The Killing: Getting away with Murder?

***Spoiler alert: plot and identity of murderer revealed***

The annual Danish 'Who can look the moodiest' competition 

The Killing is such a good piece of TV, if you haven’t watched it already, I would really recommend you read no further.

Twenty hour-long episodes is a long time to keep interest going. So, how do the writers keep us watching and tuning in for next time (or reaching for the next DVD in the box set)?

One obvious technique they use is that they have multiple prime suspects. Well, you don’t need me to tell you that if you’ve watched it! We lose count of the number of times the murderer’s identity seems clear and the crime solved, only for Lund to work out some new angle which casts her previous assumptions into doubt.

We suspect first Nanna's teacher, then Troels Hartman, then the other politician, Jens, then Vagn, then the taxi driver character, and finally Vagn again. And those are just the main suspects.

Crucially both the teacher and Troels remain prime suspects much longer than they need because both have alibis they are unwilling to reveal – indeed, it seems they would prefer to be suspected of the murder, or even arrested, to protect their secret. Subsequently it’s revealed that the teacher was helping someone escape from an arranged marriage, and that Troels had actually attempted suicide on the night in question, and that both men respectively wanted to keep these facts a secret. Neither of these alibis fully account for their reluctance to reveal all. In real life, of course, each suspect would give their alibis much earlier – but then this is just a story, and there would be much less dramatic interest in everyone being up front and honest.

The writers create further dramatic interest with the situations that develop around the respective prime suspects. For instance, Lund being alone with Troels and looking through his diary when he might come back into the room at any second.  Or by having Troels arrested right in the middle of an all-important Council meeting. Or by having the teacher go in to school and being spat at by his pupils. Or when he’s beaten up by the father, egged on by Vagn when we know he’s innocent.

In which I make a spurious reference to a much loved 1980s icon ..... 

The writing is very clever in that it never definitively commits to anything. The writers get away with having their cake and eating it. Someone you felt was beyond suspicion could become the prime suspect; someone who had previously been cleared could be back in the frame. Watching the series reminded me of a Rubiks cube. I felt the writers could take the story this way, or they could just as easily take it that way. The different combinations and sequences of combinations were almost limitless. Is the Police chief hiding something? Is Lund taken off the case because there is some wider conspiracy at work? Is Troels’s girlfriend Rie playing him?

Because a Rubiks cube would have been just too obvious...

No character ever seems to be able to definitively rule themselves out, even though you'd imagine this would be perfectly straightforward for them to do. For instance, Jens does a very good job of behaving like a serial killer when he ties Lund up, and plays games with her – he even ties Lund up using the same material that the murderer used on the victim. Is this really how someone would react when their involvement in a hit and run has been discovered? Just before he’s killed he says something helpfully ambiguous – not ‘I didn’t kill her’ but something like ‘I could never have killed her’.

'What's my motivation again?'

And that’s a key point.At least three of the characters die before the police can get the complete story. Jens is killed before he can be brought in for questionning, the taxi driver character hangs himself, and Vagn is killed after confessing to Theis.  I would argue that it is necessary for the writers to kill off these characters before they’re able to give the police the full story – because this smooths over inconsistencies and implausibility about the details of the story which would come to light in any lengthy confession to the Police.

My reading of the murder is that it was carried out on the spur of the moment for racist reasons. But throughout the series, we were led to believe the murderer was a serial killer. So, we have a serial killer murdering on the spur of the moment acting from a racist motivation – when none of his previous crimes had anything whatsoever to do with race. Hmm… doesn’t quite add up to me.

I would argue that The Killing is best appreciated as a game or as a diversion rather than as a representation of ‘reality’. It’s a game where there are certain rules. The main rule is that the murderer should be someone obvious but not someone we’ve seriously suspected – a difficult combination to pull off. In fact they do this very cleverly with Vagn. The scene where he’s arrested for the murder is directed to make it seem like the police have got the wrong man, as the taxi driver character is busy hiding in the corner looking guilty.  When Vagn is released, the writers create more of a smokescreen by having Pernille and Theis effectively throw him out the house. This engages our sympathies for Vagn in a way that stops us thinking any more about his potential guilt. There’s no better way of diverting the viewer’s suspicions than by having a character arrested, particularly when the arrest happens a few episodes before the end. Besides, this is Vagn! Dopey, reliable, simple Vagn!

Spurious reference to Bill Hicks coming up...

A final thought - it's just a ride..... 

I would argue that The Killing is very good at creating tension and keeping us guessing about what's really going on.  But the feverish excitement generated is never fully matched – can never possibly be matched – by the eventual revelation of the killer’s identity. Then again, I think The Killing should be watched to enjoy the ride, rather than to get to the destination.