As Seen on TV is a new weekly series of blog posts I’ll be doing in response to reading/dissecting the pilot scripts of various television programs, both old and new, and then watching or re-watching the pilot episodes they spawned, whenever appropriate.

 Last Week: The WB’s Supernatural

Warning: spoilers through the season two finale of The Killing are more or less guaranteed.

And so we go from the series with an entirely nomadic sense of place to a series that is very much rooted in place: in this case, a moody, overcast Seattle. That initial, nearly still shot overlooking the calm lake in the pilot does wonders in establishing both the tone and the location before a single word has been uttered, or a single body shown. Unlike Supernatural, The Killing doesn’t bother with prologues. Solving the Rosie Larsen case is the focus here (as it should be) and although our protagonist Sarah Linden has an unlimited supply of skeletons in her closet, we’ll meet them later in the season—all in good time. So much of this show is about secrets, and all of the characters have them in spades: the suspects, the victims, and especially our two leads, Detectives Linden and Holder. Much of the intrigue in watching the show as the episodes unfold is witnessing the lengths they’ll all go to protect those secrets, both from the other characters and from the viewers watching from home. This becomes more and more apparent as the season progresses, but we’ll revisit that later.

The first sequence of the episode features two intercut scenes that, in juxtaposition with each other, show the harsh contrast of the same wooded area as experienced by two women: one a young girl running from an assailant in the dark night and one a lone wolf detective on a routine jog during the gloomy morning. As far as I’m concerned, this technique succeeds on several levels. First, it shows the way the ghost of that weekend’s events imprints itself in the location, almost like a remaining echo. Second, it forces us to make a comparison between Rosie Larsen and Sarah Linden immediately, however subconscious. Third, it prepares us for the show’s storytelling and editing style on a grander scale, as we weave through multiple characters’ perspectives and storylines and personal dramas in a one fell swoop.

The first glimpse we get of Sarah (aside from her running shoes on a dirt path) is a shot of the back of her head, her red curls pulled back in an unassuming low ponytail. It seems fitting that this perspective would become perhaps the most iconic image of the series: the last shot of the opening credits also features Linden gazing over the lake, the camera positioned from a distance behind her. Throughout the season, we the viewers are forever following her footsteps as she leads us through this investigation. At the same time, she often keeps us at arms length, rarely allowing us to see the honest emotions behind the mask that she wears for more than a moment at a time.

In some ways, the premise of the show initially feels formulaic and stale. On the eve of a homicide detective’s retirement from the profession, a new case makes it impossible for him or her to walk away.  How many times have we seen the same basic plotline used to structure some of Hollywood’s best (and worst) thrillers? I can think of two of my favorite films without having to give it much thought: Sean Penn’s The Pledge and David Fincher’s Se7en. And yet, The Killing manages to sidestep the expected pitfalls, at least in this pilot episode. What the script does so well right off the bat is give us these short snapshots of each of the key players, and in those first few moments we feel like we know them, have a intimate understanding of their fears and motivations and backstories (or at least begin to as the story continues to develop), but for the most part we can see that they are all highly complex individuals that we trust won’t become caricatures. For a show that dares to examine so many lives in such a short period of time, that is an impressive feat. We also see subtle (and not-so-subtle) hints of many future themes throughout the pilot, so that when they appear full force they don’t seem as contrived as they would otherwise. The first time I watched the episode, I remember finding the subplot of the Richmond campaign to be less compelling than the others, wondering of course why they were spending so much time with it. Naturally, by the end of the hour it was no longer a mystery, and for those who are not expecting it the answer to that unspoken question packs a hell of a punch.

This ending sequence is easily the strongest part of the episode.  You know while watching it that all of the people involved will be changed forever by this case, some more than others. Each subplot is intercut with the others and woven beautifully together, thanks in large part to Frans Bak’s recurrent, haunting score. What we see here is only a glimpse of what is to come in the coda of subsequent episodes as the pieces come together and inevitably break apart again, rearranging themselves, playing tricks on our minds and on the police detectives we have invited week after week into our living rooms.  New evidence comes to light, followed by another false lead, another tragedy, another missed flight and another sleepless night.

In the pilot script, we get a lot more details on the previous Picasso case than is revealed in the actual aired episode. Omitting those clarifications can be a risky move in some ways as it leaves Sarah’s past murky for much of season one, but I think the payoff is worth it. We are left with an underlying mystery other than the one that drives the series (“Who killed Rosie Larsen?”) and we get a sense of just how guarded Sarah is and how much it means when she eventually opens up to Holder in episode 11, an aberrant episode I initially found frustrating but is now one of my favorites—chiefly for the way it manages to peel back the layers of these two deeply flawed people, both of whom consider themselves “damaged goods” for their own private reasons, and highlights the ways in which they complement each other.

I’ve never seen and don’t know much about the Danish series that The Killing is based off of, so I’m not certain what elements were lifted from the original and what elements are new to the U.S. version; nor can I speak to their specific differences. Regardless, it’s interesting to re-watch the pilot after knowing which of the characters were directly involved in Rosie’s death. Some of their actions and reactions suddenly make perfect sense. Others are somewhat puzzling. The writers were very clever to keep both Jamie and Terry out of scenes where Rosie is first revealed to be missing, so that we never quite see their initial reactions.  In other words, by the time we see them on screen they’ve had time to process their possible roles in her killing. Even so, I think it’s a little crazy that the writers felt so compelled to keep the events of that night a secret that they didn’t even tell Eric Ladin and Jamie Anne Allman what had happened. In the season one DVD commentary, executive producer Veena Sud defends this decision by saying that the characters have gone into a state of denial that prevents them from admitting their involvement, even to themselves. That may be true, but how can an actor feign a character’s denial if they themselves are in the dark? I can’t quite get on board with that decision. In fact, it blows my mind that any actor would be okay with working in that manner. If a roomful of writers can keep a secret, why can’t a pair of actors be trusted?

One of the most fascinating aspects of reading the script of an episode after having watched it blind the first time is catching onto all the inferences you were supposed to make about these characters and situations from the deliberate choices made by the writers to portray and unravel them in a certain light. Some work on a merely subconscious level, others don’t quite work at all, but sometimes that’s okay. Part of the beauty of audience response is that everyone brings their personal background into a piece of fiction and reacts to it accordingly. At the same time, it’s nice to get an idea of what the intended outcome of a particular scene was. The Killing does a marvelous job of planting all the correct seeds in this first episode. In some cases, so much so that you almost forget they’re there—until they sprout from the Earth weeks later in a slightly different form and then take you completely by surprise.

Next Week: Showtime’s Dexter