The characters aren’t whimsical, the air is blue-black, and the drenching rain never ends.
#The killing danish english series#
In the weeks before the series began, ads asking the question “Who Killed Rosie Larsen?” kept cropping up, and it took no effort to discern an echo of the promo line for the David Lynch–Mark Frost series “Twin Peaks”: “Who killed Laura Palmer?” “Twin Peaks” began twenty-one years ago (to the month, in fact), but the atmospherics of that series are an institution now, familiar to any television viewer who’s old enough to watch “The Killing.” By “atmospherics,” I mean the storytelling conceit-the languorous drawn-outness of the mystery, the clues and teases-not the haunting music, the blue-green Washington State air, or the depressing pineyness of “Twin Peaks.” “The Killing” is set in a city, for one thing-it was shot in Vancouver-and has a pervasive working-class grittiness and grubbiness to it. It may also be that, for all the show’s touted originality (that touting has itself played a part in my resistance-let’s not forget that two of the most captivating series of our time, “The Sopranos” and “Mad Men,” arrived without fanfare), I feel as though I’ve been there before.
#The killing danish english tv#
How can it be that I haven’t been drawn into this drama? I’m still figuring it out, but perhaps I’ve found a clue: while watching an episode of “The Killing” on demand, I saw an ad for another proudly gruelling AMC drama, “Breaking Bad,” in which Bryan Cranston, the star of the series, said, “It takes some backbone to be able to watch our show.” If watching a TV show can require spine, then maybe my very skeletal structure is to blame for my failure to fall for “The Killing.” The second season, with a new plotline, will show there later this year.) The American version pretty much airlifts the story directly from gloomy Copenhagen to gloomier Seattle, though it compresses it into fewer episodes-thirteen instead of twenty. (The first season of the Danish version just aired in the U.K., and was a huge hit. “The Killing” is an American remake of a Danish series, “Forbrydelsen”-a title that translates, more neutrally, as “The Crime,” but for English-speaking audiences, apparently, only the grislier word will do. Rumours arise that Zeeland is threatening to move the company and its production aboard-a potential disaster for the local economy.īoth Lund and the investigation quickly become embroiled in the politics of the financial crisis and all too late she begins to piece together the perpetrator's plan and the sort of debt he is seeking to reclaim a moral debt which costs lives and involves the taking of a particularly chosen hostage.ĭestinies cross over all sections of Danish society as the hunt for the perpetrator intensifies towards a dark secret which eventually puts everything at stake for both the Prime Minister, Robert Zeuthen and Sarah Lund.Mireille Enos as Sarah Linden, a Seattle homicide detective in “The Killing.” Illustration by MONTSE BERNAL Prime Minister Kamper is himself in the middle of a turbulent election due to the pressures of the financial crisis and is looking for backing from the commercial sector, including Zeeland.
Meanwhile Sarah Lund is disturbed by an old flame, Mathias Borch, from the National Intelligence Service (PET) who fears that the killing in the docks is the beginning of an assassination attempt upon the Prime Minister.
He is already troubled by his recent divorce and internal struggles within the company. What appears to be a random murder at a scrapyard in the Copenhagen docks begins to interfere with Lund's plans for a quieter life and draws attention towards the shipping and oil giant Zeeland, run by billionaire Robert Zeuthen, who is the third generation head of the family to run this business empire. The financial crisis is raging and the number of bankruptcies and repossessions is on the rise, but Detective Inspector Sarah Lund has a newfound sense of peace in the form of a new job, a new home and the recognition of achieving 25 years of service in the Police Force. Detective Inspector Sarah Lund (Sofie Gråbøl) returns in the long-awaited third and final series of The Killing (Forbrydelsen) Trilogy.