that already is bringing him movie offers. Another pleasure of the show is that it's brought back the great creepy character actor Mark Moses, last seen as the alcoholic ad exec and Peggy Olson paramour "Duck" Phillips in "Mad Men," a much more interesting character than Peggy's current lover, the hazy counterculture journalist.
The dark, elliptical writing and a number of good performances make the show. I'm surprised that the negative depiction of the Indians who own the murder-scene casino hasn't drawn a protest from the Native-American Anti-Defamation League. But, the female tribal chief and her Braves, the subject of snide anti-Indian epithets from Kinnaman's character, make for pleasantly evil villains. With the rain, the harbor, and a few space neele shots, Seattle looms as a main character, although the show is shot in Vancouver.