THE KILLING – TV Series Review

This subtitled Danish TV crime drama series “The Killing”(original title “Forbrydelsen”) will impress you as either riveting or tedious, depending on how much time you want to spend on this binge. Like most European crime series, this one is more cerebral than visceral. Their fictional cops just don’t get into as many fights and shootouts as our made-up heroes. It runs 20 hours of a single, extremely complicated homicide, compared to the norm of solving such cases in an 8 – 10 episode season.

Sara Lund (Sofie Grabol) is a Copenhagen detective on her last day before moving to Sweden with her beau and son. She’s assigned to one last crime scene to break in her replacement, Detective Meyer (Soren Maling). The body of the young woman they find shows such prolonged and brutal treatment that Lund just can’t let it go, staying on the job much longer than planned. This is quite upsetting to both her family and colleagues – especially Meyer, who is something of a jerk, resenting her hands keeping the reins at his expense.

Suspects rise and fall like a game of whack-a-mole, as each new bit of evidence points the “J’accuse” finger at a different suspect, often seeming to exonerate the last one. Perhaps it was a crime of passion; there’s a strong chance of some political connection, greatly complicating the hotly-contested mayor election in process throughout the investigation. And just for another layer of confusion, this might be the work of a yet-undiscovered serial killer.

The script is highly intelligent, juggling more characters and plot lines than usual for the genre. We meet a slew of civilians affected by the tragedy and watch how lives crumble in various ways due to grief, suspicions and frustrations as each seeming explanation gets debunked by some other revelation. The political thread runs deeply and cynically throughout the season, with lines between the ones to like or dislike shifting and blurring constantly. Is the idealistic candidate (Lars Mikkelsen) as good as he seems, or involved in the murder and cover-up? Viewers can never be certain about who to believe or trust.

The 20-hour investment will be rewarded for those who have the discretionary time and patience. If you’re not geared for that length of involvement, don’t get started. You might wait for the release of its following seasons, in which the crimes at hand are resolved in about half the time, or less. Or you may be interested in the in the English-language remake (also titled The Killing) starring Mirielle Enos as Lund’s US counterpart. Both ran for several seasons.

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars