“This Land Is Our Land”
The Killing Season Three
Guest Writer: Deanna K. Kreisel
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
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Deanna K. Kreisel
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The Killing
by Unit for Criticism
Written by: Deanna K. Kreisel (University of British Columbia)
There is a clear and dramatic break between the first two seasons of “The Killing” taken together—the “Who Killed Rosie Larsen?” mystery—and season three, the “Pied Piper” case. This break represents more than just a shift in Linden and Holder’s object of investigation: it’s a reboot of the show’s themes, cast of characters, politics, and ethics. Even the quality of the rain changes—perhaps after a couple of seasons filming in Vancouver the writers finally twigged to the fact that it hardly ever pours buckets in the PNW. If the guiding spirit of the Rosie Larsen case was the familiar American obsession with the disappearance and murder of middle-class young women, and the staggering public resources that can be marshalled to bring justice and closure to one family, then the spirit of season three is the equally staggering callousness and indifference that greet the mass murder of poor, marginal, racialized, and unwanted young women who live on the streets: “human garbage,” as the revealed murderer calls them in the season finale. The antithesis between treasured children and disposable children functions as the emblematic difference not merely between the concerns of the two cases, but also between the themes of the first two seasons and season three. If the subjects of the former were sovereignty (Native land rights, juridical records, the autonomy of the self) and the struggle to express sovereignty through overcoming addiction (to cigarettes, to sex, to power, to revenge), the third season reverses these concerns and focuses relentlessly and painfully on helplessness and entrapment.
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