Movie Box Review

Previously On... THE WALKING DEAD:  Our erstwhile humans spent many, many episodes on a farm owned by cranky vet Hershel (Scott Wilson), while they searched for the missing Sophia (Madison Lintz).  There were lots of lengthy conversations about the meaning of life in a zombie-infected universe, and whether it was worth going on--let alone having a baby, as it turned out Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) was going to do.  Meanwhile, her husband Rick (Andrew Lincoln) revealed that he knew about the affair Lori had been having with the increasingly Travis Bickle-like Shane (Jon Bernthal) while Rick was believed dead.  Glenn (Steven Yuen) found romance with Hershel's daughter Maggie (Lauren Cohan).  And then it developed that Hershel had been keeping a barn full of Walkers, including Hershel's wife, and even feeding them to keep them "alive," because he believed that one day there might be a cure.  When Shane found out about the Walker barn, he started with the slaughtering, and at the very end of the fall finale, we discovered that--guess what?--Sophia was in there too, and had been for all the many, many weeks we'd all been on the farm.  Rick shot her in the head, so that this plotline could finally, mercifully end

And Now:  This week's episode picked up exactly where the fall finale left off, but it marks a key transition in Walking Dead's history:  after a season and a half under the leadership of Frank Darabont (best known for theatrical films like The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption), the show is now being run--after Darabont exited under circumstances still not completely explained--by Glen Mazzara, a TV vet with stints on shows like Hawthorne, Crash, Life and The Shield. 

So goodbye to windy expositioning, and hello to lots of gooey zombie bang-bang, right?  No more Boardwalk Empire-style measured pace, it's time for a nonstop horror joyride, yes? 

Well, not so far.  The ratio of dialogue to action in Walking Dead makes its massive success a continuing mystery.  We're still on that damn farm, and the first two-thirds of the episode, written by Evan Reilly and directed by Clark Peters, is still pretty much the characters debating the morality of Shane's actions and life in general.  Hershel gets depressed, and when Maggie tells Glenn she loves him, he doesn't say it back.  Awwwww.  The only fun is when Andrea (Laurie Holden), transporting a pick-up truck loaded with shot-up zombies, has to nonchalantly retrieve a fallen severed arm from the road.

In the episode's second half, we do get what could be a big event:  Lori gets into a car crash, and while she's certainly still going to be alive, that could put her pregnancy in danger, and should eventually also make for zome Walker action.  However, all of that will have to wait for future episodes:  this one let her crash and never came back to her for the next 20 minutes.

Instead, we spent the last section of the episode in a bar where Hershel, who it turns out was an alcoholic who had sworn off the stuff when Maggie was born, had gone to drown his sorrows.  Rick and Glenn go to bring him back, and 2 strangers, led by Dave (Michael Raymond-James) show up.  This leads to a very Tarantino-ish sequence where the 5 men chat with seeming amiability and we just wait for the shooting to being.  That does eventually happen, and it's a fairly well written and extremely well acted scene (too bad Dave won't be making a return appearance), but not exactly a cure for the show's doldrums.

The Walking Dead, for all its success, is intense without being all that interesting, more grim and talky (and not even good talk) than exciting.  AMC could well say "If it ain't broke...", because it's the biggest hit the network has ever had, putting the sacred Mad Men and even Breaking Bad deep into the shadows.  It would be nice, though, if under its new regime, the series could move a little faster, and have more of a plan, than its zombies do.

It's been a long, long time, but finally the prayers of MAD MEN fans are being answered:  at the Television Critics Association gathering today, AMC confirmed that the series will return at 9PM on Sunday March 25, with a 2-hour episode written by Genius Emeritus Matthew Weiner.

The following Sunday, April 1, AMC brings back THE KILLING, also a 2-hour premiere, which will start at 8PM, with Mad Men moving to its regular 10PM time-slot that night.  (April 1 also happens to be the same night HBO re-launches its hit Game of Thrones at 9PM, so set your DVRs now.)

Also, AMC swears on Tim Tebow that this time, The Killing will reveal the identity of Rosie Larsen's murderer... but not until the final episode of the season.  Prepare for lots of rain, and even more red herrings.

All the buzz and acclaim for Showtime's HOMELAND started to pay off in the ratings for its season finale, which climbed from the show's usual 0.4-0.5 level to a 0.7.  That's still no blockbuster, but in the mostly tiny world of pay-cable ratings, an increase of 40-50% is no small deal.  The show also hit its stride in total viewers, rising from 1.1 million in the series premiere to 1.7 million.  (Numbers are for the initial airing only; additional viewers watched the later runs on Sunday and will continue to add up through the week.) 

The DEXTER season finale remained higher than Homeland, but more in keeping with its season average, with a 1.0 rating and 2.2 million viewers.  

Meanwhile, without THE WALKING DEAD as lead-in, AMC's HELL ON WHEELS has found itself on a railroad track leading straight off a cliff:  the 1.9 rating of its premiere has dropped by a jaw-dropping nearly 70% to 0.6 in both of its last 2 airings.  

Frank Darabont who?  AMC returned THE WALKING DEAD to its schedule last night, and viewers were as ravenous for it as its monsters are for human flesh.  The show did an incredible 3.8 rating in 18-49s, outrating everything on network television except football.  That was up 25% from last season's already-smash seaon finale, and 36% above the season average.  Plus millions more people watched the show in re-airings through the night, so the cumulative number may be more like a 5+.  Overall, the 11 million people who tuned in last night set a new record for the highest rated drama in basic cable history.

With a lead-in like that, even though TALKING DEAD, the network's try at a post-episode talk show, lost most of Dead's audience, it still did quite well compared to normal AMC programming, with around a 0.7 in 18-49s.

Since we last saw our rag-tag band of survivors, they've had to endure the loss of their leader, the man most responsible for mapping out their initial strategies and saving them along the way from all manner of deadly predators...  

Oh, wait.  That's THE WALKING DEAD series itself, where the vanished hero is Series Creator/Showrunner Frank Darabont (he's still credited as an Executive Producer, but that seems to be a contractually-required formalism).  Darabont was reportedly unhappy with AMC's treating their one genuine hit (MAD MEN and BREAKING BAD are Emmy magnets, but their ratings are mid-level) by cutting its budget, as well as other network strictures, and so he's walked away, leaving control of the series in the hands of Executive Producer Glen Mazzara.

In truth, and despite Darabont's shiny screenwriting reputation, Walking Dead wasn't known for the pithy wit of its writing, and the show doesn't seem to have suffered at all in his absence.  Tonight's Season 2 premiere, oddly credited to 2 writers on separate title cards (Ardeth Bey and original graphic novel creator/EP Robert Kirkwood), and also to 2 directors (Ernest Dickerson and Gwyneth Horder-Payton), was, despite its supersized 90-minute length, quite compact in scope, and as effective as the show has ever been.  

Our characters who survived the death trap that the CDC in Atlanta turned out to be have a new goal:  Fort Benning, 125 miles away.  But as they start to make their way down the highway, they encounter an impassable jam of crashed cars and trucks, a faulty radiator on the RV, and something new:  a "herd" of zombie Walkers, dozens of them all looking for human flesh.  Luckily, they're still none-too-smart and none-too-fast (and their sense of smell seems to have disappeared), so they're mostly avoided or dispensed with.  But one does go after young Sophia (Madison Lintz), and Sheriff Rick (Andrew Lincoln) goes after her.  When Rick has to dispatch a couple of Walkers, Sophia is lost, and the next day most of the group combines in search of her.  Meanwhile, the characters deal a bit with the aftereffects of last season's storylines:  Andrea (Laurie Holden) is furious that Dale (Jeffrey DeMunn) didn't let her self-immolate at the CDC as she wanted to, while Shane (Jon Bernthal) decides he's going to split off from the group, rather than co-exist with Rick's wife and his former lover Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies).

Among TV's horror series, Walking Dead is unusual for its relatively simplistic plot--since zombies, unlike vampires, witches and other supernatural beings, can't handle much more than lurching and chewing--and also for a tone that relies more on suspense and sheer grossness than narrative thrills.  (Tonight's "yecch" sequence had Rick and Norman Reedus's Daryl cutting open the belly of a Walker to see if any of Sophia's body parts were in there.)  Things bogged down a bit when the group came to an abandoned church and we got not one but two agonized monologues directed to its statue of a crucified Jesus, but the episode did have a strong, and unexpected, cliffhanger ending that should bring people back next week.

AMC also launched something new and different tonight:  THE TALKING DEAD, a weekly half-hour talk-show that will follow every episode of Walking and try to keep fans from changing the channel  It's modeled after the highly successful Watch What Happens series on Bravo (Lifetime has also gotten into the game, with a follow-up to each week's Project Runway), but this is the first time it's been tried in conjunction with a scripted series.  The initial episode, unfortunately, was formatted within an inch of its life and had no substance at all.  Instead of allowing host Chris Hardwick and guests Patton Oswalt and James Gunn (he wrote the script for the Dawn of the Dead remake) to talk with any depth or insight about tonight's episode or the series, they were just permitted to deliver a few one-liners while the show bounced from viewer poll to tweeted question to behind-the-scenes featurette to jokey death count to jokier murder montage.  A brief satellite appearance from Kirkwood was also nothing more than the most superficial kind of celebrity Q&A.  The post-game recap show for a series with committed fans is an idea with real potential, but right now it's as empty of meaningful content as a Walker's brain.

Creatively, last night's season finale of BREAKING BAD was extraordinary in almost every way (how long till the final 16 episodes start airing?).  In the ratings, according to TV By the Numbers it did quite well, but not quite up to the mark of its season premiere (around a 0.9 rating as opposed to a 1.1).  AMC does note, though, that the season as a whole set a new high for the series, which was up an impressive 24% in 18-49s from Season 3, and a truly remarkable 42% among 18-34 year olds.

Spoilers after the break...

In her review of The Godfather Part II, Pauline Kael famously asked "Is it our imagination, or is Michael [Corleone]'s face beginning to rot?"  Breaking Bad, which has become a story of moral degeneration worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence as Coppola's masterpiece, is posing the same question about Walter White.  Last night, in the stunning season finale (written and directed by series creator Vince Gilligan), Walter won his 2-season war with Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito, and how sad are we to see him go?), but along the way, he discarded what was left of his humanity.  Walter deliberately poisoned--and nearly murdered--a child, and not just any child, but the boy most cherished by his best friend and partner Jesse (Aaron Paul).  All in order to manipulate Jesse into abandoning Gus's camp and join him in wholeheartedly planning Gus's murder.  With this, Walter passed from being a criminal into becoming a monster.

While it's hard to believe that Walter, who used to be a mild-mannered high school science teacher, could have fallen (risen?) to this level of evil, it's equally remarkable that Gilligan has carried us along with Walter on this dark journey.  Even more astonishing, Gilligan made us believe last week that Walter was absolutely innocent of this terrible crime, and then turned our own gullibility back on us this week when we found out that we had been conned as badly as Jesse was.   (One nit, for the record:  the final shot of Gus, while certainly technically impressive and conceptually in keeping with the show's dark humor, was a little too showy--a bit too much of an in-joke crossover with AMC's Walking Dead.)

All of this, of course, could only be accomplished with the amazing work of Bryan Cranston, who should probably clear off space on his mantel for a another Emmy.  The entire cast has been superb, but Cranston, Paul and Esposito tower even over the rest.

Breaking Bad has been both the most nailbiting thriller of this year--even though we all pretty much knew Gus wouldn't see next season, who saw the wheelchair bell bomb coming?--and its most provocative drama (its moral ambiguities make Dexter look like Glee).  We know for certain that the next 16 episodes--probably spread over 2 seasons--will be its last, and the question is just how much farther it can go.  Clearly, Walter is no longer acting out of mere self-preservation, much less to earn money for his family--he's as addicted to crime as his customers are to his perfect meth.  Can anyone doubt, after last night, that Walter would let his wife be killed in order to save himself?  (Arguably, she even deserves it, for her idiot schemes to avoid the IRS.)  Not to mention Jesse, not to mention his brother-in-law or lawyer.  Would he stop if his own children were at stake?  Could he?

AMC has taken plenty of heat the last few months for its very public contract and budget battles over its shows, but let's give them the credit they deserve:  this network, which barely existed a few years ago, has given us 2 of the best shows in the history of television in Mad Man and Breaking Bad.  Even if they can't get out of their own way sometimes, that's a hell of a record.

After last night's admirably tense episode of BREAKING BAD, we can now say with certainty that the show has 25 left to go:  9 for this season, and then 16 more.  AMC and Sony have closed a deal for what is expected to be the series' final 16 episode order, ending the (always unlikely) possibility that the show would move to another network.  The new deal seems fairly rational:  the 16 episodes will all be shot together (so talent deals need only be for 1 additional season, not 2), but will probably play out over the next 2 years (so AMC can limit its yearly cost).  Sony has agreed to take some continuing deficit on the series, which presumably makes sense in light of the show's success on homevideo and other platforms.

Now that AMC has locked up final runs for both MAD MEN and Breaking Bad over the next 2 years, the all-important issue for it is:  what next?  THE KILLING has no more than a 50/50 chance of still being around at that point, unless it drastically repairs the rift it's created with viewers, and HELL ON WHEELS, at first glance, doesn't have the look of a breakout hit.  That leaves THE WALKING DEAD, which will have to proceed without its creator/showrunner, and with a budget significantly lower than the one it had for its first season.  Also, in TV terms, 2 years isn't nearly as long as it sounds:  AMC will doubtless want to be able to premiere its new shows on the backs of its signature hits, and in order to get on the air in 2013, those shows will have to be in development and piloted in 2012.  In other words:  you wouldn't want to be an AMC creative executive right now.

HELL ON WHEELS -  Sundays 10PM on AMC starting November 6:   If Nothing Else Is On...


As we noted earlier today, AMC is suffering some growing pains:  negotiations and behind-the-scenes maneuvering at its signature shows Mad Men, Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead have become very public, and The Killing practically caused an audience revolt with its season finale.  The best cure for these kinds of problems is a new hit, and AMC will take its next shot at the brass ring with HELL ON WHEELS, in some ways its most ambitious to date, which launches (with Walking Dead as lead-in) on November 6.


AMC has become HBO's biggest competitor in recent years in the all-important category of Emmy glory, with multiple award winners Mad Men and Breaking Bad taking the honors that used to belong to The Sopranos.  Hell On Wheels escalates the competition, aiming itself directly at HBO's wheelhouse of large-scale historical drama.  Specifically, Hell is pretty clearly AMC's version of the late lamented Deadwood.  We're once again in the Old West at that moment when the frontier was being pierced by railroads, a time where savage violence and the beginnings of modern American society were balefully co-existing.  There's even a stand-in for Ian McShane's epic villain Al Swearengen:  Colm Meany as Thomas Durant, a loquacious railway magnate who expounds on his theories about evil and good as he ruthlessly pushes his tracks forward.  And our hero Cullen Bohannan (Anson Mount), while not a sheriff like Timothy Olyphant's Seth Bullock, carries a similar don't-mess-with-me vibe. 

But this, alas, isn't Deadwood.  Which is to say, Hell On Wheels creators Joe and Tony Gayton are very far from being David Milch.  (The Gaytons' previous credits include Uncommon Valor and the recent Dwayne Johnson flop Faster.)  Instead of filthy, poetic eloquence, we get stretches of clunky expository dialogue; instead of gasp-inducing plot turns, there's a standard story of vengeance.  A lot happens in the Hell On Wheels pilot--a couple of murders, a brutal Indian attack on a railroad scouting party--but there's very little in the way of a gripping storyline.  The best scene in the entire pilot is the pre-credits teaser, which raises expectations the rest of the show can't match. 

As anyone who's ever worked at a TV network knows, sometimes the only thing worse than a flop is having a hit on your air.  AMC is learning this lesson the hard way:  it's endured messy, extended renewal talks for Mad Men and the loss of The Walking Dead's showrunner over the past year (not to mention the flop of Rubicon and disappointment of The Killing, both much more public than they would have been because of the network they're on).  Now it's Breaking Bad's turn.

According to the LA Times, AMC's initial 4-year deal for the series has run out, and renewal talks for a 5th season (which for creative reasons could be its finale) between the network and Sony Television, which produces the show, are none too pleasant.  (Broadcast network licenses routinely run longer than 4 years, but presumably the short term here was a quid pro quo for other provisions--like a low license fee--that Sony was willing to accept.)  The story--which, in the way of these things, could well be coming from sources at Sony or representatives of talent from the show--is that AMC wanted to cut the season down from its usual 13 episodes to 6-8, and the producers and studio not only said no, they've pitched the series to other cable networks. 

The only part that's surprising in all this is if it turns out to be true that AMC wanted to cut the number of episodes for one of their signature hits.  Combined with the word that budget cuts contributed to Frank Darabont's departure from Walking Dead, that would suggest the network is facing a serious financial squeeze.  AMC is in an odd position, because with the exception of Walking Dead, none of their "hits" are watched by all that many people (Breaking Bad had a 0.9 rating in 18-49s last week, just 2/3 of Burn Notice's audience), meaning that the advertising revenue the network gets is limited.  (They're probably losing money on their crown jewel, Mad Men.)  But these shows are of crucial importance to AMC, because the other source of revenue for cable networks is from their share of monthly cable fees, and without their original programming, AMC is just another network showing Donnie Brasco--which doesn't justify much of a fee.  So acclaimed original programming is a business AMC desperately needs to be in, but they have to garner those increased subscription fees while not spending all that extra revenue (or more) on the costs of the shows themselves.

In the end, the odds are better than 90% that a deal will be worked out, and no one will have to reprogram their DVRs for Breaking Bad; as the NFL and the national debt ceiling have recently reminded us, these things usually get solved just at the moment they have to be.  Maybe the show will have 10 or 11 episodes instead of 13; maybe the episodic budget will be reduced, or each episode will have extra commercial time; maybe AMC will get a share of Sony's homevideo and international revenues from the series; maybe there will quietly be a seemingly unrelated deal between Sony and AMC that's more in the network's favor.  The poker hands change, but the game stays the same.  Hey AMC:  welcome to being a big-time network!

When AMC was done confirming (but not explaining) Frank Darabont's ex-showrunner status at The Walking Dead and swearing they'll never, ever do anything like the season finale of The Killing again, they found time at the Television Critics Association gathering today to announce a premiere date for their new drama HELL ON WHEELS.  The historical adventure about building the transcontinental railroad, starring Anson Mount and Common, and created by Joe and Tony Gayton, will start on November 6, and as expected, its Sunday 10PM timeslot will have the benefit of the Darabont-less Walking Dead as lead-in. Look for a pilot report on Hell On Wheels here soon.

UPDATE:  Glen Mazzara, who'd been Frank Darabont's #2 on the WALKING DEAD writing staff,  has indeed been appointed to take over showrunning duties.  (Darabont's continued presence, if any, is still being discussed.)  Mazzara has a lot of experience as a writer/producer on shows like Hawthorne, Crash and The Shield, but not as a show creator--and Walking Dead, with only 6 episodes in its first season, is still forming its creative vision.  No doubt all fingers at AMC are firmly in the "crossed" position.

The creator and showrunner of AMC's biggest hit series THE WALKING DEAD has just stepped down from those duties, and may (or may not) be leaving the show entirely.  Frank Darabont, who'd been known before Walking Dead as a feature writer/director (most notably of The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile) has stepped down--it appears very suddenly, since he took part in the show's panel at Comic-Con just a few days ago.  The effect of this on the series is unknown at this point--Darabont's #2, Glen Mazzara, is an experienced writer/producer, so he would be the logical choice to take over, but no one ever said TV was logical.  Meanwhile the show continues in production for the October 16 premiere of its second season.

There is without doubt some story behind this, so stay tuned...

On summer Sunday nights, the 4 broadcast networks air a grand total of zero hours of original scripted programming; instead, viewers get a strict diet of animated repeats (FOX) and unscripted series like Big Brother (CBS), America's Got Talent (NBC) and The Bachelorette (ABC).  Looking at the schedule, one would assume that there's no audience at all for scripted entertainment to end the weekend.

During the same hours, though, half a dozen cable networks air some of their most valuable original scripted shows, most of them with significant success, in genres that range from soapy horror (True Blood, HBO's biggest hit) to crime (Breaking Bad on AMC, The Glades on A&E, In Plain Sight on USA), from scifi (Falling Skies on TNT) to sophisticated sitcom (Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO).  Even in Fall, when the FOX cartoons will be new and CBS and ABC bring their procedurals and soaps back to the schedule (and NBC gratefully airs football), Sundays remain the leading night of the cable scripted week, with hits like Dexter and The Walking Dead joining the line-ups (and undoubtedly Mad Men will return to its Sunday home in early 2012).  Sundays have become to cable TV what Thursdays are to the networks:  the place to showcase a network's marquee comedy and drama.

HBO's return of ENTOURAGE to its schedule earlier tonight completed the cable summer Sunday package.  This is, of course, the 8th and final season of the series, but by no means the last we've seen of these characters:  in a development that suits the general formlessness of the show, HBO has put a feature film version in development (hoping for a counterpart to its bonanza with the first Sex and the City movie), so no one should expect an "ending" when the series finishes a couple of months from now.

Tonight's season premiere, written and directed by series creator Doug Ellin, was perfectly in keeping with what the series has always been:  a slick, pleasant half hour with the boys, gliding over reality and dramatic consequence in favor of snappy odes to luxury and friendship.  The action picked up 3 months after the Season 7 finale:  Vince had avoided jail for his coke possession by going to rehab, and as the episode begins, he's about to go home.  Although various things have happened while he was gone (E and Sloan are officially broken up, at least for now; Ari and Mrs. Ari too), the most dramatic development is the apparently drastic diet Turtle has gone on--Jerry Ferrara is a shadow of his old self.  (I'm happy for Ferrara's good health, but not so sure this works for Turtle as a character; his genial comfort with his own bulk was part of what made him the most grounded of the group--well, that and the pot.)  

The main storyline of the premiere was the effort of the friends to keep Vince away from stimulants of any kind and all stress--particularly difficult because he'd come out of rehab with a lousy idea for a new project (something about a dog being smuggled to the site of a mine cave-in to help dig for survivors, which Vince was going to direct himself) that no one wanted to tell him was dreadful.  In the way of Entourage, neither of these problems turned out to be very serious, and the only potentially affecting revelation of the episode, that the separated Mrs. Ari is seeing someone else, led only to Ari belting down fake vodka.  (One assumes that the fiery end of the episode won't change much either.)  Entourage has always been interesting for its mix of accurate detail (real restaurants and clubs, genuine industry jargon, cameos by stars playing versions of themselves) and utterly unconvincing substance (Vince as an actual movie star); it seems likely to go out on the same note.

A quick look at some of the other Sunday cable series:

TRUE BLOOD:  As addictive as it's always been, the guilty pleasure in an HBO schedule that always has its fill of high-quality medicine (Boardwalk Empire, In Treatment).  The storyline about amnesic Eric is so far delightful, and nothing but good can come from Fiona Shaw's addition to the cast.

BREAKING BAD:  Just begun, and blistering already.  Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, and Giancarlo Esposito give 3 of the best performances on television, and the supporting cast is right there with them; Vince Gilligan's show may be pulp, but it's a reminder of how satisfying and deeply horrifying pulp can be.

CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM:  Larry David does what he does, and no one who's imitated him over the last decade or so can do it as well.  Tonight's episode, with Larry frequenting a Palestinian restaurant where Jews go for illicit meals so their Jewish friends won't see them, was particularly inspired.

IN PLAIN SIGHT: The decision to write Mary McCormack's real-life pregnancy into the show turned out to be a good one:  having an actual emotional through-line in the season has placed the series apart from the rest of the light USA procedurals and given it some heart--without cutting back at all on the flashing repartee.

FALLING SKIES:  TNT's big-budget Spielberg show still seems to finding its way (it's already renewed for a second season, so no rush).  The last couple of episodes, with danger coming from other humans rather than the CG effects or guys in monster suits, have been an improvement, and so has the toning down of Will Patton's military man, who's now more of a weathered colleague to Noah Wyle's hero than an antagonist.  Moon Bloodgood, too, has stepped up in recent episodes that demanded more serious drama from her.

If you haven't heard (and if you haven't--and you care--consider this a SPOILER ALERT), the 13th episode of AMC's series THE KILLING, its season finale, concluded on Sunday night without answering the question of just who killed Rosie Larsen.  Since this was what the series purportedly set out to do, it's provoked the kind of stunned, sustained outrage that, most recently, Anthony Weiner might be able to appreciate--take a look, for example,  HERE.  And HERE.  And HERE. (It also provoked a puzzling, and somewhat hilarious, series of articles HERE and HERE suggesting that a NY Times critic may simply be incapable of following an ordinary American television series.  Maybe Manohla Dargis just couldn't understand Hangover 2?)

Now, I'm no stranger to the desire to heave something in the direction of my TV set.  (I'm still pissed at the ending of Lost.  No, seriously--don't get me started.)  And I appreciate the fact that AMC didn't renew The Killing for a second season until just a couple of weeks ago, which had it not happened, could have made for perhaps the single most unsatisfying series in the history of television. (Executive Producer Veena Sud swears that the Larson killing will be definitively solved next season.)  But if you were watching the series from the start, you had to know there was going to be some kind of giant reversal in the last 10 minutes--having established at the end of the previous episode that politician Darren Richmond (Billy Campbell) was the likely killer, a show whose pattern was to reverse itself over and over again wasn't going to leave things settled a full episode in advance.  And cliffhanger season finales are hardly new to television:  right now, we supposedly don't know what happened to Cuddy on House, Beckett on Castle, or Pete on Private Practice, or who the new boss will be on The Office.  For that matter, the original murder in the first season of Homicide was never solved; the squad just went on to other cases.

So why the fury?  Especially when, that same night, Game of Thrones aired a Season 1 finale that resolved absolutely nothing, raised new mysteries (dragons!), and managed to be thrillingly satisfying to just about everyone?  One reason was the nature of The Killing.  Unlike Thrones, which from the start has presented a massive, epic canvas of storylines, The Killing really just had one thing to do, which was to solve the Rosie Larsen killing.  To the extent it tried to do anything else in its 13 hours (develop interesting characters, provide a rich picture of the politics and mores of its setting), it mostly failed miserably.  When you read the screeds posted about the finale, you see as much self-directed anger as disappointment in the show itself--why did we stick with this thing, enduring its slow pace, illogical storytelling, and meaningless reveals?  And, in the end, for nothing!  What's wrong with us?

Also, the specific twist that occurred at the end of The Killing's finale was infuriating, because it took the one and only character who had seemed to deepen and become more sympathetic as the series went on--Detective Holder, played by Joel Kinnaman--and said that he had falsified critical evidence, in league at least with some scheming enemy of Richmond, and possibly with the killer him/herself.  Veena Sud would probably say that this was exactly the effect she wanted, something to tell us that we couldn't count on anyone in the show being who they seemed.  (Similarly, the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones had shockingly killed off the one character we non-readers of the novels thought could never be killed.)  But the effect here wasn't to teach us, as Thrones did, that we'd all been looking at the show from the wrong angle; instead it trivialized whatever we thought we understood about the series; it made every plot twist feel even more arbitrary and pointless than it already had.  

The Killing follows Rubicon at AMC, a show with a marvelous premise that self-destructed about as badly as any series ever had.  (It wasn't renewed.)  Rubicon seemed to change its vision every two weeks until it simply imploded; The Killing, if anything, appears so doggedly tied into its mission of drearily subverting every expectation of mystery fans that it's practically a deconstruction of the genre.  (They'll love it in France.)  But what the network and producer seem to have forgotten is that pulling the rug out from under your viewers leaves the audience on its collective ass.  And that's not where you want your fans to be when they still control the remotes.