Author Archives: Alyx Dellamonica

Somehow I didn’t mind all that much that the first two seasons of The Killing were slow-moving and, in their way, low on plot. I find Mirielle Enos fascinating and once he finally won me over, I became inexplicably charmed by Joel Kinnamon too. Plus, Michelle Forbes! She was incredible. As a bonus, Michelle was screen-married to Brent Sexton, who was awesome on Life and who deserved a meaty role, despite his total lack of what are sometimes called leading man looks.

Kelly was not so engaged, and so S3 has been quietly piling, like snow drifting up, in our DVR queue. Then, Thursday, she had to go to a work retreat. So I watched it. I watched four episodes. And Holy Carp.

Okay. First, the casting mancakes. Hugh Dillon will always be Joe Dick to me, and well-beloved at that. I heart him. So–Joe Dick as, well, a dickly prison warden. He is still a thoroughly charismatic gargoyle.

And as his minion? The Chief from Battlestar Galactica, otherwise known as Aaron Douglas.

But wait! Buy now and instead of a set of steak knives you get Elias Koteas! (Of TMNT, and The Prophecy, that Elias Koteas. Many of the actors I love are undeserving, or at least hard done by in terms of the roles they get offered.) As this season’s love interest for Linden, if the foreshadowing hasn’t misled me.

And as a special extra bonus, they’ve thrown in the current reigning Olympic Gold Medalist in Scenery Chewing (Team USA), Gregg Henry. So far he’s kept his teeth off the desks at Seattle Homicide, but he’s eyeing those desk chairs hungrily.

What about women? Yes, it has some. They are far less recognizable to me, since most of them are teens. But I have been amazed by Bex Taylor Klaus, who plays the butch street kid Bullet.

And that’s the other thing: street kid. The Killing has a big ‘examining the family torn apart by homicide’ schtick going, and this year, having wrung Forbes and Sexton dry, they are doing a microscopic examination of a chosen family of street kids, some of whom are in the sex trade. This pairs well with the kind of angsty human drama the series tends to inflict on its crime victims. They’re young, vulnerable, constantly at risk and often their only–very frail–safety net is each other.

Finally, in The Killing, Seattle is played by my former stomping ground, Vancouver. The kid gang spends major time in a walkway I call The Cage, in old Strathcona. The Cage turns up on TV almost as often as Aaron Douglas–it’s that striking, visually. I used to walk through it every Tuesday on my way downtown. I know I have a photo of it, but I’m having trouble finding it, sorry.

So. Anyway. I inhaled those four episodes on Thursday and I’m hungry for more.