A thread for The Killing, aka much-lauded Danish drama "Forbrydelsen" (with spoilers)

there was a time i thought they were referencing twin peaks

Absolutely, don't forget the video tapes of the dead girl.

yeah the pics from the american remake look super twin peaks

Towards the end of something like this, I start thinking of characters who appeared early, then disappeared from the radar but could be mixed up in it somehow. Rie's dad, for example, and the first police chief who left possibly Knowing Something and was replaced by dodgy Brix. Boyfriend's Dad also a good call, hadn't thought of him.

Rie's dad, for example

oh! that is a good point. yes. i think rie stayed true but obviously has something else in play.

Rie's dad is pulling strings somewhere for sure.

Thing that puts me off the boyfriend's dad is maybe a bit ridic, but wouldn't the producers avoid having a muslim as the villain of a major series like this considering the cartoon controversy in Denmark a year or so before this was made?

Not that anyone would protest against it or anything, but they might just be sensitive towards portraying muslims as the bad guys.

i definitely don't think he's the major villain -- but they have been sensitive to that, and to denmark's racial politics, they had a muslim guy wrongly accused, and hartmann vindicated by backing him

So, were we happy with how this ended?

Keeping it spoiler-free, but even though there were still loose ends I thought the quality of the drama, especially the scenes in the basement and the woods, more than made up for it.

is it me or are the doors to the offices in the police station terrible looking? like some terrible marbling effect.

thought the penultimate ep was str8 fire

a few probs with it, i guess... i hope that the old cases are a part of the next series

coz the cops seemed a bit unnecessarily shifty no, if there wasn't a high-up conspiracy, if it was just vagn, right? so brix telling lund not to pry must have meant something.

kind of funny but i can't keep track of 'what happened'

I thought it was just because Brix was worried that Lund might find something connected to City Hall and make his hopes of career progression suffer, a "trying not to bite the hand that feeds" affair.

I thought the ending suggested that there was more to it than had been revealed - Lund looked like she was still mulling things over in her mind as she walked outside in the final sequence, and Troels' phone call to Brix seemed a bit ambiguous to me - but Lund had finally realised her own "crime", if you will, was getting too wrapped up in the case.

yeah my gf + i were trying to sort of recap it, and we couldnt remember a lot of the reasons for difft things... like what was the deal with the bloody room downstairs at the school? how did that tie in

thank goodness for iplayer to help recall the bits that the red wine has fugged up.
way too many questions were flying around on sunday morning between my wife and i.
still one of the best tv dramas in a long time.

yeah no question

Just finished watching this. Some absolutely killer scenes (the hoodie moment! the bloodstain!) and some nice plot symmetries too but there are lots of niggly things that are still bugging me (he dumped the car in the water - how the hell did he get back to civilisation afterwards? I can't get apparent ages to fit the timeline either). Also a massive clue from earlier which they didn't make a big deal of or bother spelling out later, but in hindsight I should have picked up it (remember that plaster on that one guy's neck?)

Thinking about that top and wondering about its age. Did matey boy find it at the storage place and put it on there? To conceal his identity or as an act of remembrance? Couldn't have been in his wardrobe all that time, right?

xpost was the bloody room not where Oliver and Lisa (ie the classmates) had sex, and she tried to jump up because the pal Jeppe was filming it on his phone and she cut her arm?

Few eps into the second series after finishing the first in record time.

I agree with folks that I never could quite piece together what exactly the series one killer *did*, there are some details [spoilery stuff removed, I'm sure you can pick some] that don't hang together at the end.

If you'll notice the second and third series are half the length of the first one, which is a smart decision. At a certain point in the first series they've considered so many main characters main suspects that it gets kinda absurd. They address that a bit in the show, but still. That and the fact that everyone lies to the police routinely and wait until they're shoved in a cell before they start explaining why they're not the guy, which creates drama but gets crazy after a while. The English title of the show really should be I Should Have Told You ...

But it's still awesome. I like how Meyer becomes the reasonable cop over time and Lund becomes the loose cannon. Lund's full-on OCD is cracking me up; it's funny how every popular detective in fiction is essentially Holmes, a socially dysfunctional, borderline autistic savant.

Reading up on this has led me to Engrenages too, so I'm stoked. It's nuts having access to entire seasons of shows these days, it's like crack

If you'll notice the second and third series are half the length of the first one, which is a smart decision. At a certain point in the first series they've considered so many main characters main suspects that it gets kinda absurd.

yeah. think in the end this show was as much about the characters as the mystery, so that although it was convoluted, it was still good. in a way, troels had very little to do with the case, given the amount of time we spent with him even after he was eliminated as a suspect. i did expect more from that storyline, some cover-up of real guilt, idk. will watch again in a year or two.

I saw all of it. Season 2 was great as well. Such a great series. As I'm a knitter, I kept checking out her sweaters. lolol

not sure if i'll wait for s02 to come to UK television. presumably subtitled versions are out there somewhere. but first i will watch the US remake, if it's any good.

Is it not possible for people to discuss the series without spoiling it for others?

not really. rule of thumb: if the series has been broadcast, it's fair game. but sorry!

Maybe get a mod to put a warning in the thread title?

yeah ive asked

Oh damn, yr quick.

Lund psyching herself up in the police car to do what she knew was stupid but necessary was fantastic. Spiral back on BBC4 this weekend with the astonishingly beautiful red headed defense attorney.

Just finished Series 2, which in some ways is better (more concise) - the character of the Justice Minister is really endearing, I don't think you'd find someone like him as a gov't figure on a US drama.

Count me in for one of those sweaters!

Taking a break from being tubeglued to crime TV to get back to the human race - when I come back it's on to Spiral, glad people dig that. And redheads.

NOT THE CRISPS - NEIIIIIIIN

Should have embeddinated that

http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DKaDk0YdCWjI

Guuuuuh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaDk0YdCWjI

I got really, really addicted to this. There are some excellent, excellent performances by the cast. Some of the subtle looks and facial expressions and inscrutable interiority you get out of the characters is fucking excellent. In fact pretty much everyone was excellent. Eventually got kind of fatigued by Troels Hartmann but mainly because, unlike The Wire, the political superstructure really had fuck all to do with it. Someone stole a car in episode one and that's still all it was in the end. The Jan Meyer buddycop was my favourite though. He was just unbelievable the way he is simultaneously this gun-toting hardass and a guy who says "I promised my wife I'd keep a job for more than three weeks."

I just finished it this morning and I realize when I think back to the initial suspects (that semi-retarded guy who tied up an old woman for absolutely no reason) how distended the plotting of the show had really been. It would probably work better if you watched only one episode a week... A few days later you've sort of forgotten and you're ready for someone else to be the main suspect. Watching it on DVD or downloaded kind of compresses everything too much (whereas the Wire seemed to work even better the more of it you watched in a sitting).

In a weird clumsy way I like how practically everyone was the main suspect at some point. I was even considering Pernille Birk Larsen at one point. Or some weird combination of Pernille Birk Larsen and Troels Hartmann (who misleadingly seemed to recognize each other in a hallway early on in the series... with weird music playing over the top). Kept wanting them to introduce satanists or something but oh well.

The Jens Holck thing was, I think, where the series started to tip over into something that didn't really have all its marbles... like almost in a Tommy Wiseau way, but obviously still outwardly very serious and well-done.

(not reading this thread - yet) I'm on ep. 15 & wondering what five more episodes are going to consist of. I mean, Jens H could not have been a red herring, right?.. I have to say that I did pick him for the deed pretty early on (always the quiet ones), but now I am generally dumbfounded & loving it completely.

I hope the US version takes a different path so that watching it won't simply be a retread.

Who is the American actor who looks just like the actor that played Brix? I can't place him.

Jan Meyer was the best! That actor has the Dutch/Danish face going on that always reminds me of these:
http://www.weirdotoys.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/puppets01.jpg

sweepy ambient music for emo scenes sounds quite a bit like the slowed-down Bieber Ros thing that made the blog rounds last year.

not reading this thread but i just watched the first two episodes back to back and.... wow.

it's like a very, very, very good wallander except this time wallander is the irritating sidekick instead of the main character.

i loved how she pops a piece of gum into her mouth at home, like 10 minutes after she's woken up (how simple it seems to establish a character, when it's done like this).. and then when she's arrived at the "crime scene" (actually an elaborate gag played on her by her colleagues) she's still chewing that gum.

Who is the American actor who looks just like the actor that played Brix?

dunno about this, but I thought Brix resembled a roided-up Bez.

i can't find downloads of season 1 (especially the early episodes) on the usual sites. surely some mistake?

^ check yr webmail

thanks, i was searching in a particularly stupid way and missing all that. all set now.

so are we talking about US Killing on this thread? cause it's awesome.

yeah it's really good
something is up with the aunt imo - the one who's always at the larsen's house
also the other detective, he's a former gang member isn't he? is he moonlighting as a private investigator on the side?

A thread for AMC's The Killing, a remake of much-lauded Danish drama "Forbrydelsen"

xp

thanks!
by the way how can one see the original here in the US? i can't find it anywhere

It is hard to see the AMC version objectively, having binged on Forbrydelsen over the past two weeks. So far, it seems to be following the same tack, which I'm hoping will change (for the sake of variety) - I don't see how it can't, being that the AMC version will be seven eps shorter than the OG.

I think the acting and characterization in The Killing is mostly excellent, but the atmospheric quality of Forbrydelsen was just so off-the-hook AWESOME, that I don't see how TK can transcend its redheaded-stepchild status w/o some major plot variations.

unless it is currently available through Netflix in the US, you will have to resort to piracy.

xp

god this was great! watched all 20 episodes in record time. lot of 24 in it, but they handle the twists very, very well, i thought.

for some reason he's been my prime suspect since early on: not sure how they insinuated it but they did

― BIG GERTRUDE aka the steindriver (history mayne), Wednesday, March 23, 2011 7:53 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

gf and i called vagn early too--the thing that made me suspect him was the scene where theis is showing him the house and mentions that nanna is going to live on the top floor, and vagn has this kind of awkward shifty thing going on. but there are so many good twists that id basically eliminated him until the 3rd-to-last episode or something.

the whole thing kind kind of goes off the rails ca. 16th ep but youre so deep at that point it doesnt matter. meyers death really shook me.

i kind of wish they had taken the shady echelons-of-power stuff about town hall/rie's dad/the original police commander further; those threads got abandoned somewhere along the way with only vague mentions.

weird to me how similar a lot of the actors looked to established h'wood actors? or maybe i was just looking for it after a while

lund - girl from freaks and geeks
rie - gillian anderson
pernille - fraces mcdormand (btw i HATED this actress' weird tic of opening her eyes real wide and flicking them around)
theis had a kind of brian dennehy thing going on.

anyway this is one of the best series ive seen a while! are the 2nd and 3rd seasons as good? (are there english subtitles for them yet?)

oh and the shady police commander (blix? brix?) - tom noonan

So caught up with season 2 of 'The Bridge', well up to episode 8 anyway.
Saga Noren is such a BOSS!

Oh man, what an ending!

troels looks like limmy

― cozen, Monday, 14 March 2011 12:33

LOL

Just finished S1 of this. Good stuff! Would like to read the thread but don't want to see S2/3 spoilers.

Ha, that's a bit like us -- we snagged a cheap used Blu-ray import of all three seasons last year and saw the first, but haven't had a chance to do the follow-ups.

Got S2 lined up. Cheap used sets is usually how I do TV series'. Of course now I'm intrigued by The Bridge...

Saga Noren is such a BOSS!

I feel like I'm going to miss her when the show ends, although I've only watched the first two seasons so far.

The villains in seasons 1+2 of The Bridge were kind of ludicrous but heck it's very good entertainment.

oh, this is probably a better thread to bump.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03bnc34

The Bridge series 4 starts on the 11th, on BBC2(!). all 30 previous episodes currently available on iplayer if you feel like a binge.

I'm down with any scene where Saga and her partner are in the car and she's aggressively questioning him about his sex life.

you may like this then (turn on subtitles):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ4bMOU23D0