The Killing concludes on Netflix, more miserable than ever. Netflix. Two weeks ago, Netflix released the fourth season and what is allegedly the final season, though I have a hard time believing that, given history of The Killing, having revived the show after AMC canceled it for a second time. I have seen all six episodes, and while I already discussed it on this weeks podcast, I had a few thoughts I wanted to write up, as well as provide a space for non podcast listeners to weigh in on how they felt about the series latest conclusion, with spoilers aplenty coming up just as soon as Im somehow the most depressing character in a TV universe that also includes The Leftovers Season 3 of The Killing wasnt great, but it was easily the best of the shows three years on AMC. Confining the mystery to a single season reduced a few of the shows more aggravating tics to a more manageable size, and the work done with the guest characters and subplots was a dramatic improvement over the Larsens, viral wheelchair basketball videos, etc. Holders friendship with Bullet was the strongest relationship the show ever did, the episode where they executed Ray Seward was riveting except for the various moments where Sarah Linden again proved herself to be the most gullible police detective in television history, always believing the latest piece of information placed before her above anything she knew previously and it felt at times like Veena Sud and company had begun to figure out how to genuinely take advantage of telling a traditional police procedural story over 1. Then, of course, they botched the ending yet again, and I resolved that if The Killing ever returned, I might watch it, but only with the understanding that I shouldnt pay the slightest bit of attention to the plot. I entered this six episode Netflix season curious to see whether Sud and company could carry the improvement of season 3 forward, and also how the storytelling felt with half as many episodes to work with. But I also approached it with both lowered expectations and minimal emotional investment. And even given that minimal investment, these episodes were remarkably unpleasant to get through. We pick up in the immediate aftermath of Linden giving her serial killer ex boyfriend the suicide by cop that he desired Linden having been manipulated into it because, again, she believes with all her heart whatever it is that someone last told her as Holder helps her cover up the evidence of murder. But Linden turns out to be even worse at covering up crimes than she is at investigating them, and so she does remarkably stupid things like hold onto her exs phone, or dispose of crucial evidence right near his lake house. Powered by your favorite movie sites, Movieswithbutter. Were meant to view Linden who has had mental health issues in the past as going off the deep end in the aftermath of season 3, but playing bug eyed crazy for most of six episodes stretches the limits of what Mireille Enos does well as an actress. Joel Kinnaman was always the more interesting of the two leads, and he unsurprisingly does better at portraying Holders own struggles falling off the wagon, being cruel to his sister and his pregnant girlfriend, confessing to the crime at an NA meeting conveniently attended by a police informant but its still six hours of the shows heroes being trainwrecks even as theyre trying to work a new case. This is your periodic reminder that Fienberg is absolutely right in wanting Kinnaman to play the young Lou Solverson in Fargo season 2, especially when you compare photos of him to 1. Keith Carradine. That case, involving a private military academy cadet who may have massacred his entire family, is even more of a wallow than Linden and Holders struggles. Its an opportunity to trot out every clich about the cruelty of boys to one another, and how the sadism gets so much worse in a faux military setting. As the chief suspect and the one who carries large swaths of each episode in between our glimpses of Linden and Holder going to pieces, at times barely aware that they are actively investigating a multiple homicide Tyler Ross is asked to play every scene either through tears, or on the edge of tears, and it wears thin over even a half length season. As the academy headmaster and apparently its only adult employee Joan Allen is given almost nothing to play but steely impatience with these two idiot cops. Watch Great Expectations Online Hitfix' title='Watch Great Expectations Online Hitfix' />And the explanation that the boy did, in fact, kill his parents after a psychotic break caused by the academys hazing does a very poor job of explaining the various mind games that Allens character orders her co conspirators to play as part of their own weird cover up. The Killing was never a light show in its AMC incarnation, though the culture clash between the deeply private Linden and open book Holder provided occasional levity. Season 4, though, amps up the misery, assuming that its inherently the same as profundity. One can be linked to the other the dark final season of Breaking Bad was incredible, and I remain under the spell of The Leftovers even as many others are not but bleakness doesnt inherently make something deep and compelling, especially not when your central character isnt well drawn enough to support all this unhappiness. Watch Great Expectations Online Hitfix' title='Watch Great Expectations Online Hitfix' />After a deux ex machina appearance from Billy Campbell as wheelchair basketball mayor Darren Richmond the chief red herring of season 1 takes care of whatever legal jeopardy our heroes are in, we jump ahead five years for a truly bizarre epilogue. Holders a father to an adorable little girl, and hes found a new home running a shelter for troubled teens an effective payoff both to Holders own struggles with addiction and his friendship with Bullet. He and his daughters mom have split up, but thats just fine and dandy, because who should return from her soul replenishing walking of the earth but Sarah Linden And who should be revealed to be each others One True Pairing but Holder and Linden, despite almost no suggestion in previous seasons that there was any romantic tension between themFor that matter, it was barely even suggested in previous seasons that the two of them were even friends, and if you choose to read the final scene as simply the two of them realizing they need each other around in a platonic sense, The Killing didnt even really put in the necessary work to foreshadow that. Not all opposite gender partners must fall in love, even on television, and the LindenHolder partnership was presented as something where two opposites gradually developed respect and trust for one another, and not that they were each others soulmate, or even each others best friend forever. I suppose that the beating Sud took after season 1 failed to solve the Rosie Larsen case as the ad campaign had implied if not explicitly promised made her reluctant to ever again embrace ambiguity or try to deny her audience closure. And I would imagine that the majority of the people who toughed it out all the way to the end of The Killing season 4 did it out of genuine enjoyment of the show andor Linden and Holder, and that therefore they might appreciate an ending that leaves them together, even if theyre not cops anymore. For me, though, The Killing was largely a wasted opportunity. From time to time, it really did demonstrate the power of spending so much time on a single investigation. But too often, it just felt like an elongated version of a network police procedural that lasted longer without actually going any deeper. Season 3 could have been a breakthrough, and maybe even one that set the show up for an extended Netflix run say, with Holder as the veteran breaking in a rookie partner, but season 4 was a mess well before it got to the parts designed to wrap up the series for good. Watch Shelter Online Free HD more. After two resurrections by two different companies, Im not ready to accept that The Killing has actually been buried just yet. HitFixs Alan Sepinwall reviews the final season of The Killing on Netflix, in which Linden and Holder start cracking up while investigating a military academy. HitFix constructs a history of David Duchovny and Gillian Andersons socalled feud on the set of FOXs recentlyrevived hit series The XFiles. TS19 is the sixth and final episode of the first season of the postapocalyptic horror television series The Walking Dead. It originally aired on AMC in the United. A rugby league player in the early 1980s battles against the changing game and the betrayal of those he has been loyal to. Alienated and desperate, he struggles to. Includes filmography, biographical information, an image gallery, and links. BattleBots is a reimagined take of the killer robot combat sport from Whalerock Industries and the creators of the original BattleBots franchise, Ed Roski.